Fresh Planet Flavor

30 Minute Thai Beef with Basil (Carbon-Farmed Beef)

September 6, 2016 By Fresh Planet Flavor 11 Comments

30 Minute Thai Beef with Basil (with Carbon-Farmed Beef) | Fresh Planet Flavor

This quick and tasty 30 Minute Thai Beef with Basil is my first recipe introducing carbon farmed beef. What is carbon farming? The TL;DR version: it's a style of farming that removes carbon dioxide from the air through agriculture. How it works involves a quick science lesson: all agricultural production involves the process of plant photosynthesis, which uses sunshine to combine carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air with water and minerals from the soil to produce plant material, both above and below ground. However, common agricultural practices, including driving a tractor, tilling the soil, over-grazing, using fossil fuel based fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, result in significant carbon dioxide release. As much as one third of the surplus CO2 in the atmosphere resulting in ...

Vegan Parsley Pesto with Egg and Avocado (How to Fight Food Waste at Home)

August 30, 2016 By Fresh Planet Flavor 20 Comments

This Vegan Parsley Pesto with egg and avocado is a quick (and delicious) way to use up both leftover herbs and nuts at the same time.

"Getting food from the farm to our fork eats up 10% of the total U.S. energy budget, uses 50% of U.S. land, and swallows 80% of all freshwater consumed in the United States." That's the statement by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) scientist and "food waste warrior" Dana Gunders that begins Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill (full PDF). Forty percent? The mission of this blog is to build community at the intersection of health and sustainability, and Gunders makes an excellent point in the publication above that "even the most sustainably farmed food does us no good if the food is never eaten." So what are some steps that we (as health-conscious, sustainable-supporting home cooks) can take to reduce the staggering amount ...

Slow-Cooker Spiced Pork Ramen (and Notes on Local Food’s Environmental Impact)

August 17, 2016 By Fresh Planet Flavor 21 Comments

Slow-Cooker Spiced Pork Ramen (with shirataki noodles) | Fresh Planet Flavor

In keeping with the international flavor mash-up that is today's post, I am sharing the conclusions of some personal preliminary research on whether eating local food is more environmentally-friendly. Perhaps your first thought is "of course". Doesn't food grown close to home help prevent global warming because it requires less fossil fuel to transport? But… after reading an article on the topic of whether locally-produced food is more environmentally friendly in the journal Environmental and Resource Economics, I now know it is a more nuanced issue than I previously suspected. The authors state in the abstract: We concentrate on the tradeoff between production and transport emissions reductions by testing the following hypothesis: Substitution of domestic for imported food will ...

Skin Food Smoothie (and Notes on Endocrine Disruptors)

August 2, 2016 By Fresh Planet Flavor 28 Comments

Skin Food Smoothie blends spinach, walnuts, blueberries and kiwi for a skin-supporting powerhouse of a snack or breakfast! Fresh Planet Flavor

What are endocrine disruptors? What do they have to do with a luscious Skin Food Smoothie, that combines an all-star lineup of blueberries, walnuts, spinach and kiwi? The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines an endocrine disruptor as "an exogenous substance or mixture that alters function(s) of the endocrine system and consequently causes adverse health effects in an intact organism, or its progeny, or (sub)populations". In layman's terms, endocrine disruptors are hormone altering chemicals (which sounds like the premise of a moody dystopian novel, but is in fact reality). Since the endocrine system regulates important biological processes in the body, including development of the brain and nervous system, growth and function of the reproductive system, and metabolism and blood sugar ...

These Date Night Spicy Sausage Stuffed Ravioli are too delicious for words! Paired with fresh seasonal vegetables and flavorful herbs... | Fresh Planet Flavor

Date-Night Spicy Sausage Stuffed Ravioli (Pastured Poultry, Part II)

I made this Date-Night Spicy Sausage Stuffed Ravioli solo, but I definitely think the effort is better split between two people… So make a date night out of it or give it a whirl with a friend or roommate. I am making use of fresh, seasonal ingredients here, so I skipped any type of labor-intensive prep of…

Loaded Sausage Breakfast (Pasturebird Hen) | Fresh Planet Flavor

Loaded Sausage Breakfast (Introducing Pasturebird)

I first met Pasturebird on Instagram, where I ogled their photos of glossy chickens basking in the sunlight, ranch dogs frolicking in the pasture, and weathered cowboy hats propped on pick-up truck dashboards. Were these stock photos? I wondered. In this cynical age of constant misleading marketing claims made by food brands, this glimpse of a…