Dear kind readers,

Green LA girl is coming to an end.

That is, the blog green LA girl is no longer going to be updated. The woman you might refer to as green LA girl — that would be me, Siel — will continue on living.

You’ve probably noticed that since about the middle of last year, the pace and energy of green LA girl has slowed quite a bit. During that time I switched careers from freelance writing to teaching, moved back to Santa Monica, and focused more on my creative writing — the stuff I neglected after getting my PhD in 2008 (and a bit before that too).

I’ve really enjoyed blogging here the last 6+ years, but my interests are — drifting. And to pursue those new interests, I have to let go of old ones.

Thanks to Nisha, April, and Sarah, who’ve helped keep this blog afloat the last few months. Thanks to everyone who came to the Blogger Beach Cleanup, green beauty party, and other green LA girl events. And thanks to all of you readers for your engagement and encouragement over the years.

For the time being, green LA girl will stay online. I may still occasionally update this blog with personal updates, but more likely, I’ll develop my new personal website that focuses more on my new interests. That site’s still very bare bones, but you can find it at sielju.com.

I hope you’ll keep in touch.

Siel

I met Heidi after the Grammy Greening Summit, where she excitedly talked to me about her new food company, Luko Foods, which she founded 9 months ago with best friend Nikki. Yes, a new food baby has been brought into the world and it’s delicious! :) Heidi’s contribution to Luko Foods is her fresh salsas, the thought of which leave my mouth watering at the thought of how fresh they are (made with ingredients from local farms, so the ingredients are extra fresh!).

Nikki’s contribution is a line of jams, including Orange Ginger Marmalade, Fig Balsamic (which is being served on the menu of Malibu Golf Club restaurant Malibu and Vines), Blueberry Lemon Lavender, and Strawberry heat (a spicy strawberry jam!).

Both of these former advertising professionals left their jobs, feeling disenchanted with having to conduct analyses of the marketing statistics of iPods and to design plans for pushing Dr. Pepper sodas into schools.

One day while discussing future plans, Nikki told Heidi that she was interested in selling jams she had been creating at a farmer’s market. Prior to this moment, Heidi had won 1st place in the 30th anniversary celebration of Los Angeles farmer’s markets for her salsa, which at the time was called ‘The Loco Local by Luko’ (her last name at the time, and the origin of the Luko Foods name brand). In that moment, they both saw an opportunity presenting itself to create an independent business, selling fresh, artisan, hand-crafted foods to the Los Angeles community.

Most of the ingredients in Luko Foods are locally grown –- They are building relationships with Los Angeles based food growers from who they get many (if not most) of the ingredients in their jams and salsas. Luko Foods currently sources their food from two farms – South Central Farmers and Marina Farms.

I asked if they are completely local and organic, and Nikki said that they are not yet so, since it is difficult to find local or organic makers of some of their ingredients, such as port wine for the Fig Balsamic spread. They also use spices in their foods, some of which have uncertain origins. They emphasized, however, that they are very open to learning, exploring options, and constantly improving the deliciousness, quality, and organic and local nature of their products.

We also had a conversation about their containers, which are printed with gorgeous, artistic labels. They told me that they have friends who have designed the art for their labels, which made them pause to reflect on all the support and input they have had from their community of friends and family. Nikki’s jams are packaged in glass jars, for which there is a bottle return policy: return your empty jar and get $1 back.

Heidi is currently packaging her salsas in plastic containers, because she wants to sell fresh salsa, which she wouldn’t be able to do if she packaged it in the Mason jars (you have to put the jars with its contents in boiling water to vacuum seal them). She said that she is interested in alternatives to plastic, but has not been able to find any thus far. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to comment on this article, or to connect directly with Luko Foods on their Facebook page.

When it comes down to it, I probably have three favorite facts about Luko Foods. Firstly, Heidi’s recipe is a modified version of her mother’s salsa recipe. This just made me happy, since I learned to cook fresh from my mother too. :) Secondly, Nikki’s jams are LOW SUGAR! Nikki told me that she compared her recipes to others online and realized she uses about half of the sugar called for by the standard jam recipe.

You can clearly taste the unique flavor of each of the fruits in her jams, which are very delicate and vibrant, since they are not weighed down by syrupy sweetness. She designs her recipes to let the fruit speak for itself. She made the point that people enjoy fresh oranges and blueberries plain –- they don’t dump spoonfuls of sugar on top, so there is no reason to do so in jam making. Her jams are very light and flavorful, without the heavy syrupy texture of others jams/marmalades I have tried.

My third favorite fact is one about which we had a huge conversation -– Luko Foods feels passionately about their products not just as a business, but as a way to power forward, invest in, dialogue about and support the food movement. As I mentioned in my Grammy Greening Summit article (and this is a point of discussion I shared with Heidi and Nikki), food is a central part of the green movement. If we are going to change our society to live more sustainably with the planet, we MUST change our eating methods and habits. Heidi and Nikki both emphatically stated how happy they are to be supporting and investing their time and energy into creation of fresh, local foods as an alternative to the corporate takeover of our food system.

Heidi and Nikki recently joined me in my home for a Luko Foods tasting, leaving me with full containers of all of their current products. :) I say current, because they work with seasonal foods, experimenting with new ingredients as they present themselves throughout the year, such as Heidi’s summertime Peach Piñata and seasonal blood orange salsa. They both agreed that it is more important to them to get ripe, fresh, seasonal ingredients than to get foods that have had a long shelf life, are out of season, genetically modified, or that have been shipped across the nation or world.

When they first came to my home for the tasting, I tried the jams and salsas on a whole-wheat sourdough bread I had made. I have since experimented with a few different recipes. I LOVE both the Blueberry Lemon Lavendar and Orange Ginger Marmalade on plain yoghurt (mmm… parfait!). I had made a cashew cream (plain yoghurt, raw cashews and a little coconut oil in a food processer), which paired deliciously with the Fig Balsamic. I was given a jar of their Bacon Maj (Maj = everything opposite of jam). I don’t eat bacon, so I shared it with my students to give them a gourmet treat. I baked a raisin flatbread (1.5 cups sourdough starter, 1.5 cups whole-wheat flour, 1/2 cup raisins, sugar, salt and allspice/cinnamon, prepared and baked like a pizza crust), which I topped with honey cashew cream (cashew cream recipe above + honey and a little salt) and Bacon Maj. The kids loved it. :) I tried this combo with the Fig Balsamic, which was also delicious. I love the Strawberry Heat with a nice thick layer of pasture-raised butter on some of my homemade toast.

Nikki has some other recipes on her website that look delicious. Be sure to check them out. :)

If you want to meet these wonderful women in person, be sure to visit them on Sundays between 10am – 2 pm at the Melrose Place Farmer’s Market in West Hollywood. They are there come rain or shine! You can also order online, including beautifully prepared gift-baskets. See below for links to their websites and Facebook page.

Enjoy!!!

LUKO FOODS

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HEIDI’S SALSA

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NIKKI’S JAM

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All photos by Nisha

Image via Blog Downtown

I have become very involved in food issues, having realized that food production, vending, consumption, and other food related issues including waste and human health are fundamentally related to environmental health.

As I mentioned in my Grammy Greening Summit article, local growers are uniting with raw foodists who are in turn forming food coops to provide things like raw milk. These efforts are being spawned by the exponentially growing number of people who have come to realize how enormously detrimental “conventional” farming is on human and environmental health, while also discovering the superior potential of responsible, sustainable, live agriculture to augment the Earth’s ability to grow and regenerate, while still providing more than enough food for the world’s peoples.

As many of you know, in the United States, purchasing an industrially farmed, processed and packaged food item containing ingredients shipped several times across the globe and requiring laboratory work (in the form of pesticides and genetically modified seeds) is often far cheaper than purchasing a locally grown carrot or tomato from the neighborhood farmer’s market.  Industrial agriculture is a primary contributor to global warming, behind automobile and factory exhaust, and highly processed foods resulting from the industrial agricultural process are a primary contributor to obesity, diabetes, heart problems and other illnesses. Over 80% of foods eaten by Americans contain genetically modified seeds, and the farming of soy is a primary contributor to the massive destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Food is traded as a commodity on stock exchanges, meaning that it is grown and sold to raise a profit for business people. Meanwhile, in the United States, we waste about enormous amounts of the food we produce.

In response, urban communities across the United States have started to grow their own food from organic and heirloom seed and have started to investigate these issues and how healthier alternatives can be created.

Siel has blogged extensively about the urban garden movement in Los Angeles (and related issues), including info about: signs of its growth; books, and more books; LA based environmental charter schools; yard sharing for those who don’t have land; guerilla gardening; dirt and its importance to our lives; points of personal change and advocacy; etc.

I am dedicating the rest of this post to things you can do and organizations you can follow, join, or donate to in Los Angeles, working hard on these related issues.

1.) First, to have immediate access to gardening and planting related grants, talks, events, classes, etc., join UC Davis cooperative extension Master Gardener program manager Yvonne Savio’s listserve (email ydsavio [at] ucdavis [dot] edu). Also, check out the UC Davis Extension webpage. If you want to learn urban vegetable gardening basics, sign up for the Victory Gardener program at a community garden near you (these classes take place ALL over the city).

2.) Check out the UC Davis list of LA based community gardens, or check the LA Community Garden Council website to find out where the community garden nearest you is located, and go volunteer there. You might be able to take home free veggies, fruits and herbs for your efforts.

3.) Subscribe to the Los Angeles Agriculture blog and LA Farm Girl.

4.) Check out the work of EnrichLA, an organization dedicated to putting a garden in every school in Los Angeles. They do GREAT work, so donate or volunteer at one of their sites if you can.

5.) Check out the trailer for the GMO Film (made by the creators of Dive! for which I posted the film trailer above), and donate to them if you can. They are working hard to create a film to raise awareness on the giant corporate takeover of the American food system, starting with the most ancient of human inheritances: seeds.

6.) Get involved with the campaigns to put an initiative on the upcoming November ballot to label GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Either donate to one of the two major campaigns (Labelgmos.org and Justlabelit.org). Labelgmos.org is doing a lot of work to recruit people to petition the public, so check their website for more info. Host a petitioning party and gather a bunch of signatures to put this issue on our ballot. Attend this Saturday’s SLOLA meeting, where labelgmos.org will be present and handing out free seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom (see info at bottom of this post). We have the right to know what is in our food!

7.) Subscribe to my blog, Local to Global Life Works, to learn more about these issues and how actions and decisions local to Los Angeles are connected to global trends and have global impact. I host events, post about events, etc. to keep you in the loop.

8.) Check out, support, volunteer for or donate to the work of the Los Angeles branch of one of America’s first peace and justice activism organizations, the American Friends Service Committee. One of the LA office’s main projects is maintaining four urban gardens (called Friends Peace Gardens) at high risk Los Angeles high schools to combat gang violence and to create access and awareness about healthy eating and fresh foods.

9.) Check out, support, volunteer for or donate to work of TreePeople, who have been active in LA for decades, and the new project 100 Seeds of Change through the Social Justice Learning Project, trying to bring urban gardening to South Los Angeles food deserts.

10.) Check out, support, volunteer for, donate to, or become a member of SLOLA – the Seed Library of Los Angeles ($10 lifetime membership), and attend their weekly meetings at the Venice Learning Garden. If you live closer to downtown LA or Pasadena, do not fret, because SLOLA is creating an eastern library branch. Feel free to email me for more information on this (namorandovida [at] gmail [dot] com).

If you have some free time this Sat., Mar. 17, be sure to stop by the Venice SLOLA meeting, since they are discussing a subject close to my heart – crop plants plants native to the Americas and their historic/cultural importance, with resources on how to obtain and care for their seeds. Plus, LabelGMOs.org is also sponsoring a distribution of seeds — free to SLOLA members — from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. And at the close of the meeting, SLOLA’s ever-expanding seed library will open again for check out.

If you’ve never attended a SLOLA meeting or have questions about seed saving, you’re invited to come 15 minutes early for a “Seed Saving Basics” presentation.

Image via LA Farm Girl

If you want an organic meat burger — and you want it fast — stop by O! Burger in West Hollywood.

Yes, there are other options for eco-friendlier burgers in Los Angeles. Want a sumptuous, gourmet organic burger with a price tag to match? I recommend BLD. Willing to settle for “natural” instead of organic? Try Fresh East. Vegan? Head over to The Veggie Grill. Cool with carcinogens as long as they’re veg? Boca Burgers are cheap. Don’t give a shit about yourself or the planet? McDonald’s still has many locations all over SoCal.

But if you want a fast food burger made organic, O! Burger is the place. Really in a hurry? Order it online and pick it up.

Though the grass fed organic beef burger’s its raison d’etre, O! Burger has organic turkey burgers too and does offer a veggie burger — though I have to say the house veg burger isn’t the tastiest veg burger I’ve come across. The deal is healthy though, with a medley of spinach, corn, carrots, and peas — all under crisp cucumber slices.

But really, this place is great for your occasional meaty indulgence. Get your burger the way you want it — all organic sans hormones or antibiotics — salad style on greens or on a yummy bun — always in recyclable, compostable or biodegradable packaging.

Instead of the usual high fructose corn syrup sweetened coke, you can get natural sodas or kombucha. Don’t miss the chocolate chip peanut butter cookies!

O! Burger. 8593 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. 310.854.034. 10:30 am – 9:30 pm daily.

This is for the traveler (occasional or frequent) trying to do at least the smallest amount of something to minimize impact on the environment. Yes, flying is a HUGE contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, but for many Angelenos with family, friends, work relations (not to mention travel fever) all over the country/world, flying is sometimes unavoidable…

While inventors figure out new modes of national and international travel, there are a few things you can do to minimize waste while traveling. Check out the tips below and also this article by the David Suzuki Foundation on environmental travel tips.

1. Refuse to eat airplane food. Firstly, it’s usually beyond overly-processed slop, with likely little to no nutritional value (if you even get a meal). Secondly, it comes wrapped in at least one if not multiple layers of plastic, which all get thrown away. When meal service comes by, just say no thank you.

Alternative: Pack your own meal ahead of time. If you are traveling domestically in the United States, you can pack fresh fruit for yourself, and any cooked/prepared foods (sandwiches, soup, etc.) This also saves you money on expensive food at the airport. Make sure to pack enough food to last you until you arrive at your destination (unless you have time to eat a sit down meal at the airport, to avoid to-go packaging waste). If traveling internationally, do not take any fresh produce. However, you can pack cooked foods. If it’s not too much to worry about, pack reusable cutlery.

2. Pack your own bottle, cup, and/or coffee mug for airline staff to pour drinks in. There is no need for a new plastic cup every time beverage service passes you by. You will get through airline security without a problem is there is NO LIQUID in your bottle. Once you are on the flight, ask the airline staff to pour your beverage into your cup. I have done this several times, without a problem. Be sure to carry your reusable cup around in your new destination to avoid getting drinks in single use containers.

Photo via BottleBill.org

3. Tired of exploding products in your suitcase? Do you buy new products once you reach your destination? Try this instead: squeeze all the air out of plastic bottles, and close the cap. Put all your bottles into one plastic bag. Squeeze the air out, and tie the bag closed. Put this bag into another bag with the ties facing the bottom of the second bag. Squeeze out the air and re-tie it. You should have no leaks with this method, though you are well protected if you do. Keep these bags with you throughout your whole trip, and maybe even set them aside when you return for future use.

4. If you are going across the state, or maybe just 1 city over, seriously consider taking a bus or a train round-trip. In LA, Metrolink is a GREAT way to connect to the whole Southern California region; you can put your bike on it for free, its cheaper than gas, and get you to the places you want to go as quickly as driving. Amtrak is more pricey and slower than driving, but if you are going far and have several days of travel time, it is definitely worth it.

Photo via LA Streets Blog

5. If you have to drive long distance, try to not rev the engine too hard (burns more gas), but gently push and release the accelerator. Try to maintain a single speed, to be easy on your engine. Again, pack enough food and drink for yourself to not have to get takeout with one use containers, or stop at sit down dine-in places.

6. If you have to drive, make an announcement on Facebook to see if anyone wants to make a trip with you (aka carpool), or check and post on Craigslist’s rideshare page to see if anyone is offering or needs a ride to your destination.

7. At hotels – try to run shower and sink water on the lowest setting possible. Make sure to see if they have a green cleaning option available (so your sheets/towels are not changed everyday). Pack your own soaps and products, so that you don’t have to open and waste the little plastic bottle convenience packs they give you. Make sure you always turn off the lights/heater/cooler when you are not in the room.

8. Do your research ahead of time – where are the local, sustainable restaurants located? Local bakeries?

9. Again, do your research ahead of time – how can you transport yourself without having to rent a car or take taxis everywhere? How can you get to your destination without a car? How can you get around the city without a car? Can you rent a bicycle for a few days?

Photo of Kyoto Cycling Tour Project, courtesy of TripAdvisor

10. Again, do your research ahead of time – what fruits and vegetables are in season in the place you are visiting? Try and order those things when you eat out.

11. For the last time, do your research ahead of time – what awesome environmental orgs are in the place you are visiting? Are there any community land trusts? Eco-villages? Bicycle coalitions? Urban gardens? Seed-saving organizations? If you are active on an issue in LA, can you link with an org doing similar work in a new place? Contact them ahead of time, if possible, to see if they are willing to meet with you or give you a tour of their facility. Coalition building is key in the environmental movement, and it’s always good to get new ideas from stuff going on in new places. :)