Can eco-cocoas melt away holiday stress?Photo: Jason HoustonLet's just say for the sake of argument, that you're a little busy this time of year. (This is the part where you snort, as if to say, "You have no idea, sister.") Also, let's say that it's cold outside where you live. (Is the pope an old German guy?) Lastly, let's assume that, because you're reading this on an environmental news site, you have green inclinations.

This all leads me to conclude that what you need at this very moment is a steaming cup of hot cocoa that is not only quick but also environmentally principled. (I.E., not made by the handful of corporations known as "Big Chocolate" that buy cacao from heavily sprayed plantations and pay farmers poverty wages or, worse yet, use child labor. )

For you, my frozen, frantic reader, I bullied my friends assembled a panel of tasters, one of whom brought a light-up holiday animal that resembled an electrified Westie (see photo). I supplied the organic cocoa mixes, a can of whipped cream for the kids, and an array of kitschy mugs. (Note: The kids, much to their disappointment, were left out of this tasting. I thought it best to avoid full-blown pancreatic shut-down during the holidays.)

Please note: Most of these products were powdered mixes (just add water, milk or your "favorite non-dairy alternative"), but in one case we tried a quickie beverage made from chocolate "discs." The mixes were largely certified organic as well. They were also, comparatively speaking, pricey. You can get a honkin' 50-pack box (50 ounces) of Swiss Miss hot coca mix for $12.49 at Staples. (Of course, why the hell you'd want to buy any "food" at Staples is beyond me.) I paid substantially more in general for the eco hot chocolate drinks -- in one case I ponied up $13.95 for 3.5 ounces (go ahead, exhale that breath you just sucked in) for the discs.

How did they taste? Read on.
Our results:
 
Green & Black's organic hot chocolate drink
Ingredients: Organic raw cane sugar, organic fat-reduced cocoa powder, organic dark chocolate powder (organic chocolate liquor, organic raw cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, soy lecithin, (emulsifier), organic vanilla extract).
Price: $4.29 (on sale), for 5.3 ounces
Special notes: Sports the USDA organic seal. Directions call for hot milk rather than hot water, which you'd think would make your beverage somehow better.
 
Who knew hot cocoa mix could taste tannic? This mix made our tasters pucker.  "That's not right," quipped one taster who sported a festive holiday sweater. She then reached for the whipped cream. Strangest comment: "Kind of vegetal." Most passionate comment:  "What the hell are people thinking?" Kindest comment: "It's not that bad," said one taster, who, it should be disclosed, was jet-lagged to the point of stupor because he had just returned from an international trip wherein he ate cicada thoraxes and chicken feet, and whose opinion no one trusted.
 
Dagoba organic drinking chocolate
Ingredients: Organic cane sugar, organic coca, organic  chocolate, organic milk (less than 0.1%)
Price: $6.99 for 12 ounces
Special notes: Certified organic and fair trade certified. The directions for this mix included this line: "When the vapors of the milk rise the milk will be at its most receptive to accept the chocolate into its embrace." Sorta sexy, in this way! This, um, sexyness, might be due to the fact that Dagoba's eccentric founder, Frederick Schilling,  according to an inside source is "way hot." Then again, Dagoba was bought by Hershey's (see Big Chocolate, above.)
 
Again, tasters were freaked out by the smell: In this case, "like the inside of a tire." Though the panel thought this drink was creamier than the others, some found it to have a bitter aftertaste.  The bug-eater thought it had a "more of a darker chocolate flavor." To be fair though, this mix may have been more chocolatey because the directions called for four tablespoons of the stuff per your "favorite mug."  (As opposed to the more common two-tablespoon-per-favorite-mug directive.)
 
Full Circle Organic Milk Chocolate Flavor Hot Cocoa Mix
Ingredients: Organic dehydrated can juice solids, organic whey, organic non-fat dry milk, organic cocoa (processed with alkalai), sea salt, calcium carbonate, natural vanilla flavor, xanthan gum (a natural vegetable product).
Price: $3.49 for 10 1-ounce packets
Special notes: Certified organic. This is my conventional grocery store's bargain brand of organic products. Slogan: "Return to a natural way of living."
 
For those prone of nostalgia, this is the most Swiss-Missy of the cocoa mixes--or, as one taster put it, it's "the cocoa of my youth." Like all of the add-water mixes, its texture is depressingly thin. Overall, tasters found it to be "synthetic" and "overly sweet." Strangest comment: "It tastes like Playdoh!" Most damning: "You can get way better stuff at the ski lodge." Ouch.
 
Equal Exchange Organic and Fairly Traded Hot Cocoa
Ingredients: Fair trade certified organic evaporated sugar cane juice, organic nonfat dry milk powder, fair trade certified organic cocoa-processed with alkali, organic guar gum, sea salt, organic carob bean gum, organic vanilla powder (organic vanilla extract, organic maltodextrin, organic gum Arabic).
Price: $9.29 for 12 ounces
Special notes: Equal Exchange is a worker-owned Fair Trade organization; this mix is certified organic and fair-trade certified. Container is made from recycled cardboard.
 
Q: "What's that terrible smell?"
A: "I dunno, something weird."
 
All in all, this product was slightly more chocolatey than the others, but also "cardboardy." Most disaffected comment. "It has an underlying whatever."
                           
Pierce Brothers Hot Cocoa
Price: $7.99 for 8 ounces
Ingredients: Organic evaporated cane juice, organic nonfat dry milk, fair trade certified organic cocoa, salt, natural flavor, guar gum.
Special notes: Fair trade and certified organic. Directions warn that "due to all natural organic ingredients, some setting (sic) may occur."
 
The entire panel winced at the smell of this cocoa, which one taster said was "like ammonia." The adjective "burned" was used most often to describe its flavor, as in "burned milk" and "burned rubber." This un-chocolately mix actually made the tasters angry. "Who decided that this was okay?" demanded festive holiday sweater lady.  "I can't understand how anyone would bring this to market," scowled another taster. (Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!)
 
Ah!Laska Certified Organic Cocoa Chocolatey Chocolate Mix
Ingredients: Organic cane sugar, organic non-fat milk, organic cocoa powder (non-alkaline), organic rice syrup solids, xanthan gum (a natural thickener), carrageenan (a natural seaweed extract emulsifier), maltodextrin, organic vanilla powder.
Price: $7.99 for 12 ounces
Special notes: Certified organic. Cartoon mascot: AH! Bear.
 
Tasting results. "It's got that smell again," someone wailed.  Overall, the panel thought this mix was watery and without chocolate flavor.  One found it "vaguely soap-like." The grub-eater, who evidently was taking a hatecation,  said it was "not offensive."
 
Patric Fine Hot Chocolate Disks
Ingredients: cocoa beans, cocoa powder
Price: $13.95, for 3. 5 ounces (!)
Special notes: This product is hot chocolate, not hot cocoa. We're talking solid form here, not powder. As you might have guessed from the price, this is super-duper premium micro-batch, bean-to-bar artisinal stuff. And although it doesn't tout its organic ingredients, its cacao from Madagascar is certified organic. (Even though organic chocolate is no tastier than conventional, according to Patric's founder). Note also that there is no sugar in this stuff -- you are trusted to add your own "to taste." Further, the directions call for you to use an actual whisk and to serve this beverage in "small tea cups." I'm not sure what happens if you add mini marshmallows -- I think someone rings your doorbell and slaps your face with leather gloves. In other words, this is not a hot beverage for the kiddies to swill.
 
"No comparison!" hooted one taster. Another said, "This is the only one I'd drink regularly." In general this non-mix, which was added to milk, yielded very rich, very creamy results. Once the giddy gratitude died down a bit, the descriptions started to sound like wine-speak: "It's got legs!" and "lots of complexity." Then someone mentioned the price tag. The group got quiet and a glum as we collectively realized that we had just fallen in love above our social rank. Not even the Christmas Westie could cheer us.
 
Photo: Jason HoustonThe bottom line: I know it's blustery out there and you're busy (okay, really freakin' busy), but if you buy hot chocolate from a mix, we can't be friends. It's that simple. Can you get something quick and delicious and principled? You can. It's the Patric chocolate discs, but they're priced like contraband and you'll have  to have sell plasma to support your habit. Therefore, I'm going to give you an option to avoid other mixes that have that smell:  Get some cocoa powder (fair trade and organic if you're flush) and sugar from the pantry and mix them in equal parts (say, one heaper of each per mug) in a glass measuring cup. Add a dash of vanilla. Next, add a little water and whisk it all into a syrupy liquid. Then whisk this into a pan of simmering whole milk. (For love of any god you choose, don't use skim. Please. It's the holidays.) Pour the result into your favorite mug (yes, it must be your favorite mug -- anything less will screw this up royally). Next, bring on the whipped cream. Then, once you're infused with warm-fellow feeling, and if you have two cents leftover, send a donation to the world-saving organization of your choice.

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In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

---------------

Time to green the canned-food drive.From the Grist Twitter feed: 
Looking for healthy safe nonperishable foods to donate to food banks. Ideas?  
-- Janieo  
 

Dear Janieo, 

Thanks so much for this question. I must admit that sometimes I feel like I'm fiddling while Rome burns -- prattling on about the merits of artisan chocolate while people go hungry.

To understand the issue of hunger better, I contacted Jean Kempe-Ware, public relations manager of the Oregon Food Bank. As it turns out, the Beaver State has the unfortunate rank of second in the nation when it comes to hunger (Mississippi is number one) and the demand for emergency food is rising. In an average month, the number of people who eat meals from an emergency food box through an Oregon Food Bank member agency jumped from an estimated 200,000 in 2007-08 to 240,000 in 2008-09.

"That's enough people to fill the Rose Garden arena 12 times -- in a month," Kempe-Ware told me by email. Nationally, the picture isn't pretty either. According to Feeding America, a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service showed that one in six Americans is "food insecure," meaning that they live with hunger or fear of starvation. But that's not the worst news: The New York Times reported just after Thanksgiving (irony of ironies) that food stamps now feed one in four children and one in eight Americans. Meanwhile, more and more older Americans are turning to food pantries to get by.  

Now then, instead of curling into a ball and crying, let's get off of our virtual asses (okay, technically our asses aren't virtual -- at least not mine, thanks to that pecan pie) and come up with some healthy, safe, nonperishable foods to take to the food pantry post-haste.  
Here are some tips: 

• For we greens, safe doesn't just mean unspoiled, but also free of harmful chemicals. So, donate organic foods if your budget allows. If you can't, don't worry about it. "We welcome nutritious, organic food from sustainable sources," said Kempe-Ware. "That said, emergency food boxes aren't meant to supply the majority of food that a family eats. The average recipient receives an emergency food box two or three times a year." 

• If you can't afford organic food (the unfairness of our food system, which makes healthy food a luxury and crappy food cheap, is another column entirely), you can make healthy choices by buying whole and single-ingredient foods and avoiding highly processed junk food (if the label has lots of unpronounceable ingredients, avoid it). Among the foods on the Oregon Food bank's most-wanted nonperishable food list are canned or dried beans and peas (i.e., black, pinto, lentils) pasta, rice, and cereal. 

• Canned goods are often preferred by pantries, but you should avoid cans lined with BPA. Steering your shopping cart clear of this nasty substance isn't easy. But according to Amy Rosenthal, online outreach manager at the Environmental Working Group Eden Organic canned goods do not contain BPA. If you're unsure about the liners in the cans you buy, call or email the company.  

• Contact your local food bank and ask them for their donation guidelines. While buying food in glass containers skirts the BPA issue, not all food pantries will accept glass because it's breakable. Consider donations that come in food-safe plastic containers (recycle numbers 5, 4, 1 & 2 are best), bags (such as a bag of rice), or cardboard boxes (such as 100 percent juice in juice boxes).  

• If you're going to dig through the back of your cupboards, check the fresh dates on labels. Kempe-Ware also says: "Please no rusty or unlabeled cans; perishable, homemade, noncommercial canned or packaged items; alcoholic beverages, mixes, or soda; open or used items; or glass containers." 

If vetting nonperishable choices is giving you a headache, there are plenty of other ways that you can help alleviate hunger. A food donation need not heed the musty canned-food drives of yesterday. Some food pantries are now distributing local, fresh food, including the Oregon Food Pantry.

"During harvest time, we welcome fresh produce from your garden." So, consider planting an extra row in your garden this spring if your local pantry accepts fresh produce. You can also volunteer at a food bank or soup kitchen, and, needless to say, donate much-needed cold, hard cash (in many cases you can do this online). Also, remember pantries when the holidays are over and participate in food drives all year long. Or coordinate with a local pantry to host your own food drive. Did I mention advocate? Tweet away. 

It's easy for me to make fun of my Thanksgiving overindulgence, but I also know that nobody should go hungry in this country. Thanks for reminding us that that we can help solve this problem in a green way. 

Happy Holidays, Janieo!
Lou 

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Can such a "turkey" make your holiday feast soar?Photo courtesy of Jason HoustonGiven the ire I provoked in last year's turkey column, it's high time that this Grist columnist acknowledges that:

A. Meat-centric holidays such as Thanksgiving can be challenging for vegetarians and evoke all kinds of emotions -- including, but not limited to, extreme irritation toward carnivores.

B. These carnivores are likely to get very defensive, harrassed by the guilty knowledge that even a heritage-breed, biodynamic, locally raised, and gently killed bird probably isn't as environmentally or morally justifiable as a plant-based meal -- even if that plant-based meal is highly processed, lavishly packaged, and distantly shipped.

C. Any moral high ground gained by having a plant-based Thanksgiving may become absolutely meaningless if you screw up a happy, festive experience with a protein centerpiece that looks gross, or worse yet, has a flavor capable of sending guests, carnivorous and non, in search of a Butterball.

These facts, combined with a directive from my boss, have led me into the world of fake turkey. (Oh, I do it all for you, dear reader!) I went looking for a turkey-like main course that could please vegetarians and flummox the carnivores who insist that all faux meat sucks. And so I assembled a broad panel of tasters: three former vegetarians (including me, a former Michio Kushi-worshipping macrobiotic), one devout carnivore, and one actual full-fledged vegetarian (15 years running). The panel also included four children, whose ages range from two to nine, and whose approaches to eating run from adventurous to upsettingly fussy. Together we sampled several seasonal faux turkey products to see if any could produce the happy, bloated contentment of holidays past, whilst simultaneously embracing the spirit of change, earth-friendliness, inter-species kindness, and so forth.

How'd we do? Read on.

Box-to-table dining. Photo courtesy of Jason HoustonTofurky Vegetarian Feast
Ingredients: Water, vital wheat gluten, organic tofu (water, organic soybeans, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride), white beans, garbanzo beans, non genetically engineered corn starch, natural vegetarian flavor, expeller pressed non genetically engineered canola oil, shoyu soy sauce (water, non genetically engineered soy beans, wheat, salt, culture), spices, lemon juice, calcium lactate from beets.

Price: $24.99 for a total of 3 lbs of food -- "turkey" plus sides -- from Whole Foods. Note: You can buy a single Tofurky roast, but I decided to splurge on the "feast," which for some odd reason included not only a Tofurky giblet (!) and mushroom gravy also but dumplings and a jerky wishbone. (Who says vegetarians don't have a sense of humor!)

Tasters were not sure whether to be comforted or disturbed by the fact that this product had a skin, which one taster described as smelling like "art class." All tasters struggled for texture descriptors for Tofurky (motto: "America's Leading Turkey Alternative Since 1995"), but the most evocative was "squeaky on the teeth." Two tasters described the taste as bologna-like and most concurred that this "bird" was salty. Strangest overall comment: "Carp would love this." The most backhanded compliment came out of the mouth of a babe, who, to the chagrin of her parents, exclaimed "It tastes like McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, and I like those!"

Nothing says Turk'y like a box. Quorn Turk'y Roast
Ingredients: Mycoprotein (58%), rehydrated egg white, pea fiber. Contains 2% or less of autolyzed yeast extract, onion powder, tapioca and potato maltodextrin, natural flavor from non-meat sources, salt, dextrose, gum arabic, calcium lactate, sage extract, canola oil, citric acid, garlic powder, pepper, sunflower & palm kernel oil

Price: $8.59 for 16 oz roast at my local grocery store

This product came highly recommended from Steven, the frozen foods manager at my favorite grocery store who also happens to be a bona fide vegetarian. Indeed, our panel's own vegetarian taster admitted that she ate it "voluntarily" and deemed it the most turkey-like, juicy, and "pure." The devoted carnivore, meanwhile, agreed it was turkey-like, but added that it was "dry, like an over-cooked turkey breast." Overall, the group applauded Quorn's un-stuffed, putty-colored honesty: As one taster put it, "It's not trying too hard to be turkey." Tellingly, this was the only faux turkey product that the kids wanted more of, asserting that it tasted either like chicken, or, weirdly, like pizza. Thank god they didn't know it was largely made from fungus.

Full disclosure: The cooking directions called for this roast called for it to be cooked in its plastic "film." There was no way in hell I was going to heat food in plastic, so I wrapped it snugly in aluminum foil. If this compromised the taste or texture in any way, we were none the wiser.

How much will you give me to try this? Field Roast Celebration Roast
Ingredients: Filtered water, vital wheat gluten, expeller pressed safflower oil, naturally flavored yeast extract, barley malt, butternut squash, organic wheat flour, granulated garlic, apples, mushrooms, onion powder, garlic organic wheat flakes, yellow pea flour, lemon juice, red wine, tomato paste, irish moss (sea vegetable) extract, black pepper, rubbed sage, rosemary, spices, natural liquid smoke and paprika.

Price: $7.99 for 1lb roast at Whole Foods

Though it's maketed as a "roast," the manufacturer lists steaming as a method for getting this fist-sized, squarish product ready for the table. I associate the holidays with roasting, but got over my cultural baggage and gave steaming a try. The method wins points for quickness and ease -- but probably didn't help this product's texture, which inspired descriptions like "unfortunate" and was compared to rubber, cement, and -- oxymoronically -- "dried pudding." More than one taster declared its flavor spicy. More specifically, tasters said it was like "Vegeroni" or "varnished pine." The most damning comment came from a kid who said, "I would eat this for $10."

What's that in the middle?!Gardein Stuffed Turk'y Roast
Ingredients: Water, soy protein, vital wheat gluten, bread crumbs (enriched wheat flour (niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)), dehydrated cranberries, natural flavors (from plant sources), modified vegetable gum, potato starch, long grain white rice, wild rice, expeller pressed canola oil and/or safflower oil, dehydrated onion and garlic, parsley flakes, spices, pea protein, carrot fiber, organic beet root fiber, organic evaporated cane juice, sea salt. Breading: modified corn starch, modified wheat starch, corn flour, wheat flour, sugar, toasted wheat crumbs, wheat gluten, sea salt, sugar, garlic powder, spice, onion powder, sunflower oil, dextrose, guar gum, yeast, extractives of paprika, caramel color.

Price: Time for a "full disclosure." I couldn't find this product at my local grocery stores or the nearest urban Whole Foods (where it is allegedly found, seasonally), so I had to call up its Canadian producer and ask for some. I don't normally like to take freebies because I think they compromise journalists, but I was in a jam and there you have it. Oh, and they sent me some chicken-y items, too, that we didn't have the time or room to taste. Truth be told, after just four veggie products, my panel was pissing and moaning and very ready for pie to be served. (Btw: It was this pie, made freshly by the Devout Carnivore.) In any case, the suggested retail is $3.99 per individual Gardein Stuffed Turk'y Roast.

Although this product looked like a "dog treat," as one taster aptly put it, it was the runner-up to the Quorn roast, at least for the adult tasters who almost unanimously found the taste to be smoky or hot-dog like. Most laudatory comment: "Nice crunchy coating." Most frustrated: "What the f**k is in the middle?" It fared dramatically worse with the kids, who reacted to it with terrible faces. One child, perhaps owing to the fact that bedtime was approaching and dessert had not yet been served, even threw her chunk onto the floor and wailed that it tasted like "rotten eggs."

All's well that ends well. Photo courtesy of Jason HoustonOne more disclosure: I also ordered a Stuffed Faux Turkey Breast from Café Indigo to see if a local (New England, in my case) and more boutique product ($25 plus shipping) was somehow tastier. But because of a shipping snafu, this banana bread look-alike seitan "breast" did not arrive in time for the group tasting and therefore did not have the benefit of an expert wine-lit panel. But I will say this about it: Seitan products are all more alike than they are different. They tend to be chewy and, at least to me, they all smell like bullion.

The Bottom Line: Do not, under any circumstances, let your dinner guests see any faux turkey products in pre-presentation form. Use the time-honored technique for overcooked real turkeys: Serve it sliced and attractively fanned out, smothered with gravy and cranberry sauce, presented to appropriately hungry diners whose palates have been primed by way too much Beaujolais Nouveau. In that spirit, consider the unpretentious and affordable Quorn roast. Otherwise, consider starting an entirely new tradition, one that skips highly processed and packaged food products and bases the entire meal on, say, homemade pie. There's a new Thanksgiving tradition I'm sure vegetarians and carnivores could all agree on.

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Dear Lou,

I heard a rumor that honey is toxic
when placed in hot water. Is that true? Doesn't the whole world drink honey in
hot tea? Also wondering about the harvesting
of honey -- is it harmful to the bees and their sustainability?

Honey Lover from Vermont

Dearest
Honey Lover from Vermont,

I didn't
find any convincing studies on the toxicity of honey in water, but I did find
this most interesting quote through an Internet search on the topic:

Who knew
honey could be so versatile?

For a more
credible answer to your question, I rang up Ross Conrad, a fellow Vermonter and author of Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture. He
said the suggestion that honey becomes toxic in hot water is really not
accurate.

"The idea
is that heat destroys enzymes. And basically any time you are going to heat
honey the enzymes are going to get destroyed and as a result dilute a lot of
the medicinal value of the honey. Raw and unfiltered honey has incredible
antibacterial and antifungal properties. It's very, very healing in many ways."

That said,
there's no evidence that heat-treated honey is actually toxic.

As for
whether the whole world drinks honey in hot tea, I have no idea, but it's
certainly my favorite sore throat soother: mix honey with lemon, herbal tea and
a couple jiggers of whisky and you'll soon swallow with ease. (If you want a
"basty," recipe you're on your own).

Speaking of
the whole world, you've probably heard that our honeybees are disappearing.
Forget Halloween, this is scary, because without them humankind is in for a big
basty. Honeybees act as pollinators for many agricultural crops and are
necessary for all of us to have something to eat. But due to colony collapse disorder,
our striped friends are dying. There are many factors that lead to colony
collapse disorder, but pesticides and industrial chemicals are thought to be
key players. Unsustainable beekeeping practices can also play a role, and this
is where your final question comes in.

If honey
harvesting isn't done correctly, it can harm bees. Beekeeping, says Conrad, is
like any other form of farming -- some ways are more sustainable than others.

"People who
are managing their bees in a natural, organic fashion are only going to take
the excess honey that the bees collect," he told me. Short of taking all of
their honey and making survival impossible, there are other bad things beekeepers can do. "A non-sustainable way [to keep bees] would be to take too much
and try to feed them back sugar or corn syrup." One can only imagine what kind
of effect HFCS or other substances might have on bees.

In addition
to poor harvesting methods, there are other honey production practices to worry
about. Some beekeepers treat their bees against mites with toxic chemicals and
antibiotics on a regular basis. This adds to the pesticide load bees are
already carrying. Last year, researchers were shocked by the pesticide levels found in hives.

While you'd
think buying organic honey might be the answer, truly organic honey is a rare
find. Conrad told me that while it's not so difficult to manage hives
organically, making organic honey is hard because bees can fly to non-organic
places and pick up pesticides.

"The hard
part is finding a location that is going to be four or five miles from any
crops that are sprayed or grown with artificial fertilizers, chemicals,
pesticides, fungicides or any of that," he said. "That means five miles in any
direction."

For more
information about organic honey, check out this rather skeptical article.

To find a
beekeeper who is using best practices, buy your honey locally at a farmers market
or a farm stand. Talk to your local beekeepers about how they manage their
hives.

"Or get
your own bees. That would be ideal. We need more beekeepers," says Conrad.

If you want
to spread a little kindness to bees, Conrad advises avoiding chemicals in your
daily life as much as possible and grabbing your garden gloves. By removing the
monoculture known as your lawn and making a nice habitat for wildflowers,
you'll provide fodder for lots of natural pollinators, not just bees.

For more
information about supporting bees, check out this sweet, funny video of Grist's
own Umbra Fisk taking it to the streets
for bees.

In sum:
Cool your cuppa chamomile before adding honey; find a local beekeeper; and,
finally, make life nice for some bees. Because with friends like us, they don't
need enemas.

Er,
enemies.

Lou

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In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

Dear Lou,

Is food irradiation good enough that we could theoretically go back to having rare hamburgers, soft-boiled eggs and unpasteurized milk? I miss all of those!

Carla

Dear Carla,

Let’s bond: I miss the hollandaise sauce at breakfast buffets, homemade mayonnaise, and eggnog made from scratch. Oh, and I miss raw chocolate chip cookie dough like the deserts miss the rain. 

The short answer to your question is no. If you’re going to gamble, head for Vegas (or Reno -- it’s nice there, too). No food preservation method is good enough for you to take a completely risk-free bite of any food, especially when it comes to undercooked meat or egg products. Although irradiation can vastly reduce pathogens, safe handling and cooking rules must be heeded.

The longer and perhaps more interesting answer is this: Even if irradiation (ionizing radiation) were effective enough to completely sterilize our food, we might want look before we leap when it comes to this technology.

As is my style, I’ll give you some pros and cons and let you decide.

Irradiation pros:

• In an era marked by food recalls, deadly contaminations, and food borne illnesses aplenty, irradiation could prevent illness and deaths. Not only can it kill insects and parasites, it can reduce or eliminate such nasty microorganisms such as E.coli, Campylobacter, Listeria, and Salmonella.

• Irradiation is endorsed as safe by the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, and the American Medical Association. Say what you will, they’ve sure got a lot of people there with fancy initials after their names. Here’s a pro-irradiation video by the American Council on Science and Health.

 • Irradiation does not leave traces of radioactive material in food. (To the disappointment of nine-year-old boys everywhere, you will not glow in the dark if you eat it.) According to a FAQ by the University of Wisconsin Food Irradiation Education Group, “Irradiation by gamma rays, X-rays and accelerated electrons under controlled conditions does not make food radioactive. Just as the airport scanner doesn’t make your suitcase radioactive, this process is not capable of inducing radioactivity in any material, including food.”

• Irradiation proponents say that the nutritional value of the food is largely unchanged. (They maintain that thiamine levels are reduced but not enough to cause deficiency.)

• Irradiation can be used to prolong the shelf-life of certain fruits and vegetables. Irradiated strawberries last weeks longer than un-irradiated ones. (Why you would want weeks-old strawberries is another question entirely.)

• The use of irradiation could eliminate the need for chemicals to control pests for certain crops. (You have to admit, this sounds good.)

Irradiation cons:

• Irradiation doesn’t make food perfectly safe. While it can reduce microorganisms, it doesn’t entirely eliminate them. And while it reduces bacteria levels, it’s not effective when it comes to viruses or prions (which are responsible for Mad Cow Disease, and, as far as I can tell, cannot be eliminated by God).

• Irradiated foods cost more. The University of Wisconsin Food Irradiation Group asserts that irradiated meat and poultry runs 3 to 5 cents more per pound. In these uncertain economic times, that premium may be enough to further put off consumers who are already a bit spooked by radiation because of that unfortunate accident at Three Mile Island or that Cold War song by Sting. But there may be other reasons.

• Irradiation opponents see it as a Band-Aid solution to huge problems in our food system that need to be fixed, not covered over. They assert that the best way to prevent food-borne illnesses and deaths is to clean up the dirty, unsafe, and inhumane conditions at factory farms and slaughterhouses that are ultimately responsible for large-scale contaminations. Check out this clip of Lou Dobbs calling for FDA heads on a platter.
 
• Opponents of irradiation say that a diet high in irradiated foods may not be safe in the long run because it damages the quality of food. They further assert that the FDA’s approval for irradiation was based on flawed and inadequate studies. For more information, check out the Organic Consumer Association’s Stop Food Irradiation Project.

• Irradiation uses a lot of energy and could create enormous environmental hazards. Here’s a cheery list of scary incidents at irradiation facilities provided by Public Citizen [PDF]. (Chant the Nuclear Industry Mantra: “There was no danger to the public at any time. There was no danger …”)

 • Irradiation may not be suitable for all foods. Allegedly, it makes tomatoes mushy. So, that nuked burger you just ordered might be safer, but the Salmonella-infected tomato slice on it could still get you.

Would I feed my own children irradiated hamburgers, albeit well-cooked ones?

Although I’d like to say a resounding no, and that I only feed my family local and organic foods all the time, I can’t pull that off. (Did you hear that? It’s my Superwoman tiara clanging to the floor. Damn! It just rolled under the fridge …) It is highly likely that my family is already eating irradiated foods whether I like it or not. While you’d think that a large radura logo would be required for each and every irradiated food, consumers now have to squint to find he words “treated with irradiation” or “treated by irradiation” on the ingredient list on labels. Foods that are not entirely irradiated but contain irradiated ingredients (such as spices) do not have to disclose them. Restaurants and school lunch programs do not have to disclose that they are using irradiated foods. Although I don’t think that protecting our little ones from E.coli-infected CAFO burgers is a bad thing, for the love of God, we need to be informed. The FDA once proposed relaxing labeling regulations to permit the term “pasteurization” when it comes to certain irradiated foods. I’m no scientist (a phrase that certainly would make my high school chemistry teacher bust a gut laughing), but since when does pasteurization involve Cobalt 60?

So, Carla, if you have any appetite left at all, go have a well-cooked egg. Once your blood sugar (and pressure) return to normal, do some soul searching and perhaps make some calls.

With fond memories of Caesar salads,

Lou

PS: You mentioned milk: It hasn’t been approved for irradiation. Pasteurization (the old-fashioned kind that involves heat), in my opinion, is still the way to go. If you want the scoop on raw milk, check out this column by my esteemed colleague, Umbra Fisk.

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In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

Hi there,

I am desperate for a tuna melt with some chips on the side, but am living in fear for my insides with the possibility of mercury in the fish.  I see "tongol" tuna in cans at my local high-end market and at the local co-op, so I'd like to make the assumption that this is somehow better for me, but I know that you will enlighten me and all of those others missing the foods of our youth...

Missing the Fish


Dear Missing the Fish (and all of you who are missing the foods of your youth),

It’s definitely a big bummer when you realize that your childhood comfort foods are not only potentially hazardous to your health, but also environmentally dicey. In tuna’s case, it contains mercury and it’s also sometimes fished in unsustainable ways. Um, dolphin-killing ways.

But don’t fret. It’s my job to rebuild your favorite meals by making them better for your “insides,” and for the outside (that is, the planet). Oh, and delicious too. Excuse me for a moment while I get my magic pixie wand.

While I look for it, here’s the canned tuna backstory:

• Mercury isn’t just a possibility in canned tuna; it’s a reality in every bite. Industrial polluters such as coal-fired plants pump methylmercury into our air. This stuff then falls from the sky and makes its way into our waterways, where it accumulates in fish that we eat. Big, longer-living fish and fish at the top of the food chain, such as tuna, accumulate more methylmermercury.

• While the fact that methylmercury is bad for us isn’t disputed, no one really knows how much of the stuff it takes to harm any given person. “There has never been a blinded, placebo, controlled study giving humans methylmercury to discern its effects over any length of time,” explained Jane M. Hightower, M.D., by email. “I doubt an institutional review board would consider such an experiment as ethical, yet you can buy all you want at your local grocery store without informed consent.” Hightower, who is widely acknowledged as the first American physician to recognize low-level mercury poisoning in patients who regularly consume certain types of fish, wrote the recently released book Diagnosis: Mercury.

• Not surprisingly, the FDA consumption guidelines for limiting methylmercury from canned tuna seem like a bit of a crapshoot. "Moms and Moms to Be" are told that canned light tuna is a low-mercury fish, but to limit it to 12 ounces per week whilst feeding kids "smaller portions," which seems outrageously vague given that methylmercury can harm kids' brains. They also advise limiting albacore tuna to six ounces per week. Is this stringent enough? There's confusion, even among our governmental agencies. "The FDA is in charge of commercial fish, but has not completely adopted the EPA’s determination that individuals keep mercury consumption to less than 0.1 microgram per kilogram of body weight per day, " according to Hightower.

• Meanwhile, who the heck knows how much mercury you are actually getting in any can of tuna. Defenders of Wildlife tested cans of imported tuna and found that one in 20 cans were unfit for human consumption, according to the FDA's standards.

• As I mentioned, tuna has problems beyond mercury. If you don’t see information about fishing methods on the can or package, assume that deadly-to-wildlife methods, such as purse seining or, worse yet, long-lining, were used. To read more about fishing methods go here.

• Dolphins are still dying for our tuna salad. Although the rate of dolphin slaughter slowed significantly because of the fishing industry’s response to public outrage, dolphin populations are not recovering well (in the immortal words of Doug Adams, “So long and thanks for all the fish!”). For dolphin-safe tuna, look for this official Earth Island Institute Dolphin Safe logo. Other so-called “dolphin-safe” labels lack their rigor. Sadly, no label can guarantee that dolphins are truly safe when it comes to fishing for tuna. 

Okay. I found the pixie wand. Let’s see if it can revive your appetite with two options.

Option #1: Use minimal-mercury, sustainably caught tuna. This tuna typically comes from younger tuna that hasn’t had time to accumulate lots of methylmercury. (This is why canned white albacore tuna, which comes from bigger, older albacore, is higher in mercury than light canned tuna, which tends to come from younger, smaller skipjack.) Wild Planet, Eco Fish, and Vital Choice are a few brands to try. Sustainably caught tuna is pole, troll, “hand” or line-caught. Also be sure to use your hard-earned dollars to reward companies that conduct independent testing for mercury and PCBs, and that use BPA-free cans. This stuff will be more costly than your average can of tuna, but the alternative is brainkill-noodle casserole.

Option #2: Ditch the tuna altogether and use sardines, which may be making a culinary comeback. The biggest taste problem with tuna is that it tends to be dry. (Remember the tongol you mentioned? It’s a species of tuna that tends to be moister and therefore popular. The Monterey Bay Aquarium ranks most tongol as a fish to "avoid" because of high levels of bycatch and poor enforcement of fisheries regulations.) But dryness isn’t a problem for sardines, which are not only oilier, but also lower on the food chain, low in contaminants such as mercury, and high in the always-popular omega-3 fatty acids. According to Hightower, “If one consumed a low-mercury fish such as sardines or salmon, only two ounces would be needed to give adequate omega-3 intake for a day. If you consumed four ounces of it, you would take in on average, 3 mcg of mercury for that meal, and still have room for another equally low mercury meal for that week."

But will you like the taste?

In the name of science, I made two batches of melts using this classic diner recipe for my tuna-loving friend, Kim. One batch contained tuna; the other skinless, boneless sardines packed in water. While Kim admitted that the sardine melt was fishier tasting, she said it was close enough to tuna to convince her to make the switch. More incentive: With this mercury calculator, I used Kim’s weight to calculate that if she ate a six-ounce can of albacore tuna, she had consumed 140 percent of the EPA’s suggested safe mercury consumption, whereas the same amount of sardines put her at a mere 10 percent.

The catch (pardon my pun)?

Kim didn’t think her kids would go for the sardines.

It’s time to enlist my savvy, tireless readers, or Jessica Seinfeld, to post some deceptively delicious sardine recipes. In the meantime, to go with your melt, check out which sustainable chips Grist found most delicious.

Until then, for the love of God, please don’t ask me about meatloaf,

Lou 

PS: For more information about the different species of tuna, consult a seafood watch list. You can also get text information on your cell—handy when you’re pondering a restaurant menu or grocery store cold-case—by using the FishPhone. 

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In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

Just get rid of all this annoying rainforest stuff, and you can have all cookie shortening you want.Hi there,
I keep hearing that the increasing demand for palm oil and products with palm oil (hello, Newman-Os!) is leading to rainforest destruction in a serious way.

As a baker with a big ol' tub of palm oil shortening in the cupboard in a quest to go au naturel and avoid trans fats, I'm starting to feel guilty and want to know more.

What if the palm oil is organic? Does that matter?

Thanks much,
Palm Oil Perplexed Marta

Hey there, Marta,
You heard right: Palm oil (aka palmitate, palm kernel oil, and palm fruit oil) is hard on our planet's lungs and then some. It's a top-o-the-heap evil-doer when it comes to ubiquitous and environmentally-destructive ingredients.

Here's a quick and unsettling lowdown: Palm oil's bland versatility, shelf-stability and lack of trans fats make it highly desirable to those who seek processed-food ingredients to, well, make processed food. It's in everything from chocolate to snack crackers to margarine. Remember the creamy center of Oreo cookies? Palm oil provides the famously unctuous mouthfeel. It's also in cosmetics, soaps, detergents and some plastics. Worldwide, it's a popular cooking oil. Last but certainly not least, it's increasingly used for biodeisel production.

As you've heard, palm oil's "moment" comes at the expense of the planet. To keep up with demand, vast monocultures of oil palm are grown in Indonesia and Malaysia, where rainforests and peat forests are razed to make way for oil palm trees. Indigenous people are uprooted and harassed, more carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere and precious habitat is lost, sending species such as the orangutan on the express train toward extinction. The destruction caused by the demand for palm oil is truly unsettling at a visceral level, even for those who have seen worldwide deforestation. Chris Wille, chief of sustainable agriculture for the Rainforest Alliance, told me this: "It's just mind boggling. I've been in this business for a long time and I feel like I'm pretty tough. I feel like I've seen a lot of burning forests, but what's happening in Indonesia and Malaysia - it shocks even us veterans." If you need a visual of the rainforest being hacked into a moonscape, go here.

Palm production streamrolls rainforest in Indonesia. Photo: GreenpeaceAll of this probably puts a damper on your home-baked trans-fat-free cookies. (Ummm. Is that chocolate chip cookies I smell? No, wait. It's the rainforest burning.) There is no perfect choice when it comes to fats and baking, so you'll have do some soul searching about your own values and health-related needs. Because my cholesterol levels are good and I "trust cows more than chemists," I use organic butter when I bake. A farmer friend also supplies me with the occasional mason jar of local lard. (Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like homemade rendered pig fat.)

If these options don't appeal, can you do right by buying organic palm oil? Sadly, in this case the organic label may not be sufficient. Organic certification bans the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, but has nothing to say about rainforest management. That's right--you could burn down pristine rainforest, plant it with a palms, and still get organic certification. Industry and green groups are trying to hammer about a certified-sustainable label that ensures responsible forest management. But right now, sustainable palm oil is both hard to find and controversial.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an international organization of producers, distributors and conservationists, came up with standards to address deforestation and managed to get 1.3 million tonnes of certified sustainable palm oil onto the market last year. Critics of this "green" palm oil cried foul, alleging greenwash and weak certification standards. It was almost a moot point: Most of that oil has languished on the global market because many of the big players won't pony up the extra money for it. (Surprisingly, Chinese buyers recently stepped up to the plate.) Hoping to spur interest with a good old-fashioned public shaming, the World Wildlife Fund will soon issue a scorecard to show which major palm oil buyers have made commitments to sustainable palm oil.

As consumers, the easiest way to avoid palm oil is to avoid highly processed food, which isn't good for us anyway. (Palm oil, btw, may be trans-fat free, but it's relatively high in saturated fat, the kernel oil even more so.) To banish it, read labels and prepare to do more of your own baking. Here's a list of companies that are big palm oil users. If one of these firms makes a product that causes you to salivate, and it contains palm oil, call or email the company and implore them to use sustainable palm oil. Another school of thought says that not only palm oil is here to stay but that it's also a vital crop for the developing world--so we'd better make damned-sure that it isn't grown in a reprehensible way. Picking up the phone or getting online, I think, is the least we can to support the NGOs that are duking it out on our behalf.

Put that Oreo down, or this guy gets it. If your big ol' tub of veggie shortening is organic and you'd like to see if it's also sustainable, check the manufacturer's web site. According to a somewhat apologetic Newman's Own FAQ, the palm oil in their cream-filled cookies comes from co-ops in Colombia and is certified by Pro Forest. It's a start. The Rainforest Alliance is also currently working with some palm plantations in Latin help them meet standards to earn sustainable certification. Wille told me that within a year consumers will be able to find language on certain food products (cookies and health bars) that will identify palm oil that came from Rain Forest Alliance-certified farms.

Right now there are no official seals or labels that you can rely on and sustainable certification for palm oil, like most things in life, is imperfect. Growers need to, at the very least, commit to ending new deforestation--and according to Wille, conserving "remnant ecosystems within the plantations." Will this be enough to save our planet's lungs or orangutans? Time will tell. Perhaps what we need is an orangutan-friendly label for processed foods. The pathos invoked by the sad eyes of an orphaned baby orangutan might lead more of us to pass up a box of cheap Double-Stuf (sic) Oreos for a more principled product (like, say, regular single-stuf Oreos). Even better, maybe we'll all start baking our own cookies again.

Confession: I have a box of Hint-O-Mint Newman-O's on my shelf right now, and, yes, I am an eat-the-creamy-center-first kind of person.

Sorry, make that the creamy, evil center.

Thanks much for the question, and keep baking!
Lou

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In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

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What's up, cat?Dear Lou,
My wife and I enjoy fish and like to eat a variety of types of fish. Living in Minnesota we have access to locally caught walleye but have to be careful not to eat too much because of mercury content in MN lakes. I've been a big fan of catfish (bottom feeders) and am curious as to the pros and cons of farm-raised catfish. Are we talking similar issues with farm-raised catfish as Tom Philpott's recent essay  re: farm-raised salmon?

We'd like to know more!

Dear Glenn,
Dang! I hear walleye are delicious. According to Minnesota's fish advisory you can eat one walleye meal a week, but if your wife is pregnant she's out of luck. On the upside, local crappie is less restricted, but, wow, talk about the need for a serious re-naming campaign.

I'm also a big fan of catfish, especially in light of some research. But-and this is a big but-you have to be savvy before you reach for that Po' Boy.

So let's get to the pros and cons, bad news first:

Cons:
Most of the catfish eaten in the United States is imported, and unless you specifically ask for "U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish," or see the official seal, you might be getting Asian-farmed catfish. FYI on the name game: Vietnamese pangasius (tra or basa), is a different species of catfish than the kind grown here (channel catfish), and cannot be called catfish in the American market. Because the Chinese now farm the same variety of catfish as we do, it will be labeled catfish. So, look for "Product of China" on fish labels--and avoid it! This is potentially very bad stuff. Beware also of any white fish that cannot be linked to a source. Beware of the generic term "fish."

• Many of the problems with farmed salmon identified in Tom's post apply to catfish farmed in Asia. Catfish from there is often contaminated with carcinogens such as malachite green, illegal antibiotics or salmonella In Alabama, state scientists have found banned antibiotics in catfish from China. The FDA is responsible for ensuring the safety of foreign-farmed fish. It has been notoriously lax at doing so. (Luckily, American catfish are sustainably farmed. I'll get to that soon.)

• According to the catfish wiki, catfish can't be kosher because the fish lack scales. This would pose a problem for observant Jews.

• The high-protein feed (made from soy, corn and rice) that farmed catfish eat is not organic.

• Some people find the taste boring, occasionally muddy, or think catfish is merely a vehicle for batter and hot sauce.

• Because farm-raised catfish eat vegetarian feed, they are not as high in Omega-3 fatty acids as cold-water fatty fish, such as sardines.

• All-American catfish may not be easy to find. As many as one-third of U.S. catfish farmers recently went out of business because of the high cost of soy and corn. This may one reason that two of my favorite markets didn't carry catfish at all. It could also be a perceived stigma: Many diners turn their nose up at lowly bottom feeders, and catfish has the reputation for being the poor man's fish. One of my friends who is a fishmonger at a high-end grocery explained, "People here just don't want it. It has pretty much been replaced by tilapia."

Pros:
Other folks praise its flavor as mild or even sweet. I recently broiled some U.S. farm-raised fillets with a little butter and served them with a simple squeeze of lime. They were terrific and so mild that my friend Kim described them chicken-like. "So un-fishy," she said with disbelief. "My kids would eat this."

• At Price Chopper I paid $5.99 per pound for the aforementioned fillets; farmed salmon was $9.99 per pound. Evidently pesticides, sea lice and antibiotics cost extra.

• Safety standards for U.S.-grown catfish are high and catfish farmers are pushing for ever more rigorous regulation. By contrast, there are currently no international safety standards for fish, hence the nasty stuff sometimes found in Asian imports. And few imports are inspected. (See my admonition above to read the label!)

• It's American, goddamnit. (I'm in a protectionist mood these days.) In addition to racking up fewer food miles, eating this native fish keeps American farmers in business.

• Unlike farmed salmon, catfish farmed here are freshwater fish and therefore raised in self-contained inland ponds, which means they are not very likely to escape into the sea and overtake other fish populations. These self contained pens also pose little risk to the surrounding environment (unlike open-ocean pens used for salmon). This is why green groups such as the National Audubon Society, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Environmental Defense endorse U.S. catfish as a safe environmental choice.

• Unlike salmon, catfish are vegetarians and fed vegetarian feed, as opposed to the wild-caught fish that salmon are fed.

• You can eat it every day! Because American catfish are not raised in coastal environments and kept in clean aerated pens that use well water and fed vegetarian feed they are very low in contaminants such as mercury. (Vietnamese catfish on the other hand are farmed using river water that may contain all manner of pollutants, including human excrement.) Antibiotics are seldom issued to US Farm-Raised catfish and hormones are never used.

• Eating bottom feeders is cool. Eating lower on the food chain gives our depleted fish stocks a chance to recover and reduces our chances of ingesting heavy metals and poisons often found in many predatory fish. It's also worth noting that stigmas can be reversed: At one point in our nation's history lobster was considered too déclassé to eat; people fed it to pigs (man, can you imagine how awesome that bacon must have tasted?). U.S. farm-raised premium catfish fillets (which are thicker) may get an anti-stigma boost through a new name: Look for it in 2010 as "Delacata." (Hey, it worked for Orange Roughy, which used to be Slime Head. Take notes, crappie!)

Bottom line: Pass the hot sauce and enjoy U.S. farm-raised catfish whenever you can get it. If you can't find it, ask your fishmonger or grocery store to order it. Because you mentioned that you like to eat a variety of fish, here's two of my favorite tools that make choosing sustainable and healthy seafood easier: A seafood watch list that can be tucked into your wallet or downloaded to your cell phone and an online mercury calculator.

Your devoted food columnist and lover of all things with gills,

Lou

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Triclosan: a toxic chemical that shows up in the damndest placesIn Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

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Dear Grist,
I have been getting contradictory information about triclosan. Organic Consumers Association says danger, beware, don't use. Other sources say no problem. I trust you. Precautionary principle says don't use. What do you say?
Love,
Steve

Dear Steve,
I say, the good old precautionary principle has a point this time. In fact, I'd make like a teenager looking to impress friends in a souped-up car: flee triclosan, leaving nothing behind but a screech, a cloud of dust, and skid marks. Oh, and while you're barking your tires, don't forget to flip the bird in the rearview mirror. Trust me, this anti-microbial chemical deserves it.

So what is it? Triclosan is a leftover from the germ-phobia of the '90s, when people were trying to sterilize everything in sight. People don't seem as intent as they used to on buying anti-microbial everything, but triclosan just keeps hanging around. 

The watchdog Environmental Working Group (EWG) says it's "nearly ubiquitous in liquid hand soap and dishwashing detergent" and also found in "toothpaste, facewash, deodorant, a host of personal care products, and even mattresses, toothbrushes and shoe insoles." Mattresses? This creepy stuff even has the nerve to get in bed with us! Triclosan is also often found in chopsticks, because ... your don't want to be exposed to your own germs while eating Chinese food. Or something.

But get this: it fights germs no better than plain soap--and yet its widespread use may be creating "super germs"!

And make no mistake, it is creepy stuff. As the EWG put it:

Triclosan is linked to liver and inhalation toxicity, and low levels of
triclosan may disrupt thyroid function. Wastewater treatment does not
remove all of the chemical, which means it ends up in our lakes, rivers
and water sources. That’s especially unfortunate since triclosan is
very toxic to aquatic life.

Studies show that it disrupts thyroid function in both rats and harms
tadpoles, to boot.

It's too bad triclosan is so common in personal care products, such as
toothpaste and shaving cream, because it can combine with chlorine in
tap water to form chloroform, a probable human carcinogen. (As is the
case with oh-so-many industrial chemicals, Further Studies Are
Necessary to "prove" the bad effects of triclslan plus chlorine. Don't hold your breath.)

Still not convinced? From our sinks and potties, triclosan takes a free ride down the drain into our waterways, where it wreaks serious havoc with aquatic life. Read all about it in this excellent Beyond Pesticides fact sheet(PDF). Speaking of aquatic life, a recent study found triclosan in the blood of dolphins.

Of course, Steve, there is that no problem camp you mentioned. According this enough-about-those-dolphins-already press release from the Soap and Detergent Association, the low traces found in dolphins just proves that, thanks to science, "You can find just about anything you want to just about anywhere if you're looking for it." Hmm. Uh, okay then. Let's look for triclosan in human blood, shall we?

Turns out that, even when avoided, the stuff has a disturbing
tendency to linger. Chances are that it's in your
blood and pee or your wife's breast milk right now, so you might want
to get a restraining order.

For you, Steve, I called up Dr. Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defense Canada and co-author of the forthcoming book Slow Death By Rubber Duck, which is already a bestseller in Canada. In the book, Smith and his colleague Bruce Lourie imbibed and absorbed seven common toxic substances, including triclosan. The results were surprising at the outset because Smith had measurable levels of triclosan in his blood before the experiment despite the fact that he had been "scrupulously avoiding this thing for years."

How triclosan got into Smith's body is anyone's guess, but he happened to notice that his garden hose was "Microban protected." (Microban is one of Triclosan's brand names)

"I was showering my little tomato plants and chives that we use in our egg omelets with a triclosan garden hose," he told me. "So I don't know if it came from there, but it's likely that this stuff is just ubiquitous now."

So how much more triclosan was in Smith's blood after two days of using triclosan-infused toothpaste, shaving cream, body wash and deodorant?

"My levels spiked by 2,900 times," he said. Check out the video footage of the experiment here.

Steve, I can tell by the way you sign your letters that you are a loving person, but I think it's time to get tough. Take Smith's advice and avoid triclosan rigorously: "It's a classic example of a pointless product foisted upon us by money-grubbing companies," he said. "It's just that simple. There's no evidence that this chemical is improving our lives. The extent to which it's being used in frivolous ways is just mind boggling."

To give triclosan the heave-ho, read labels and get savvy. The Environmental Working Group's has a great guide to Triclosan-free products. For good measure, here's a list of products that do contain the nasty stuff.

Good luck. One more thing. How to keep your life reasonably germ-free without resorting to toxic chemicals? Like your mama probably told you, plain old soap and water does the trick. As with everything, moderation!
Love back at you,
Lou

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Nothing hits the spot on a hot day like an icy glass of all-American root beer. (Okay, if you want to split hairs: Nothing hits the spot on a hot day like an icy glass of all-American root beer when you must stay sober.) The problem is that when you take your wilting self to the cool respite of the beverage aisle, you discover that nothing in this life is simple.

Perhaps, like me, you go with the simple criterion of avoiding anything produced by Big Soda and loaded with high-fructose corn syrup. Ha! If only it were this straightforward. What started as a handcrafted, medicinal-tasting beverage devolved during the last century into a mass-produced cloying shadow of its former self. The good news is that root beer, like Mickey Rourke, is making a comeback, and the results can be kinda wild.

Today, your beverage aisle might showcase retro, handcrafted "root sodas" with exotic spices, certified organic root beers, a green-tea root beer, and a diet root beer spiked with an eco-sounding plant-based sweetener. You might even be able to find a local root beer with an ostensibly lighter carbon footprint. OK, so what's a green-minded, confused consumer like you to do, short of licking your cracked lips, throwing up your hands, and heading to the nearest vending machine?

Answer: Let taste be your guide. Because if it tastes awful, it's not going to matter if it's eco, healthy, or handcrafted by pygmy monks chanting hymns to Gaia -- you aren't going to buy it. At least not twice.

So for you, and only you, I assembled a tasting panel consisting of my spouse, a few willing friends, and our gleeful, sticky progeny (see video at bottom) to try some of the root beer alternatives to Big Soda. Herewith, our Highly Unscientific Results:

Maine Root
Ingredients: Carbonated pure water, organic fair trade–certified cane juice and spices (according to the website, the company uses extracts of wintergreen, clove, and anise).
Eco-claim: Organic fair trade–certified cane juice (though not USDA organic certified). Also, if you happen to live near Portland, Maine, you can take a small comfort in knowing that this root beer will be delivered via a biodiesel VW Jetta.

Price: $7.16 / four-pack of glass bottles

This is a fizzy rather than creamy root beer. Aside from the one comment that this root soda has a "nice nose," all of the adult tasters felt that it was way too sweet, and one went so far as to describe it as a "marshmallow in a glass." While you'd assume that the overly sweet quality might appeal to kids, it didn't. One claimed that it "smelled like mushrooms."

Boylan's Root Beer
Ingredients: Carbonated water, cane sugar, pure essential oils of sweet birch, cinnamon, sassafras, and anise, extracts of bourbon vanilla, yucca and licorice, and other natural flavors and spices, caramel color (from cane sugar), citric acid.

Eco-claim: Touts itself as "100% natural," which means no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives -- which is, methinks, a reasonable place to set the bar, considering that soda basically consists of three things: water, sweetener, and flavoring.

Price: $5.96 / four-pack of glass bottles

The online description says this traditional-tasting beer was developed as antidote to the super creamy, vanilla-laden style of root beers that is popular today. Interestingly, more than one taster described it as "traditional" and one described it as thin, perhaps owing to its lack of creaminess. Another said it had a "slightly astringent finish." One of the kids tasted pepper.

Zevia Natural Diet Soda Root Beer
Ingredients: Triple-filtered carbonated water, natural erythritol, natural GMO-free caramel color, stevia, citric acid and natural flavors (citrus peel oil, winter green oil, cassia oil, anise seed oil extract, ginger root extract).

Eco-claim: Touts itself as "100% natural" and "nature's answer to diet soda," but the marketing emphasis is on stevia's superiority to artificial sweeteners, not its environmental impacts. (My take is that stevia, at this point in time, doesn't seem particularly environmentally destructive. Read more of what I have to say about stevia.)

Price: $5.69 / six-pack of cans

After several expletives and exclamations, it was clear that my panel would rather suffer dehydration headaches than drink this root beer. One of our tasters said it "tastes like the snacks at my diabetic father-in-law's house." Another sighed, "That's definitely a diet drink." I found it sickly sweet and only vaguely root beer–like. The kids found it "weird" and "bad" but worst of all like "polishing toothpaste." (Q: Since when do kids use Topol?)

Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value Root Beer
Ingredients: Filtered carbonated water, cane sugar, natural root beer flavor, citric acid, caramel color (from cane sugar).

Eco-claim: None on the packaging, but Whole Foods has a notoriously green agenda.

Price: $2.49 / six-pack of cans

"A good, solid root beer," said one taster, and another approved of its "caramel nose." Another said, with obvious relief, "No funny aftertaste!" I found it to be smooth and straightforward and neither too sweet nor too weird. The kids deemed it spicy, sweet, and root-beery. Our panels (adults and kids) separately ranked it No. 1, with no dissent.

Blue Sky Certified Organic Root Beer Encore
Ingredients: Filtered carbonated water, organic cane juice, natural root beer flavor, caramel color and citric acid.

Eco-claim: Uses USDA-certified organic cane sugar. Why pony up for organic sugar? Although you don't have to worry about GMOs yet when it comes to cane sugar (GMO sugar beet crops have been planted in the U.S.), conventionally grown sugar does have enormous impacts on the environment. Read all about it in a World Wildlife Fund report.
Price: $5.69 / six-pack of cans

This was the neither-here-nor-there root beer. Although it had a "nice nose" and was "pleasantly effervescent," its aftertaste bugged the tasters who described it as sour, flat, or medicinal. The damning comment: "No worse than any other root beer." One of the kids said it was "more like Coke," which shocked her parents, who would never let their kids drink Coke.

Santa Cruz Organic Root Beer
Ingredients: Sparkling filtered water, organic evaporated cane juice, natural root beer flavor, organic lemon juice concentrate, organic vanilla extract.

Eco-claim: In addition to using USDA-certified organic ingredients, the company itself makes green efforts. The can also carries a Green-e label that states that this root beer is made with 100 percent certified renewable energy.

Price: $6.99 / six-pack of cans

That fact that this soda is clear may telegraph that it doesn't use artificial color, but our tasters found its transparency "kinda freaky" and "trippy." A child commented that it looked like white wine. After sipping, someone blurted out, "That's root beer?" No one actively disliked this soda, but every taster complained that it was not root-beery enough. Two tasters said it was "like a ginger ale" and one thought it was like a Sarsaparilla (a drink made from the eponymous root rather than the sassafras root that gives real root beer its flavor). Kid zinger: "It tastes like the fluoride I hate the most."

Virgil's Microbrewed Root Beer
Ingredients: According to the website: carbonated water and unbleached cane sugar along with these natural herbs and spices (including point of origin): anise from Spain, licorice from France, vanilla (bourbon) from Madagascar, cinnamon from Ceylon, clove from Indonesia, wintergreen from China, sweet birch from the southern U.S., molasses from the U.S., nutmeg from Indonesia, pimento berry oil from Jamaica, balsam oil from Peru, cassia oil from China.

Eco-claim: Like Boylan's, its ingredients are "natural." Although artisan consumables and green-mindedness often go hand in hand, it's worth remembering that this isn't always the case. This product aims to be tasty rather than to save the world. Upside: no greenwashing. Downside: What, no freakin' biodiesel Jetta?

Price: $6.36 / four-pack of glass bottles

This beer is brewed and flash-pasteurized as opposed to "cold-brewed," which allegedly produces a sub-standard product. "Nice and dark," someone cooed as we poured it. Strangest comment: "Dark and bubbly like a good Jacuzzi." Every taster noted the licorice taste and used the polite-but-damning adjective "different" to describe it. Refreshingly, this entry is not too sweet.

Steaz Organic Sparkling Green Tea Root Beer
Ingredients: Sparkling filtered water, organic evaporated cane juice, organic caramel color, natural flavors, organic fair trade–certified green tea, citric acid, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), Sodium citrate.

Eco-claim: UDSA organic ingredients plus organic and fair-trade green tea. Triple-bottom-line company.

Price: $3.99 / four-pack of glass bottles

Does green tea really belong in root beer? "Damn hippies," spat one taster. Most tasters found the dominant taste not to be root beer–like or tea-like but akin to caramel or syrup. Thin, watery texture made one taster lament that it had, like limp hair, "no body." One kid said it tasted like Sprite.

Saranac Root Beer
Ingredients: Filtered water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, sodium benzoate (preserves freshness), natural and artificial flavors, citric acid.

Eco-claim: None on the bottle, but according to its website, Saranac's green initiatives include recycling its spent grains into cattle feed (insert boo-hiss from grass-fed beef fans) and recycling the CO2 from its fermentation process. Although people in my neck of New England think of it as a "local" root beer, it's brewed 144 miles from my house, according to MapQuest.

Price: $6.29 / six-pack of glass bottles

I was so peeved to discover that this beer contained HFCS that I almost didn't include it in the tasting. (Alas, HFCS is not uncommon in comeback root beers, as Eric Asimov discovered in his taste-test.) I included it because I was curious: Would anyone taste it? Sure enough, the very first comment was, "The sugar is different in this one!" Another taster said, "Overly sweet." Ultimately, tasters liked its texture, which was so creamy and smooth that one taster said it was "like whipped cream in my mouth." I thought it had an overly tangy aftertaste. It was the runner-up for the kids, who said it was a "plain-old root beer."

The bottom line: Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value Brand root beer tastes great and doesn't contain HFCS. It may not be earnestly green, handcrafted, exotic, or zero-cal, but its low price means that you might be able to afford to top if off with a big dollop of really yummy organic vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

Watch the Junior Tasters at work:

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