Since I started this holiday tips tradition a few years ago, the sustainable food movement continues to transform fields of corn, soy and CAFOs to more verdant, bountiful lands filled with organic produce, heirloom greens and pasture-raised livestock. Countless more school and community gardens have sprouted up. Hundreds...

With 49 million Americans, including 17 million children, classified as food insecure (meaning they lack regular access to food), it's hard to ignore this serious crisis facing our nation. What is missing from the discussion though, are the faces of this epidemic. They're young, old and of all colors and...

In an era when money's influence of politics and too-cozy relationships between companies and the government continue to affect policy decision making nationwide, citizens are saying they've had enough. Millions of people are upset about corporate malfeasance and Wall Street's intimate relationship with Washington (think Goldman Sachs). There are environmentalists...

The Deepwater Horizon rig continues to uncontrollably spew 200,000 gallons per day of oil into the Gulf of Mexico with the possibility of this environmental catastrophe not ending until August. BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, launched a now-proven unsuccessful campaign a few years ago to re-brand itself as an...

Who knew that I could write a blog series around the 40th anniversary of Earth Day about plastic activists and include corporations? It might be surprising to some that corporations aren't always just about making money. Well, perhaps they are. But, is it bad when their profits can be increased...

The Save My Oceans plastic activists' blog series to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day moves from the left brain to the right brain today as you meet some artists who are refashioning plastic trash into art. Not only are they giving the garbage a new life,...

There's something suffocating our planet. It's light, multipurpose, endemic to our modern lifestyles, and has a half-life of a few thousand years. It's called plastic and it's here to stay. Literally. Plastic products will live for anywhere from 1,000 to 1 million years. Let me give you a frame of...

Like most Americans, you probably arose from your slumber today, took a sip of water, brushed your teeth, hopped into the shower, drank more water (or coffee). If you had time, you might have watered your garden before leaving home or even washed your car. Perhaps you stopped at the...

We've heard from the politicians, academics, activists, and social commentators about how to help a city like Detroit that is economically-depressed, struggling to retain residents (let alone attract new ones), and home to 500,000 food insecure residents. What has happened? Not much. People offer statistical calculations for how to reduce...

In case you haven't noticed, kids have gotten bigger recently. In fact, according to the CDC, obesity rates have tripled in the past 30 years with nearly 20 percent of children aged 6-11 and 18 percent for those aged 12-19. This adds up to 12.5 million children that...

The dairy industry deserves many accolades for the success of their "Got Milk?" campaign which put white mustaches on celebrities and made their catchy phrase a ubiquitous part of the American dialect. Unfortunately, those happy people with their perfectly placed milk mustaches are pedaling a product that turns out to...

Since I wrote last year about tips for a sustainable thanksgiving meal, much has transpired in the food movement. We now have a First Family that regularly toils in their backyard to grow and harvest organic produce. The hit documentary, Food, Inc. was released this past year and is...

It's time to forget the inaccurate stereotypical image of America's hungry as long lines of mostly homeless men, winding down the block from a church's soup pantry entrance, waiting for their daily meal. The times have changed, drastically. The ongoing economic recession has slowly started to show limited signs of...

A recent New York Times Sunday Style section article reports on the increasingly prevalent cultural trend of cross-dressing amongst teenagers. While this isn't new in major metropolitan cities hugging the coasts, the article cited examples of the tensions that have arisen between students and school districts in what are...

In many ways, Barack Obama is my hero. He's a brilliant leader who is doing amazing things to reform health care, the economy and education. He and his wife Michelle sparked much excitement when they installed an organic garden at the White House. His Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, quickly...

My friends, Andrea and Aryeh, were planning their daughter Shachar's Bat Mitzvah this past summer and wanted the event to be guided by their strong commitment to social and environmental justice. We, sadly, live in an era when Bar and Bat Mitzvahs have become night-clubs at shuls with too many...

The anti-BPA movement, of which I'm a proud member, has received much deserved fanfare in the past week after Sigg, the metal water bottle company, disclosed that its pre-August 2008 bottles were lined with BPA, a known endocrine disruptor. As I've written about before, I, like thousands of other...

Food, Inc., the widely celebrated documentary that continues to expand nationwide as quickly as GMO seeds infect organic crops, is topping the box office in documentary sales. It is more than just a great documentary, though. It is helping to reshape our agricultural and eating landscape nationwide. The thoughtful analysis...

There's a little town in Japan called Taiji which used to seem like an unremarkable place with Buddhist temples, a whale museum, fisherman and a verdant national park nestled around a small cove. It used to have a big secret too. Through the award-winning documentary, the Cove, the bloody secret...

I've always hated plastic water bottles and dutifully slug a reusable bottle with me everywhere. However, a few years ago, I decided to nix my supposedly environmentally-friendly Nalgene bottles because I found out they were made with a dangerous chemical, polycarbonate, which leached into my water. I ditched the dull...