These days, feng shui seems destined for furniture arrangement. But the practice of achieving harmony has had much grander purposes over history including the lay out of Chinese villages, burial site design and construction of agriculture plots. Chinese Kings used feng shui to build palaces in a way that reiterated their power and wealth.

Recently, an LA McDonald's redid its décor to reflect the feng shui philosophy of wind-water. It has a wooden ceiling, waterfalls and a door that doesn't align, so as to confuse the evil spirits. The switch came when the franchise owner noticed that the population in the area had risen to 40% Asian.

He also says there's nothing ironic about a McDonald's being feng shui. Maybe not, considering the materialistic journey feng shui has taken anyway. But surely there's some irony in the melding of positive spiritual energy (Qi) with the kind of meat that brings down rainforests and fattens up the country.

Feng Shui has been considered taboo in the PRC for some time now. So what does it mean that McDonald's is feng shuing itself? Is McDonald's confirming its food feudalship over the world? Saying “screw you” to Communism? Probably nothing so profound. Just a pretty little waterfall to go with some addictively bad-for-you food.

Source: NPR and Indobase.com

Photo by: Richard Harbaugh (NPR article)

A farmer for Bioland – the largest German organic farming association – had to destroy part of his crops due to pesticide contamination, with $1 million in damages. Bernd Kuglemann bought fennel plants from a Holland company called the West Plant Group, but when he noticed that the seedling seemed too clean and that there were bluish pellets in the soil, he had them tested. Sure enough, the plants had been soaked in pesticides.

One of Bioland's largest clients, a discount supermarket called Lidl, dropped Kuglemann immediately. Lettuce, celery and much of the soil had become contaminated and unusable. Kuglemann lost more clients and says he is now almost broke but still trying to rebuild his organic reputation. The Dutch suppliers, in the meantime, claim that the seedlings they sent were perfectly organic, and refuse to pay compensation. After a Dutch inspection service found pesticide residue in West Plant Group's supplies, they pulled a permit for one site.

This incident appears to part of a larger problem of trust in the organic trade. Another issue is simply that organic standards often says nothing about organic crops being grown next to conventional ones. Such close proximity often ends up in the pesticide slathered crops contaminating the organic ones, with no accountability for the damage.

Source: Spiegel Online International

The shortage of U.S. grain has been a recurrent headline lately, yet a portion of this shortage – the organic grain industry – is not a new story.

Though part of the organic grain scarcity is attributed to a dearth of producers, part of the problem is the increasing contamination of organic grain by genetically engineered (GE) crops – patented organisms now pervasive in much of the American landscape.

This week, organic industry players are meeting in Anaheim, California to discuss testing for transgenic material in organic products and possibly coming up with standards for certification. (Testing is currently not mandatory.)

You might recall that the organic movement fought hard to exclude GE organisms from the organic label a decade ago. Now an additional certification is needed to relay that this product is truly organic?

Our new tool shed has beautiful old-growth larch boards in the walls, huge timbers for the floor joists, and an expansive hardwood floor. Of course, the best part is that all these materials were reclaimed.  

Many American consumers – as many as a half million now – have long fought for the right to purchase raw milk. Demand for the controversial product is growing by leaps and bounds, with more and more dairies filling requests from consumers and grocery stores for raw milk products.

But as demand grows, so does resistance.

Recently, California state agriculture officials temporarily banned sales of raw cream from Fresno-based Organic Pastures after finding high bacteria levels. This action follows a controversial law that took effect on January 1, which spurred political battles over the requirement that raw milk had to meet the same safety standards as pasteurized milk.

The founder and owner of Organic Pastures, which is believed to be the largest raw milk dairy in the nation, has filed a lawsuit to overturn the law. He welcomes the temporary ban on his cream, because now he can cite economic damages resulting from the law (which have grown to a loss of $10,000 per week since the ban).

Raw milk is not pasteurized (heat-treated), and supporters assert that the beneficial properties otherwise destroyed through pasteurization (such as good bacteria and enzymes) help ease lactose intolerance, digestive disorders, and allergies, and can boost the immune system.

Envirovores, keep your eyes peeled for the magic bus. It’s green, electric, shaped like a giant fly and serves smoked gouda with marinated shiitake mushrooms.

On the Fly, a company started by three eco-conscious friends, plans to have a total of eight buses (locally known as "smartkarts") stationed around Washington D.C., each serving a different genre of chemical-free, locally produced foods, from barbecue to Asian fusion.

The Vienna Beef guy is not too happy – many street vendors argued against the new change in the city’s licensing laws that allowed the green buses to set up shop on their turf. But we sort of doubt that On the Fly is going to steal his customers. The company says they’re targeting the health food crowd - you know, the ones of us that normally would bring a whole-wheat hummus sandwich to work.

Our herbivore friends love telling us that vegetarianism is how they battle climate change - meat production is totally energy inefficient compared to plant production, and cows, specifically, produce a hell of a lot of methane.

It's a compelling argument, and yeah, we'd probably have a tough time reading an article on global warming while eating most burgers without feeling the distinct pangs of cognitive dissonance.

So when the Norwegian whaling lobby pulled the climate change card to defend hunting whales, we did a double take. Rune Froevik, head of a Norwegian whaling lobby, is heady with their new study claiming the greenhouse impact of eating eight meals of whale is equivalent to eating only one meal of beef. "Basically," Froevik says, "It turns out that the best thing you can do for the planet is to eat whale meat compared to other types of meat."

Hmm, maybe. Of course, any wild-caught food -- including game, fish, and, yes, whale, or a vegetarian diet -- will reduce greenhouse emissions compared to ranched beef. And the study doesn't consider whether contributing to the ongoing mass extinction of oceanic megafauna in the service of greenhouse reduction is ethically or ecologically defensible and supportable.

Japan and Norway, the last surviving whaling nations still bucking the 22-year-old international moratorium on whaling, are starting to get a little desperate for reasons to keep the practice going. The Japanese have started turning whale into school cafeteria mystery-meat; the Norwegians are playing to the global warming crowd.

Via Reuters

Once again, the actions of the Dole Food Company prove that if you're a big corporation working overseas, you can screw over whomever you want. Despite a long history of knowingly exposing Nicaraguan banana workers to a poisonous, often debilitating pesticide called Nemagon, Dole has been virtually let off the hook by an LA court. The original and puny $5 million has been reduced to $2.5 million for the 12 workers who were sterilized by the active ingredient in Nemagon called dibromo-chloro-propoane (DBCP). It has affected about 20,500 men, women and children giving them moderate to severe physiological and psychological health complications.

Dole's history with Nemagon has been a sordid one. There were unpublished findings of the pesticide's effects back in 1958 covered up by Dow Chemical and Shell Oil. After cases of sterility showed up in California, the active ingredient was banned in 1979 in the U.S. But not elsewhere. Protests ensued, marches against the company continued. A case in Nicaragua found Dole guilty (Nicaraguan Law 364) but Dole said that it wasn't a legitimate court, and said the trial would have to move to the US.

A few of us from Envirovore were in Nicaragua last year and asked the US Embassy in Managua about the case. The representative we spoke to said that the “most tragic part” of the Dole case is that Dole withdrew from Nicaragua and took jobs with them. Oh really? That's the most tragic part? And here we thought the tragedy was sterility, neurological effects and devastation to workers' lives. Thanks for setting us straight, Embassy!