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You’re Going to Learn Something Here. Two TED Talks. Two Movers in Sustainable Food/Living.

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You’re Going to Learn Something Here. Two TED Talks. Two Movers in Sustainable Food/Living.

Barton Seaver

Barton SeaverJust last week I caught part of a local NPR radio talk show given over to Barton Seaver. Very knowledgeable. Very sensible. Maybe some of you have heard of him before? A native of Washington, DC, he’s a former chef (Esquire magazine 2009 Chef of the Year), restauranteur and notable cook book author (Where There’s Smoke: Simple, Sustainable, Delicious Grilling, just published).

He contends that we are “not sovereign over our resources.” Later on in the show I heard him posit something quite interesting. He said livestock production is responsible for some 35% of all GHGs (greenhouse gas emissions) in the U. S., so when eating a piece of meat (protein), he suggests a smaller portion as helping the environment. The construct is: eat a smaller portion (4-5 oz.) of protein, make up for it by eating a lot more vegetables–including grilled–with a result that we’ve lessened our carbon footprint.

Seaver is a National Geographic Fellow, and Director of the Healthy and Sustainable Food Program at the Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard School of Public Health. To these posts he’s just added “Sustainability Fellow in Residence,” The New England Aquarium’s first-ever.

Check out Barton’s Ted Talk (link embedded), “Sustainable Seafood? Let’s get smart.”

Stephen Ritz

RitzpixBack in March I sat spellbound for nearly 45 minutes as Stephen Ritz talked through a PowerPoint presentation about his students at the South Bronx’s Discovery High School who double as urban farmers planting money-generating Indoor Edible Walls (shown in first pix below); and, about the Green Bronx Machine he founded.

At its webpage “About Us,” the Green Bronx Machine was: “born of the belief that we are all AMER-I-CANS! Together, we can grow, re-use resources and recycle our way into new and healthy ways of living; complete with self sustaining local economic engines. Inclusively and collectively, each and every member of our society offers a unique perspective with unlimited potential. Together, we can move those who are ‘apart from’ society to become ‘part of’ the driving force behind new solutions benefiting all of us.”

Check out Stephen’s Ted Talk (link embedded), “Changing the Way We Eat.” …provocative!!PortableGreenWallsDiscoverykids