Why anyone ever expects the sane and rational out of the New York Post is beyond me, but judging from the bewilderment over at Treehugger apparenlty it’s still an issue. The latest in NYP’s very LONG tradition of yellow journalism (Post = P, after all) there’s a rant about how organic and sustainable food is ruining the world i.e. giving something for the writer to posture about and generate controversy – because believe me, it ain’t worth buying the New York Post to read it.

Admittedly, I’m getting a little frustrated with the bloggers at Treehugger who also jump on mainstream misconceptions from time to time in an effort to generate controversy – according to one blogger, I’m fat and therefore I hate the earth.

Says the New York Post diatribe:

“While the economy drives people to fast-food dollar meals, they cluelessly extol the virtues of expensive organic grapes. On a “60 Minutes” segment last month, Waters thinks nothing of paying $4 a pound for greenmarket grapes (that’s about $10 for a bag). When Lesley Stahl questions her about such high prices, she responds incredulously, “And some people want to buy Nike shoes — two pairs.” One might wonder to whom she is referring.”

This does suggest that the writer is notsomuch on the long-term thinking. As was figured out in the book Nickeled and Dimed, those fast food meals long-term are one of the things keeping the chronically underpaid (who are not even a blip of a consideration in this article, implied populism of the above paragraph aside) poor. They can’t scrape together enough for the stuff they need to cook money-saving food (like a working crockpot) and so they end up paying just that little bit too much to save to have something to eat. (This does not explain why the original author didn’t go to a damn thrift store.)

Slow food – and food you grow – is supposed to be a solution to much of this. So yes, the above is whine-a-riffic nonsense from a guy who doesn’t even have a real problem except that he doesn’t want to shell out extra money for grapes. I look at it as a choice between pesticide-free food versus hospital bills for strange diseases – even if in the end it is all just one wild guess, I’ll try to curb the odds in favor of a long and healthy(ish) life.

The incredulous, shocked and horrified tone over at Treehugger, howeverrrr…for God’s sake, it’s the New York Post. All they are is a tabloid that sometimes uses things that are sort of vaguely factish.

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I’ve been operating for quite awhile on the assumption that in the US “organic” is merely an unsubstantiated marketing term with no government oversight. In the 90s, this was true. Apparently this changed in 2002 and I didn’t figure it out from reading the FDA website.  According to the Wikipedia entry on the US National Organic Program:

” Under the NOP, farmers and food processors who wish to use the word “organic” in reference to their businesses and products, must be certified organic. Producers with annual sales not exceeding $5,000 US are exempted^{[2][citation needed]} and do not require certification (however, they must still follow NOP standards, including keeping records and submitting to a production audit if requested, and cannot use the term certified organic).”

So, to parse this a little:

1. Organic/certified organic only applies to food under the letter of US law. This suggests that there is still no regulation for the use of the term “organic” in marketing cosmetics.

2. If you are selling food, if you use the term “organic” at all it must be certified.

3. If you make less than $5000 a year, you can skip the certification process but you’d better keep records to prove you’re up to snuff in case the Man wants an audit. Or, y’know, the regulatory commission that at least tries to protect our health and standards.

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The Daily Mail is heralding the “uplifting power of scent” as though it’s news. I’m curious as to how they’ll turn that into a scandal, but in the meantime, a few key goodies from the article:
Citrus is good for banishing depression, as is chammomile

Heliotropin, is according to their scientist du jour Dr. Charles Spence, “relaxing to almost everyone in Britain.”

“Uplifting aromas on your list should include chamomile, long cherished for its soothing qualities and proven to have a mood-lifting effect, and rose, which has been shown to have anti-depressant benefits. In fact, splashing your face with rosewater first thing is a perfect way to lift yourself out of those earlymorning doldrums.”

Yes, I know it’s a bit snarky. I have about equal amounts of contempt for the Daily Mail as I do the New York Post, and yet I quit reading. I’m also amused at how they, along with every other reporter and blogger in the world (including me) is finding all sorts of not-so-clever ways to tie in the recession to absolutely everything.

This ends my snark departure, and back to my attempt at being a class act.

For further Daily Mail amusement, check out this article on how lipstick can save your life. Seriously, do their headline writers have the sense to be ashamed of themselves? I have no problems with the material in the article itself, it’s the way it’s presented that causes the snark response.

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The author of this book is coming to Minneapolis next week. I’m not sure if I’ll have the cash to attend – but if I can, I will, and I’ll be sure to report back!

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While I’ve found a few determinedly packrat-ish Minnesotans in my time here, I’m delighted to see that Minneapolis hit #7 for least wasteful cities in the United States on a Nelgene-sponsored survey printed in Fast Company.

With our bikers, recyclers, cleanup people, thrift stores and decent mass transit (not to mention our awesome library system) it’s good that the Minne-apple is getting a little well deserved recognition.

Chart from FastCompany.com.

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I’ve known about dumpster diving since college, when a group of friends told me of their adventures looting the bins outside the Hostess Cupcake company for free Twinkies until said company saw fit to enhance said dumpster with a lock. I also partook, at select times of years, often scooping up odd and useful knick-knacks, furniture and random toys whenever my university ended spring term.

I’ve also heard tell of the availability of food in my city of Minneapolis – outside restaurant dumpsters, supplied to the homeless by charitable organizations, as the simple result of nearly everyone having some kind of excess. One formerly homeless person insists that it’s not worth giving panhandlers money – if they’re really homeless, they’ve got a squat and they can find food. (I have no way of checking whether this hearsay is true.)

So I’m not at all surprised by the Fregan movement, although I do think in its way it’s rather…well, short-sighted and stupid.  Jezebel covers the topic quite well, and I have to admit that yes, it’s quite preferable to go second-hand, although they like I mention that bedbug outbreak as a big reason to stop and say no to old-school sidewalk furniture adoption.

The examples cited as waste by the article in Marie Claire suggest the writer doesn’t know some concepts I was raised with:

“Those castoffs are composed, in part, of the less-than-perfect products consumers instinctively reject: bruised apples, wilted lettuce, dented cans. Who hasn’t passed on an entire carton of eggs after discovering a single slight fracture among the dozen? Supermarkets can’t unload the quarts of milk tagged with yesterday’s use-by date — which many of us interpret as a product’s expiration but in fact refers to its period of peak flavor.”

While the bruised apples are wasteful, dented cans are tossed because they allow in a deadly bacteria known as botulism, and a cracked egg can suggest other contamination. Yes, we are wasteful of food – but we are also privileged in that we have the freedom to reject food in order to protect ourselves from disease. I’m not advocating just throwing it all out, though – plenty of that food is great fodder for compost.

Thrifting and second-hand stores are always good ideas, and I’ve relied on them for years, just as I’ve come to love Craig’s List and freecycle. However, I’m much to squeamish about bugs, disease and someone else’s tampons to go for a full-on fregan dumpster dive; I also think that if people reduce their consumption fregans are going to find themselves shuttled right back into the consumer society they claim they’re trying to duck.

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Maybe because Earth Day is on the 25th, or maybe because I’m on an environmental kick lately, I’ve gotten the “look for more info” bug whether it’s from paging through magazines or surfing blogs. Earth911 is a site worth a bookmark – it covers the bare-bones basics of recycling and makes some of those hard to figure out things easy.

My favorite feature? Type in your zip code and type in what you want to recycle – and it pulls up the names and addresses of the recycling centers near you. Especially handy when like me, you’ve always got some electronics to find a home for.

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