Hey! I’m Emily, and I am a sophomore in High School and a part of Teens for Safe cosmetics. A few weeks ago, Teens for Safe Cosmetics had our kickoff meeting for the 2008/ 09 campaign. It was a great meeting with tons of fabulous ideas for our Teens Turning Green Collection, for events, and for new advocacy strategies. However, the most exciting new change was all the new faces in the room! About 10 new teens came to our meeting, and I was reminded of the first time that I went to a meeting and everyone else seemed to know what they were doing while I, unfortunately, was leagues behind in comprehension.
I talked to my new friend Bonnie to figure out what exactly confused her about the new environment and how I could help. We figured out that the best way to understand the science, health effects, and to get familiar with green alternatives was to evaluate her own products. We decided to get informed on a really cool site called Skin Deep. This site, put up by the Environmental Working Group, lets anyone search their favorite brands, products, and the ingredients in them. Each of these are rated on a 0 to 10 scale for how healthy the product, etc, is (10 being the worst, 0 the best). The page then tells you why it was rated that way and what health affects it is known to cause.
I wish my childhood lunches had been filled with more delightful and evocative images, so I could recount to you complete sensory detail, my memories of elementary school at noon. But alas, I had a lot of bologna on white bread, American cheese on white bread and peanut butter and jelly… on white bread. Not that my mom wasn’t awesome, but she lacked the time and the… culinary creativity to spin brown bagged meals into flavorful memories.
But, what I lack in personal experience in my youth, I’ve more than made up for in living vicariously through other people’s lunches.
Danny Olivas joined Whole Foods Market Northern California marketing team in 2007, but has been involved with good food for much longer. Danny’s mom was a foodie and had a long career in fine-dining operations. She always bought the highest quality food the family budget would allow and in doing so, she passed on her passion for sharing good food with family and friends to Danny.
Earlier this month, I found myself getting my hands dirty digging up the lawn outside San Francisco’s City Hall alongside such influential people as Alice Waters and Mayor Gavin Newsom.
The occasion was the creation of the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden in San Francisco and the mayor was letting the group rip out the lawn to plant a quarter-acre garden. It is now the centerpiece of the Slow Food Nation festival, which takes place in San Francisco this Labor Day weekend.
Whole Foods Market got involved with Slow Food Nation to highlight the connection between plate and planet. As I was planting seeds that foggy San Francisco summer morning, I was thinking about how our organizations would work together to develop greater respect for food and the people who produce it.
For our part, I’m happy that many of the food producers featured at Slow Food Nation sell their products in our stores. This includes farmers and purveyors who exemplify local, sustainable food such as St. Benoît Yogurt, a French-style yogurt maker in Sonoma, California. These guys source organic Jersey milk from a neighboring dairy, hand-select the fruit and honey used in the yogurt at Bay Area farmers’ markets and use ceramic containers to eliminate packaging waste. In fact, Whole Foods Market recently gave St. Benoît Yogurt a loan to help expand their business.
When I look at the bigger picture, Slow Food Nation really seems to be picking up velocity. This is the first time that a Slow Food event of this scale has been held in the US (the parent organization is based in Italy and got its start in the eighties in protest to McDonald’s opening in Rome). Foodies, intellectuals and bloggers are eagerly watching to see how the movement will translate here in the US. Early indications are positive. Tickets are sold out and the media is buzzing.
It’s my hope that our partnership with Slow Food Nation will help draw attention to food that is good, clean and fair. No small task, indeed.
I had a conversation with a girl about my age (mid-twenties) recently who, seemingly oblivious to the current economic conditions, was fawning over the window displays of haute couture shops in San Francisco. She commented that she spent most of her income on clothing. When I asked her ‘what about food?’, she replied ‘well, if I don’t eat, I can afford more clothes and look better in them!’
I think (or maybe just hope) she was at least half kidding, but it did bring to mind the question of where people put their money, especially in times of economic hardship. Do we sacrifice food quality for the sake of affording other ‘necessities’?
In the 1950’s, Jacob Paulk began farming just as his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather did. As cotton was on the decline in the 70’s, Jacob decided to plant his first muscadine grape vine. Little did he know that six generations after the Paulk family began farming the very same land, Paulk Vineyards would be instrumental in developing the commercial muscadine grape market and a pioneer in developing muscadine grape dietary supplements: a powerhouse of health benefits!
The vineyards that started as just a few vines in the Paulk family’s backyard now ramble across their land and have led to six generations of family farming. Their mineral-packed muscadine grapes contain high levels of beneficial antioxidants, so the Paulks make their own juices and nutritional supplements, too.
Note: Our Farm to Market slide shows currently feature farmers and producers from our South and MidAtlantic Regions. We hope to expand to others in the future.
White Oak Pastures works in cooperation with nature to produce premium quality beef that is healthy, nutritious, and good to eat. Care is given to ensure that all of our production practices are economically practical, ecologically sustainable, and that the animals are always humanely treated.
Will Harris is a fourth generation cattleman taking his family farm in a whole new direction. His 1,000-acre farm in South Georgia is home to about 650 grass-fed beef cattle that roam freely and graze on 100% Georgia native sweet grasses.
White Oak Pastures is a recipient of Whole Foods Market’s Local Producer Loan Program. Through the Local Producer Loan Program, Whole Foods Market makes $10 million available annually for low-interest loans to small, local producers.
Note: Our Farm to Market slide shows currently feature farmers and producers from our South and MidAtlantic Regions. We hope to expand to others in the future.
Sometimes you meet people who are truly remarkable. I met such a person in September 2007 on a trout farm visit to Idaho. Following two days of presentations at the U.S. Trout Farmers Association meeting, my fellow fishmongers and I were greeted by Leo Ray, who loaded us into his truck for an all day tour of the Snake River Canyon of South Central Idaho. A tall, fit man of undeterminable age, Leo is a zoologist, fish farmer, and naturalist. What’s remarkable about Leo is that he not only possesses tremendous knowledge of aquaculture and knows every inch of the vast land around him—the geology, river systems, the wildlife, etc.—but he shares it. With his wisdom and appreciation for nature, Leo transformed for me what first appeared as a dry, rough, rocky landscape into a living ecosystem that interacts each day with large agriculture and aquaculture industries.
Trout at Leo’s farm are raised in concrete raceways situated on a down-sloping hill. This set-up allows him to utilize gravity for water to flow, which is critical for maintaining healthy oxygen levels, among other things. The water in this system flows downhill from one portion of the raceway to the next. Sediments are collected at the end of each level of the raceway and then flushed to settling ponds before the water is released back into the river or into irrigation canals for local farmers. Farms must have Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permits and monitor water quality according to the Total Maximum Daily Load limits. In Idaho farms are required to monitor water quality each month and report results to the EPA and the Department of Environmental Quality. In addition, these agencies do annual spot checks on the farm. Allowable discharges are based on assessments of what the river can assimilate.
While currently all of the trout we sell at Whole Foods Market comes from flow-through raceway systems like Leo’s, we continue to keep our eye on developments of other types of systems such as closed, re-circulating systems. However, a major benefit of the flow-through raceway system is that there are no energy inputs to create flow in the water. In contrast, closed, re-circulating systems require energy inputs, which have a carbon footprint.
The Secret Ingredient Continues our “Best Of” series with Kathy Casey’s Spicy Coconut-Braised Black Cod with Colorful Vegetables! Join us next week for an all new episode featuring Lakeside Turkey Burgers!
Do you love lemongrass, but aren’t quite sure how to use it? Learn tips and tricks for adding the light, fresh lemony flavor of this quintessential Asian herb to any dish from this week’s rebroadcast of guest chef Kathy Casey’s crowd pleasing recipe for Spicy Coconut-Braised Black Cod with Colorful Vegetables.
Is it just me or are you feeling a bit like this lately? It’s mid-August and all of the maps of daytime temperatures across the US show firey shades of red, orange and yellow. It’s undeniably hot outside and it seems like everyone’s talking about it.
The blogosphere and the news are abuzz with chatter about the heat and ways to combat it and we thought we’d share with you some of the best ways to beat (or enjoy) the heat that we’ve found this week…
This week’s challenge was tomatoes, and if you’re a reader of Mattbites you’ll know that I tend to go overboard during summer when it comes to these things. I was going for a bit of restraint this year. Yea yea I know, restraint and me don’t really get along. I’m trying.
One of our favorite bloggers, Matt Armendariz offers up this tantalizing summer treat made with some of the season’s best vegetables. It’s a bit more of a road map than a recipe, but I think that makes it all the more summer-appropriate!
Ice cream is an igneous rock. You begin with a liquid slurry containing a hodgepodge of chemicals, and by bringing it below its freezing point, you create something solid – or at least solid-ish. Good ice cream or sorbet needs a little give, a bit of liquid remaining between ice crystals so that you can comfortably dig into it with a spoon.
This is what happens when a person with a master’s degree in Earth Sciences starts thinking about one of our favorite ways to cool down in the summertime – ice cream! And speaking of ice cream, has anyone out there tried avocado ice cream?
Young (Thai) coconuts (you can find in Whole foods) are different from the easier to find brown coconuts we may have grown up with, inside they are gelatinous and full of fresh coconut milk. You need a butcher knife-like implement to open it (cutting a square in the top ideally with 4 whacks) and they come in an all white shell.
Have you ever had a young coconut? Oh, you don’t know what you’re missing! They’re exceptionally more flavorful (and full of delicious coconut water) than the dry brown versions many of us are accustomed to seeing. There’s a great little video showing how to properly open one along with a long list of raw ice creams for those who may be avoiding some of the ingredients that make up more traditional ice cream. Enjoy!
Hi I’m Emily. I’m starting my sophomore year in High School and have been part of Teens for Safe Cosmetics for almost a year. I am in this campaign because I believe that what my mom, sisters and friends put on our bodies daily should not be toxic. I’m looking forward to the national launch of the Teens Turning Green Collection at Whole Foods Market in a couple weeks as a way to educate my generation about greener alternatives in skin and body care products. It is truly inspiring to know that teens are making a difference when they stand up for what they believe in.
These tips are not only about health but have me thinking about the impact that I can have on the planet as I get back into my routine of endless homework, emailing and talking on my cell phone. And even though we are heading back to school, the sun’s rays are still really strong — so find a non-toxic sunscreen (check link below) when you’re hanging on the beach the last few days of summer or biking to school. It’s pretty simple to start back to school with an eco outlook. Check out these tips and links, and watch Jessica talk about greening her college life in the Big Apple. Have fun!
Protect your skin year-round with sunscreen. Choose a safe sunscreen that actually protects your skin (look for UVA and UVB protection) and is free of toxic chemicals. Look at Environmental Working Group’s new report and complete list of safe offerings.
Cell phones have become indispensable tools in today’s society, but too much use can pose serious health risks. To minimize exposure to the electromagnetic energy, limit calls, turn cell phones off, wear a headset or use speakerphone, text message, and use landlines for long chats.
Turning off your wireless network at night not only conserves energy, but also lessen EMF exposure while you are sleeping. Even when you are not using it, the wireless signal is still transmitted throughout the home / office / school / building, etc. Take that simple precautionary step!
Purchase 100% post-consumer and alternative fiber paper, reuse lightly-used sheets for scratch, print on both sides whenever possible, and designate a place to keep paper isolated for easy recycling and to lessen what goes into landfills.
About Teens for Safe Cosmetics
Teens for Safe Cosmetics is a coalition led by dynamic and passionate young women raising awareness about potentially harmful ingredients in beauty and daily use products that may be linked to cancer, reproductive harm and other health risks. Their mission is to educate the public about harmful chemicals found in cosmetics and personal care products, advocate for legislation that protects one’s right to health and to inspire teens across the nation to work together around these issues and create change within their communities.
Teens for Safe Cosmetics launches Teens Turning Green Collection Teens for Safe Cosmetics has brought together phenomenal eco-conscious companies to create a line that attains Whole Foods Market’s Premium Body Care seal, the most comprehensive retail standards. Companies have used a holistic approach in the creation of these products, incorporating how age, variation in skin type, and environment can effect teenage skin. The line will launch exclusively at Whole Foods Market nationwide in October 2008. For the first time in history, Teens Turning Green will offer teenagers a line made specifically for their skin that is safe. Hand-selected by teenagers for safety, sustainability, and practicality, the Teens Turning Green collection is a cross-section of the best products on the market.
Welcome to Whole Story, the official blog of Whole Foods Market.
Don’t know us? In a nutshell, we are the world's leading natural and organic grocer and we’re passionate about healthy food and a healthy planet. Learn more about us.
We’re lucky to have a whole bunch of smart, passionate people doing incredible things in areas like organics, supporting local growers, green practices, fair trade, micro-lending and all kinds of food related stuff. We’ll use this blog to share some of the cool things going on around here.
Of course, what makes this blog really exciting is YOU — so join the conversation!
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Hey! I’m Emily, and I am a sophomore in High School and a part of Teens for Safe cosmetics. A few weeks ago, Teens for Safe Cosmetics had our kickoff meeting for the 2008/ 09 campaign. It was a great meeting with tons of fabulous ideas for our Teens Turning Green Collection, for events, and for new advocacy strategies. However, the most exciting new change was all the new faces in the room! About 10 new teens came to our meeting, and I was reminded of the first time that I went to a meeting and everyone else seemed to know what they were doing while I, unfortunately, was leagues behind in comprehension.
Danny Olivas joined Whole Foods Market Northern California marketing team in 2007, but has been involved with good food for much longer. Danny’s mom was a foodie and had a long career in fine-dining operations. She always bought the highest quality food the family budget would allow and in doing so, she passed on her passion for sharing good food with family and friends to Danny.
Earlier this month, I found myself getting my hands dirty digging up the lawn outside San Francisco’s City Hall alongside such influential people as Alice Waters and Mayor Gavin Newsom. 
Whole Foods Market got involved with Slow Food Nation to highlight the connection between plate and planet. As I was planting seeds that foggy San Francisco summer morning, I was thinking about how our organizations would work together to develop greater respect for food and the people who produce it.
Sometimes you meet people who are truly remarkable. I met such a person in September 2007 on a trout farm visit to Idaho. Following two days of presentations at the U.S. Trout Farmers Association meeting, my fellow fishmongers and I were greeted by Leo Ray, who loaded us into his truck for an all day tour of the Snake River Canyon of South Central Idaho. A tall, fit man of undeterminable age, Leo is a zoologist, fish farmer, and naturalist. What’s remarkable about Leo is that he not only possesses tremendous knowledge of aquaculture and knows every inch of the vast land around him—the geology, river systems, the wildlife, etc.—but he shares it. With his wisdom and appreciation for nature, Leo transformed for me what first appeared as a dry, rough, rocky landscape into a living ecosystem that interacts each day with large agriculture and aquaculture industries. 
