I heard a rumor that honey is toxicwhen placed in hot water. Is that true? Doesn’t the whole world drink honey inhot tea? Also wondering about the harvestingof honey—is it harmful to the bees and their sustainability?

Honey Lover from Vermont

DearestHoney Lover from Vermont,

I didn’tfind any convincing studies on the toxicity of honey in water, but I did findthis most interesting quote through an Internet search on the topic:

According to ayurveda, honey shoud [sic] should never to be used heated directly orindirectly internally is it devolopes [sic] toxicity when heated, exept [sic] when performing basty (enema).

Who knewhoney could be so versatile?

For a morecredible answer to your question, I rang up Ross Conrad, a fellow Vermonter and author of Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture. Hesaid the suggestion that honey becomes toxic in hot water is really notaccurate.

“The ideais that heat destroys enzymes. And basically any time you are going to heathoney the enzymes are going to get destroyed and as a result dilute a lot ofthe medicinal value of the honey. Raw and unfiltered honey has incredibleantibacterial 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 forwhether the whole world drinks honey in hot tea, I have no idea, but it’scertainly my favorite sore throat soother: mix honey with lemon, herbal tea anda couple jiggers of whisky and you’ll soon swallow with ease. (If you want a“basty,” recipe you’re on your own).

Speaking ofthe whole world, you’ve probably heard that our honeybees are disappearing.Forget Halloween, this is scary, because without them humankind is in for a bigbasty. Honeybees act as pollinators for many agricultural crops and arenecessary 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 colonycollapse disorder, but pesticides and industrial chemicals are thought to bekey players. Unsustainable beekeeping practices can also play a role, and thisis where your final question comes in.

If honeyharvesting isn’t done correctly, it can harm bees. Beekeeping, says Conrad, islike any other form of farming—some ways are more sustainable than others.

“People whoare managing their bees in a natural, organic fashion are only going to takethe excess honey that the bees collect,” he told me. Short of taking all oftheir 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 muchand try to feed them back sugar or corn syrup.” One can only imagine what kindof effect HFCS or other substances might have on bees.

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

While you’dthink buying organic honey might be the answer, truly organic honey is a rarefind. Conrad told me that while it’s not so difficult to manage hivesorganically, making organic honey is hard because bees can fly to non-organicplaces and pick up pesticides.

“The hardpart is finding a location that is going to be four or five miles from anycrops that are sprayed or grown with artificial fertilizers, chemicals,pesticides, fungicides or any of that,” he said. “That means five miles in anydirection.”

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

To find abeekeeper who is using best practices, buy your honey locally at a farmers marketor a farm stand. Talk to your local beekeepers about how they manage theirhives.

“Or getyour own bees. That would be ideal. We need more beekeepers,” says Conrad.

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

For moreinformation about supporting bees, check out this sweet, funny video of Grist’sown Umbra Fisk taking it to the streetsfor 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’tneed 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.

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 FishDear 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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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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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!

Best,Glenn D. Geissinger

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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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 oftriclosan may disrupt thyroid function. Wastewater treatment does notremove all of the chemical, which means it ends up in our lakes, riversand water sources. That’s especially unfortunate since triclosan isvery toxic to aquatic life.

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

It’s too bad triclosan is so common in personal care products, such astoothpaste and shaving cream, because it can combine with chlorine intap water to form chloroform, a probable human carcinogen. (As is thecase with oh-so-many industrial chemicals, Further Studies AreNecessary 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 disturbingtendency to linger. Chances are that it’s in yourblood and pee or your wife’s breast milk right now, so you might wantto 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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Is your green cred slipping? Dear Checkout Line,We try to buy local food whenever we can. Some things just seem doomed to have air miles on them, though. Is there anywhere in the U.S. that can grow bananas? Or coffee and tea?Best,PatDear Pat,Personal confession: If frequent-flyer miles were assigned to my coffee habit, I could probably commute from New England to Tibet for free. After doing a little research, I learned that some of the beans in my cuppa French roast this morning came from Ethiopia. According to this food-miles calculator, those beans traveled approximately 7,158 miles. I’m not going to tell you how much coffee I drink for fear of being taken into protective custody.As you already know, many of the tropical crops dearly loved by Americans come with a whopping carbon footprint, in part due to the miles that they travel aboard planes, ships, trains, and trucks. While it would be an improvement carbon-wise to buy this stuff locally, in most parts of the United States it’s not possible to grow these crops commercially.Well, at least not yet. Let’s take a look at the warm-weather darlings you mentioned and I’ll give you some options to offset their mitigate their deleterious effects on our planet.BananasWhere they are grown: These favored phallic fruits are currently cultivated in the toasty equatorial regions of the world known as the tropics. Check out the banana wiki and scroll down to the top-banana producing nations if you want to get specific. Good news: Hawaii grows a tasty, nutritious variety of banana called an apple banana that will be available from this web site in the near future. Although this won’t help you reduce your food miles unless you live in Hawaii, you would stimulate the Aloha state’s agricultural economy. A few things: These Hawaiian bananas must be irradiated for export and although they are not organic, Hawaiian banana farmer Young Tarring assured me that they are low-spray. Meanwhile, the tropics may not be the only place producing bananas in our globally warm future: according to this article, bananas now grow in southern England.Doom-mitigating action items: Bear in mind that food-miles are just one of the environmental problems associated with our dysfunctional food system. Other things that effect sustainability are how the food is grown and processed, so buy organic and Fair Trade bananas to assure that your bananas aren’t heavily sprayed and that the people who grow and pick them are treated with respect. But because food miles are at the top of your irk-list, I’ll suggest limiting your intake of commuter fruits to wintertime, when your access to fresh, local fruit might be limited. That said, we might brace ourselves for some banana deprivation: The most common variety of banana, the Cavendish, is likely to vanish from our future because of a blight. Ain’t monocultures grand? More radical step: Grow your own. Hunka-hunka burnin’ lobe, calculator-wielding eco-pioneer Amory Lovins manages to grow bananas with passive solar energy in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, so maybe there’s hope for the rest of us. Talk to your local nursery about getting a banana plant suited for your climate (you’ll want to stick to container growing if you live up North).CoffeeWhere it is grown: In parts of the world with stable, moderate temperatures, sunshine, and great soil. Check out this “bean belt” map. As is the case with bananas, you can’t buy coffee locally unless you live in Hawaii. If you’d like to support American growers anyway, surf the Internet to find organic growers there. This organic coffee farm also offers a vacation rental. (I’m just saying.) Local Harvest is a great place to find Hawaiian high-test.Doom-mitigating action items: Buy triple-certified (organic, fair trade and shade-grown) coffee, bring your-own mug when you caffeinate on the run, and use your buzz to save the world. If the travel miles are coming between you and the enjoyment of your latté, heed your values and kick the habit. Just don’t ask me for advice on how to do this because I am draining a French press as I type.More radical step. Move to Hawaii! Short of that, grow your own coffee shrub. According to this site, a mature plant can produce as much as two to four pounds of java per year. Okay, so that’s only a month’s worth of coffee for me, but you could always raise more than one plant and have your own micro-plantation. Downside: It could take a few years for your plant to start producing. And you can’t cruise your plantation on horseback. TeaWhere it grows: Most of the tea that comes from Camellia sinensis plant (which produces black, green and white teas) hails from countries in Asia, Africa, and South America. Hawaii also has some growers; look for them here. Giddy news: You can buy tea from the Lower Forty-Eight! The Charleston Tea Plantation in South Carolina produces American Classic Tea, which was recently purchased by Bigelow.  If you’re willing to do a little homework, you can also get tea from small, artisan growers such as this one. Doom-mitigating action items: Buy organic, Fair Trade-certified teas. Buy in bulk to avoid excess packaging.More radical step: You guessed it! Grow your own tea plants. As with the above grow-your-own options, a few plants won’t keep a serious habit fully supplied, but it will be an enjoyable exercise in appreciation. Here’s some help. Who knows, tea growing might even become your thing. “There will always be hobbyists and green thumbs who are growing and processing small quantities of tea using different varietals of the tea plant,” Seattle tea blogger Brett Boynton told me by email. “You find these people all over the world. Although we will never be as common as orchid people, rose people or tulip people, I am proud to be one of a handful of NW tea lovers who grows and processes a little bit of my own tea.” (A “tea blogger”--is this a great country, or what?)Well, Pat, let’s hope, for all of our sakes, that things don’t get so hot here in the U.S. that we’re able to grow coffee in Colorado and bananas in New Jersey. Thanks for the great question. I need to surf real estate websites in Hawaii now (so that someday maybe I’ll learn to surf for real), so I must run.Yours,Lou

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Dear Lou,At Halloween we look forward to the pumpkin seeds as much as anything, but lots of other fruits—watermelons, squash, avocados—are full of beautiful seeds and it seems a shame to throw them away. Are they edible, and can anything be done with them?Debbie from OhioDear Debbie,

Not only do seeds symbolize hope, opportunity and potential, but, as embryonic plants, they have the literal ability to feed us. It’s no wonder we feel a twinge of shame when they go into the compost bucket. So, to borrow a grammatically awkward but enthusiastic phrase: Let’s not do that!There are several things that can be done with the seeds from the foods you buy at the grocery store (or farmers market):  1. They can be eaten.  According to this Wiki on edible seeds, we eat lots them in the form of legumes, nuts, cereals, pseudo cereals (such as flax), and gymnosperms (such as pine nuts). Of course, there are many seeds we don’t want to eat, and this is happy news for plant procreation. According to the New York Times, the bitter taste of some seeds makes them less desirable to predators (such as omnivorous humans). As for the lesser known yummy seeds you mentioned, I’ll say this about that: Go ahead and eat those squash seeds—just roast them as you would pumpkin seeds. Here’s a recipe. Watermelon seeds can indeed be eaten, but in raw form they pass through our systems as seeds are wont to do (hoping, if seeds can hope, that they’ll get a chance to sprout on the other end). Snacking on dried watermelon seeds is common in China but not so popular here. I didn’t find a watermelon seed recipe for you, but I did find you this gizmo in case the urge hits to roast some (just like the squash seeds) after your next picnic. Next: Ixnay on eating the unpalatable and (and highly chokey) avocado seeds, but I have another good use for those, coming up. First, some bonus trivia that really shouldn’t be in the eating-seeds section: The term sperm comes from the Greek sperma or seed.

2. They can be sown. Did you know that seeds from many of the foods found in your produce aisle can be grown into attractive houseplants? I didn’t, until I bought the book Don’t Throw It, Grow It: 68 Windowsill Plants from Kitchen Scraps, by Deborah Peterson and Millicent Selsam. This fun little book urges you to grab a friend and make a “pit stop” to create houseplant fun (!) out of everything from carrots to tamarind. Speaking of houseplants, that avocado pit you mentioned might get as big as a gorilla with enough love (when he was a little boy, my husband planted one in a glass on his grandfather’s kitchen windowsill. Thirty years later his grandfather passed on, but the avocado had pretty much filled the old man’s sunroom.) Want that? Try this.

Some words of advice before sowing: Buy organic produce and heirloom varieties if you are able (hybridized plants won’t breed “true,” which means that you might not end up with a plant that resembles its parents). Also, be careful about plunking your grocery store seeds or seedlings into your garden: Those mangoes (yes, you can grow them) are unlikely to survive in your growing zone. More important though, some plants might be invasive. Peterson points out that a few Jerusalem artichokes planted in her garden formed a “clump of scraggy, eight-foot perennial plants.”

3. They can be used for other fun, random stuff. You can spit seeds, which is just plain, vulgar fun. And evidently, there’s a real technique to it. If you’re on the refined side, you could dry all of your unused seeds and then make really cool art. I was pretty impressed with this life-like seed portrait of Dolly Parton. You can also make seed balls, a fun project for your progeny (seeds of your loins).

More bonus trivia: You live in the “buckeye state,” because of allthose horse chestnut seeds in Ohio that look like deer eyeballs. Notthat you can eat them, but they’re fun to collect and look at.

Well, Debbie, I know what to do! Let’s get off these silly computers and go raid our refrigerators for, um, seed projects before I use any more seed sayings.

Thanks for “planting” this question,Lou

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Dear Beefy Ed, Count your blessings! If we blamed global warming on human flatulence, beer and Mexican food would be verboten and scientists might make you wear this.

Is it just me, or does emitter sound like a fake noun? (I prefer what we call my two-year-old toddler when he emits gases: a toodler.) In any case, meat does generate greenhouse gases. Lots of them. The fact that burgers contribute more to global warming than SUVs was revealed in the 2005 report “Diet, Energy and Global Warming” (PDF). The paper’s co-author, Gidon Eshel, is a cattle rancher turned professor of geophysics who happens to live nearby, so I was able to buttonhole him with your questions. Oh, btw: Eshel is now a vegetarian. This fact might make a meat-lover like you nervous, but don’t jump to any conclusions yet. The answers to your questions are complex and surprising.

When I first read that a cow burp could contribute to global warming, it reminded me of the theory that the flutter of a butterfly’s wings could cause a hurricane. Of course, the cow-burp is not only more tragicomic and far less poetic—the effect is also easier to prove. Bovine gas (the burps more so than the farts) is problematic because cattle, jolly cud-chewing ruminants that they are, digest their food through enteric fermentation, which emits methane, a gas approximately 23 times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. According to an EPA FAQ about methane and livestock in the U.S. alone, cattle emit about 5.5 million metric tons of methane per year into the atmosphere—20 percent of U.S. methane emissions. And there 1.5 billion belching cattle here on earth, a number that is expected to grow rapidly as earth’s meat-hungry population expands.

It’s perhaps not surprising that scientists all over the world are trying to figure out how we can have our meat and eat it, too. Their attempts to make cattle emit less methane include alterations in diet, breeding, and even a vaccine.

What was surprising (at least to me) is that grazing, grass-fed cattle—those happy cows we all like to celebrate, and some of us (hi, Ed) like to eat—will, according to Eshel, emit four to five more methane than corn-fed cattle.

But wait—that doesn’t mean that you should reach for a CAFO burger.

“There are many reasons why grass-fed is superior,” says Eshel. “I don’t want anyone to think that greenhouse gas is the be-all and end-all. We have so many environmental problems.” Livestock production, especially the intensive production that is the hallmark of factory farms, contributes to all of those other problems, including  energy use, deforestation, fertilizer production and runoff, and much more. Read all about it the sweeping, disturbing UN report “Livestock’s Long Shadow.”

Just because corn-fed cows emit less methane does not make them better, says Eshel, and the idea that we can convert cows into low-methane systems by feeding them corn is like asking a giraffe to graze on grass. “It’s evolutionary advantage is lost,” he says. He contends methane is a normal end-product (actually, a product of both ends) of healthy, grazing cows. Re-plumbing cows to emit less methane is, he says, absurd. “Maybe what we need to do is consider the scope of our reliance on those animals, rather than trying to re-evolve them into something that is advantageous to us,” he suggests.

He also thinks sustainable meat, in greenhouse terms, is possible, although meat production would have to be “scaled down dramatically.” Further, he says that cow manure can help reduce the life cycle fossil fuel consumption of food production. It could also reduce eutrophication of waterways caused by excess fertilizer runoff, a problem he that finds particularly troubling. One of the elements that can help end eutrophication, he says, is diverse, small-scale beef production. “If you have small herds throughout the land, not just in traditional places but throughout the country, the cows have this uncanny ability to recycle local nutrients. Pooping is one of their biggest talents. And that’s what we need of them, really.”

I called up Anna Lappé, who is currently working on a book about diet and climate, to get her take. “Historically and currently, there are some sustainable farmers who incorporate livestock, including ruminants, into a cycle that I would argue is pretty sustainable,” she told me. “Now, is that how most of the meat on the planet is being produced? No. I think that we shouldn’t delude people into saying that we don’t need to worry about meat and greenhouse gases because it can be sustainable. Most of the meat that’s out there is being produced in highly unsustainable ways.”

She also points out that most consumers don’t have access to sustainably raised meat. For these reasons, she advocates for cutting back on the stuff. For more info, check out her new web site, Take A Bite Out of Climate Change.

So, Ed, to alleviate greenhouse gas concentration, it looks as if meat lovers like us should be reaching for not only sustainable beef when we can get it, but also for veggie burgers (speaking of gas).

Your faithful food columnist,

Lou

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Dear Kelly,This particular swine flu pandemic—which may or may not be linked to factory farms—doesn’t appear to pose much of a public-health menace. But it reminds us of an old lesson: chaos happens. Regarding pandemics, our very own government advises people to keep two weeks’ worth of supplies on hand, which is trulythe least the government can do given its recent disaster track record. You don’t have to be a Chuck Norris-obsessed, gun-packing paranoiac to stash a bit of canned food and water in case of hard times.

You’re worried about foreign invasion, huh? While keeping a sharp lookout for an armada in the Gulf, consider these tips before heading to the store for batteries and canned tuna:

• Don’t spend too much time obsessing about flavor. “Keep it simple. Realize what the intention is, which is survival,” explains Cody Lundin, founder of the Aboriginal Living Skills School in Prescott, Arizona. “Survival is different from living, technically. You might be eating weird shit, including the dog.” Of course, you won’t need to eat the dog if you’re prepared, which is the point of his hilarious book When All Hell Breaks Loose. 

• The amount of food to stock is up to you and your available storage space. If you’re short on space, you may only be able to keep few day’s worth of food on hand (tip: store stuff under your bed, if you can secure the containers against your always-curious toddler). If you are unsure about how much food you and your family will need, check out this calculator, courtesy of the Latter Day Saints. (Note: the calculator is based on stocking food for one year, so you’ll have to do a little extra math if you want a smaller pantry.) Yes, as it turns out, the Mormon church does indeed advise its members to keep a year’s worth of supplies in their pantries. As a spiritual traveler you might be curious, so here’s why.

• Label and date everything in your pantry and adhere to the FIFO (first-in, first-out) rule. The last thing you want to discover during an emergency is that your rice has bugs in it and all the tomato soup expired two years ago. If you are not going to rotate foods in and out regularly (isn’t that what they do with Congressmen and lobbyists in Washington?), consider (gasp!) buying more processed foods, at least for some things. More heavily processed foods tend to keep longer. For instance, Lundin prefers white rice for long-term storage—it keeps longer than brown rice, which contains oil that oxidizes. “The really healthy, groovy dark olive oil oxidizes like crazy,” says Lundin. Which fat stores the longest? “Unfortunately, it’s [expletive] Crisco, ” he says. Bottom line: If you leave things in the refrigerator until they grow fuzzy coats, you might want to consider foods that store a really long time.

• Don’t rush out and buy foods that your family normally wouldn’t eat. My husband and I purchased a bunch of powdered non-fat milk for Y2K. Here it is almost Y2K + 10, and we’ve still got it. I wouldn’t eat the dog before using it, but it’s going to be one of the last things to go into my mouth when the power goes out/ice storm hits/government ceases to function/all of the above.

• Because the growing season is well underway in Mississippi, start planning along with your planting. Preserve some of this year’s fresh, nutritious bounty from your garden or farmer’s markets. For home-preservation advice, click here.

• Use food-grade plastic containers and bags for storage. If you are going to use non-food grade buckets, such as those big paint buckets you get at Home Depot, Lundin suggests that you store your food-grade Ziploc bags first. Herewith, my oft-repeated ditty about which kinds of plastic to use, courtesy of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy: “With your food use 5, 4, 1, and 2. Three and 6 aren’t good for you. And 7 sucks big-time.” (That last bit was my addition—don’t give me a guitar.) Glass is environmentally friendly but it has emergency storage drawbacks—containers tend to be small, light-permeable, and breakable. That last one is a bummer if you’re hit by an earthquake (or, say, rampaging toddlers).

Next, here’s a Gristed-up list of things to stock:

•  Preserved meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, beans, and soups. On one hand, canned foods are often full of additives, salts, etc., and even the healthy ones may come in cans with plastic liners that contain bisphenol-A. On the other hand, Lundin points out that canned food is easy to acquire and stores for at least two years. “Try to get stuff you can eat right out of the can,” he suggests, “When you’re talking about emergency cooking, there’s going to be fuel shortages.” My tip: Instead of tuna consider skinless, boneless sardines that are chock full of Omega fatty acids, and sustainable - lower on the food chain and also lower in mercury.

• Protein/fruit/granola bars. Look for the ones without any HFCS or unpronounceable ingredients. My coop grocery store, which provided three emergency pantry lists last month (vegan, gluten-free and one for regular folks), suggests Cascadian Organic granola bars and Stretch Island fruit leathers.

• Dry cereal or granola. Granola is ridiculously easy to make and nutrient-dense: Here’s one recipe.

• Dried fruits, grains and nuts. If you can, choose organic and buy in bulk to save money. For more money saving tips here. Also consider nut butters. When I don’t buy them in bulk, I often buy Woodstock nut butters.

•  Crackers: Buy high-quality, high-fiber ones. There are some brands in my pantry that will not only keep you regular during times of stress, but also may be used to re-shingle the roof after a hurricane strikes.

• Baby food and/or formula if you need it.

•  Vitamins. The idea here is that if your nutrition suffers, you can boost it with vitamins.

• Juice, plus fluids with electrolytes. Don’t just reach for your average “sports drink,” which may be loaded with lots of sugar and carbs rather than the salts and minerals your body needs to rehydrate in the event of an illness. This is the one I keep on hand.

• Water: This is key. “Water is a not-optional item. If you don’t have it, you die,” says Lundin, who suggests doubling the standard recommendation of one gallon per person per day. Also, consider storage carefully because, as Lundin points out, water is heavy (8.3 pounds per gallon). “If you live on the 24th floor of an apartment and you want to put 1,000 pounds of water weight over four square feet in your closet—that’s a bad move.” At the moment, our family uses plastic jerrycans, the ones used for camping.

• Pet food. Reach for the good stuff.

Lastly, here’s a list of non-food stuff to have on hand:

• Soap, or alcohol-based (60-95%) hand wash.

•  Any prescription meds your family needs, plus a basic first-aid kit that includes a thermometer, fever meds such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen, and anti-diarrheal meds.

•  Flashlights: If your flashlights use rechargeable batteries, good for you, but if the power goes out you wont be able to plug in the recharger. Consider a hand-crank flashlight (my tiny hardware store carries them) or solar-powered ones and/or emergency candles.

• Portable radio. Here’s one that operates on solar, hand-crank or battery power and has a built-in cell phone charger and flashlight.

• Manual can opener. Lundin recommends Swing-A-Way can openers because they “last and last and last” or P-38 can openers, which you can get online or at military or outdoor stores. He keeps a P-38 on his keychain. Watch Lundin open a can using a concrete curb in this clip. 

• Garbage bags: Use them for trash, make-shift sleeping bags (Lundin-style, filled with newspaper) or the removal of a corpse (but let’s not dwell on that). Get strong ones!

• Tissues, toilet paper, diapers (if water is in short supply, you won’t be washing cloth diapers, so go for disposable eco diapers) and feminine hygiene supplies.

• Extra strings for your viola.

Now here’s the weird thing about all of this. You’d think it would be morbid or depressing to store up for the apocalypse. But it’s not—found it empowering and liberating. Do it, and you’ll be more in control of your fate and perhaps much less hysterical. That’s always a great feeling, no matter what the storm clouds (or flu bugs) are doing.

Your Fellow Yankee,

Lou Bendrick

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Dear Lou,I went to pick up some milk at our local mom-and-pop shop and noticed they had soy milk.  Since it seems a lot of our friends have switched to soy milk, I thought I would try some. Oh, the choices!  Not only were there three different organic soy milks, there were three rice milks and two hemp milks! Totally confused, I stuck with the organic milk from cows that I usually drink.But this led me to wonder: what are the differences, nutritionally and sustainability-wise, in case I want to try a plant-based milk?Thanks,Lactose Intrigued…Dear Lactose Intrigued …Not only are the choices intriguing, but how about the marketing nomenclature that brings to mind vegetables with mammaries? Am I alone in this? (Don’t answer.)I empathize with you about the dizzying choices. I can’t believe it has come to this, but I am going to give you a few tips about navigating the alternative milk shelf. (Note to self: It may be time to buy a place in the country where I can live a simpler life. So long as I don’t have to buy milk there.)Here are the tips:• Get a reliable guidebook. (Gotcha! Just testing to see if you were truly awake after that tall soy chai tea latté.)• OK (make serious face, clear throat): Although I can’t talk at length about the nutritional differences in plant milks (because that’s not my gig), I will say this: If you have health considerations, consult your doctor. Plant milks may be lactose-free, but each has its nutritional ups and downs and some perils lurk: rice milk is high in carbs, almond milk won’t work for those with nut allergies and the pros and cons of soy are controversial and mixed, to say the least. Also, read the labels carefully, bearing in mind that plants milks are processed foods. Keep an eye on sweeteners, additives, etc. On the upside, most of these milks are vitamin-enriched. • Bear in mind taste (see below), because, let’s face it—if you think it’s yucky, the fact that it’s good for you or the planet is not going to matter. On that note, don’t expect milk. It’s sort of a shame that these juices are called milks because beyond their opaque color, they’re more juice-like than milk-like, and that can be a shock to the taste buds for a PMV (“plant milk virgin”—just remember, you heard that phrase here first). • Milk alternatives can be pricey, and they come with difficult (or impossible)-to-recycle packaging and a carbon footprint produced by all that processing and long-haul travel. So if you like the stuff, consider making your own if you have the time. Surf the net for recipes for recipes such as this one.Now let’s take a look at the alternatives you mentioned. I enlisted the help of my captive friends expert panel to do a little taste test. Although all of these milks come in sweetened, flavored forms (chocolate, vanilla, etc.), I stuck to unsweetened, unflavored versions so that we might experience the terroir of plant milks (that place in the country is looking better and better). Soy milk Environmental considerations: Not only is soy a high-spray, intensively-farmed crop, but most of the US crop is also genetically modified. Soy is so popular world-wide (it’s used as food for humans and livestock, and for making biofuels) that vast chunks of the Amazon rainforest  are being cut down to grow soy, thus wrecking habitats and indigenous people’s lives and so forth.  Taste & appearance: Beige color; decent texture. In general the taste is sour. “Pure nastiness,” was the response from one tester, who, ironically does not consume any dairy. Another tested said, “spoiled.” Confession: I adore Silk chocolate soymilk, which is not surprising considering that I will adore pretty much any product that lists its second ingredient as “evaporated cane juice” and cocoa as its third.Tip: Buy American-grown, identity-preserved USDA organic soymilk. If you want to find the organic American behind your soymilk, check out Find your Farmer function on the Organic Valley site. If you’re going to buy products using imported soybeans and you’re concerned about, oh, say, the fact that the Amazon rainforest produces about 20 percent of the earth’s oxygen, consider doing a little homework (grab those reading glasses). Lorenda Raiol, The Nature Conservancy’s Amazon resource information officer, says that you should find out where your soy comes from because in 2006 the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (ABIOVE) and the National Association of Cereal Exporters (ANEC) signed a “Soy Moratorium,” in which they committed to not buy soy from areas that were deforested in the Amazon biome after that date. “So, find out what companies are part of ABIOVE and ANEC, and reading the small letters on the labels is way to good start.”  My two cents: Call companies or go to their websites for more information. Rice milk Environmental considerations: Rice, one of the most widely planted cereal crops worldwide, is intensively farmed, and  it goes without saying that rice needs lots of water because it is grown in flooded paddies, which are sometimes contaminated with arsenic. The good news: New varieties of rice may make rice farming less intensive. The bad news: Some of these varieties are genetically modified (GM) and many countries around the world believe that GM foods are unsafe. A few years ago, the US provoked international ire by allowing some of our GMO rice to escape our borders.Taste & appearance: Naturally sweet; watery texture. “Not bad,” said one taster. Another said, “Works with cereal.” I reach for it when I’m out of milk but I’d rather pound nails with my forehead than put it into my coffee.Tip: Buy USDA organic. My husband and kids put organic Rice Dream on their cereal (read the label: not all Rice Dream is organic). Hemp milk Environmental considerations: According to Anndrea Hermann, an agronomist and board member of the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance, hemp is a hardy, fast-growing crop that naturally suppresses weeds (because of its tall “canopy”) that resists many diseases and does not need lots of watering (big taproot). In other words, it doesn’t require intensive farming. Note: Organic hemp milk is available, but if the product isn’t organic bear in mind that the hemp in foods currently on American shelves comes from Canada, where it’s illegal to spray hemp crops that are used for food (conventional fertilizers may still be used).  Go here to watch adorable Canadian farmers talk about hemp crops. Oh, Canada!Taste & appearance: Putty colored and ever so slightly grainy. One taster described it as “chalky” and “not right at all.” I found it to be vegetal and slightly sour, but less so than soymilk. I like the taste of hemp seeds a lot more than the taste of hemp milk. Tip: It will not cause you to giggle endlessly, inhale cold pizza, or fail a drug test. While it’s true that hemp foods come from the same plant that produces pot, hemp food plants are bred and processed in a way that renders their THC content negligible. The public misperception that hemp foods will get you high is rapidly fading, Hermann told me. “It would be like people worrying about their poppy seed muffins.”Now, dear reader, I need to break it to you gently that the next time you venture beyond your mom-and-pop grocery store (if you must), you are likely to encounter an array of vegetable excretions that includes not only the above milks, but oat milk, almond and other nut milks, and coconut milk, which has been given a glamorous makeover from its old pina colada days.  According to Perry Abbenante, global grocery coordinator for Whole Foods Markets, coconut milk is turning up in non-dairy yogurt-style products, frozen non-dairy desserts, and non-dairy beverages. “It’s still in its infancy, but is definitely catching on.” Are you perhaps wondering if coconut cultivation is ruining the planet like its evil cousin oil palm? Let’s save that for another column. In the meantime, if you choose to stick with cow’s milk, keep buying organic. But if you ever get the chance, get milk that’s both organic and local. That’s a decision you don’t need a tasting panel to help with.Your friend in food matters,Lou

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