It's events like the recent death of a Sea World trainer who was drowned by a killer whale that make me doubt whether animals and humans really belong together. Even the casual observer can see that it's neither humane nor safe to keep oceangoing animals unnaturally confined for our entertainment. But how does this idea trickle down to, say, pets? When should humans leave well enough alone? Are pets and people a mix?

According to a new book from documentary writer Meg Daley Olmert, animals and people are in fact Made for Each Other. "The face that wolves stopped stalking us and we took them into our caves proved to be a miraculous leap of faith that changed our world forever," she writes. Her theories are far from sentimental. Drawing on behavioral psychology, neuroscience, anthropology and more, Olmert delves into how this bond developed in the first place and questions what happens when these ties are cut.

"Contrary to the romantic myth, these stunning emotional and therapeutic effects are not the product of our pet's 'unconditional love' for us," she writes. "The research described in this book pulls back that sentimental curtain to reveal the very real and even more wondrous science behind it—the physiological reality of why animals can love us, why we can love them, and why that love is so good for everyone it touches."

(Photo credit:white lion, SXC)

If you're like us, you feel better knowing where your food comes from. Did you know that you can trace the origin of your milk from a code on the carton? More than likely, there's a handy little code on your carton of milk or tub of yogurt that tells you exactly where it's from. Run to the fridge for a peek at the code—we'll wait right here—and then look it up on Where is My Milk From?.

Bonus tip: identify your produce

Before we go, let's run through a quick refresher on how to tell if your produce is organic, conventional or genetically modified. Take a look at that annoying little sticker you normally peel off and flick into the trash. You're looking for the Price Look Up (PLU) code, which is set by the International Federation for Produce Standards.

• Organic produce 5-digit PLU number beginning with 9
• Conventional produce 4-digit PLU number beginning with 4
• Genetically modified (GMO) produce 5-digit PLU beginning with 8

(Photo credit:Gizmo1408, SXC)

March 8th is International Women's Day  a day on which hundreds of events that celebrate women occur all around the world.

For so many women green is the color of choice, the color of hope. Green initiatives offer a way out of poverty and oppression for women and cast a new light upon their role within the nuclear and Global family.

2010 being declared the International Year of Biodiversity, makes this year's celebration of women more poignant since biodiversity is key to the survival and livelihood of so many women worldwide.

The green movement has so many incredible women achievers to celebrate. Here are just a few interesting sites that celebrate women and the environment:

1. Going Green: Women and the Environment at Women Make Movies films by and about women.
2. The Green Women listing at Best Green Blogs
3. The Green Belt Movement whose mission it is: "to mobilize community consciousness for self-determination, equity, improved livelihoods and security, and environmental conservation."
4. The Eco Mom Alliance "a global organization of mothers working collectively to reduce global warming and propel an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable future.
5. Audubon Women In Conservation Program "was created for girls and women to discover the world of conservation and connect with the best and brightest women leaders in the environmental movement."

Happy International Women's Day 2010!

(Photo credit:blmurch on flickr)

When it comes to hitting the books, college students prefer to keep hitting the books—this, according to a new study on replacing traditional textbooks with e-readers. Students using Amazon Kindle DX e-readers at several major universities missed the ease of use in flipping through and taking notes in traditional textbooks.

Students' main concern was not being able to open more than one text at a time. According to a report at USA Today, "Students whose curriculum requires them to organize information culled from many different sources are particularly concerned with being able to navigate multiple documents at once, said Michael Koenig, director of operations at Virginia's Darden School of Business, which also ran a Kindle DX pilot program last fall. 'At the point where you need to highlight and notate in a fairly high-paced classroom—to be able to move back and forth between business cases, class readings, your own notations, your own highlights, your own analysis—it's just not as flexible or nimble as having your paper notes or your laptop right there,' he said, adding that the Kindle was 'not quite ready for prime time."

Old-fashioned note-taking techniques also proved hard to duplicate. With backpacks traditionally bristling with neon-colored highlighters for color-coding different types of information in different texts, students were unhappy with the difficulty of highlighting text. They also disliked the clunkiness of typing notes on the Kindle's keypad. "Many users thought that the addition of a touch screen and stylus would make for a much better device," wrote Princeton researchers.

Far from being a disappointment, the research results appear to confirm that Amazon has hit its mark with the Kindle. The e-reader was designed specifically for recreational use rather than hardworking study or professional applications. While 75% of the Darden students said they wouldn't recommend the Kindle for other students, about 90% gave it a thumbs up for casual reading. Whether or not it's a greener choice—now that's a topic for another day!

(Photo credit:Plutor, flickr)

If a small plot is your plight, fear not for, it's pocket gardening to the rescue!

Taking a lesson from good old mother nature, who can send up a shoot of something green through the cracks in almost any parking lot, some clever folks have come up ingenious green ideas for small gardens.

This new spin on window box gardening has people growing their own green vegetable bounty in the most unlikely places and containers. Pick a pocket, plant a packet and watch your garden grow.

Here are a few really great ideas for pocket and container gardens:

1. Handmade in the USA from recycled plastic bottles Woolly Pocket soft-sided garden containers are suitable for indoor or outdoor usage. Their breathable sides release excess moisture to aerate the soil and their waterproof lining helps keep walls and floors dry.
2. Upcycling an old colander or salad spinner for indoor lettuce and herb growing is a great idea.
3. Create your own attractive DIY hanging pocket garden by upcycling any number of beautifully designed and sturdy coffee or juice bags. Macrame some jute or twine to hang them on.
4. Stylish recycled tire planters are attractive, relatively lightweight and much easier to move around than heavy flower pots. The large handles are really convenient.
5. Eco-friendly and really quite attractive biodegradable rice hull pots and planters are great for green windowsill gardening.
6. Repurpose an old wheelbarrow by drilling drainage holes in the bottom and filling it with soil. This makes a great portable outdoor garden that can be repositioned easily to optimize sunny or shady spots around the garden.
7. Old teapots hung by their handles so that the spout is pointing downwards make great outdoor hanging planters. They usually have a strainer built into the spout to trap tea leaves but if their is no strainer a small piece of screen works just as well. Fill with enough soil so that it does not spill out and plant a hanging thyme, rosemary or other creeping herb and drape it out through the top of the pot.
8. A festive and colorful tin can garden can be made by upcycling large restaurant sized cans. Drill a few holes in the bottom and add some small stones or gravel to provide suitable drainage. Be sure to set these on a tray of some sort as tin cans tend to rust.
9. Always use a good quality organic planting medium to ensure good growth. Well begun is half done.

Don't be shy, if you plant it it will grow! Happy planning, happy planting and please feel free to share your favorite small space garden ideas with us.

(Photo credit:ms.lume on flickr)

The frog was not talking about his garden when he sang "it's not easy being green" he was talking about his soul. Cultivating a green soul is not always easy but it is more worth the doing than just about anything I know.

When it becomes our goal to nurture nature we begin to cultivate a relationship that supports our entire ecosystem.

Remember, if it is poisoning the frogs, birds and insects, then it is probably poisoning us and our kids. So this year take a vow to ditch the pesticides and herbicides and grow a lawn and garden that the frog would be happy to sing his heart out in. Here are some helpful tips:

1. Let's begin by considering our home, garden and environs as part of our immediate family and treat them with the love and respect that they deserve.
2. Keep it simple, let some of the marginal areas of our small or large acre go native or wild. This makes less work for us and helps restore depleted habitats for pollinators and small wildlife. There is no shame in, as Jane Austen puts it, "a prettyish kind of little wilderness on one side of your lawn." You gotta love the style of those nature loving Victorians.
3. Growing grasses, flowers and vegetables that are suitable for our zone helps to maximize gratification from our landscape. Having our soil tested then amending it properly and organically is key.
4. Always choosing to go green with our dollar by sticking to organic and green gardening sites, seeds and supplies for our landscape, is easier now than ever.
5. Making Green Hour activities part of our family's daily routine helps us to build a healthy relationship with our environment. Remembering to dream green by visualizing our lives, our gardens and our planet greenly helps to reinforce their health via "ye olde power of positive thinking."

Happy green planning and I'll see you over the fence this spring with lots of green gardening tips!

(Photo credit:ms.lume on flickr)

You'd never consider slipping your child a caffeine-laced energy drink for breakfast, but the boost they get from tea and coffee is natural and healthy—right? A lack of official U.S. recommendations on caffeine for the younger set makes pinning down an answer more of a (jittery) moving target. Add in the evolving taste of growing kids, and the opportunities for kids to amp up on too much caffeine seem endless: soda with lunch, energy drinks before sports practice, flavored teas from the convenience store, the ubiquitous dash through Starbucks ...

Those of us who rely on a java jolt to jump-start our mornings are quite familiar with the signs of overindulgence: anxiety and jitteriness, an upset stomach, headaches, insomnia, difficulty concentrating and an increased heart rate. In children whose minds and bodies are still growing, the effects can be more pervasive.

The effects of caffeine alter children's ability to learn and socialize, two mission-critical tasks for developing minds and bodies. "Caffeine can stimulate immature neurological systems beyond children's ability to tolerate it, which can have serious effects," says Terence Patterson, Ed.D., of the University of San Francisco, in a report from the American Psychological Association. "Excessive caffeine use damages the attention capacity that children need to cooperate in play, family and school environments."

Continue reading Are coffee and tea safe for kids? ›

(Photo credit:Pink Sherbet Photography, flickr)

Will allowing kids to literally sink their hands into learning in school gardens turn them into illiterate farmhands? According to Caitlin Flanagan in a new article at The Atlantic, it most certainly will. In building her shaky conclusion, Flanagan worships at the pedestal of book learning while conveniently overlooking the fact that there is nothing studied inside a school—math, biology, chemistry, literature, logic, art and more—that cannot also be learned while gardening. Add to that the benefits of teamwork, sustainability and responsibility reaped by young gardeners, and Flanagan is treading on loose soil indeed.

To understand more about what school gardens offer students, Super Eco visited with Jeanne McCarty, executive director of REAL School Gardens, a nonprofit organization that helps elementary schools create learning gardens. "School gardens are about much more than the activity of gardening, and the concepts students are learning go far beyond planting and cooking," McCarty told us. "Rather than substitutions for 'book learning,' as Flanagan implies, school gardens are living classrooms that reinforce, extend and bring to life what children are learning indoors. A school garden is a three-dimensional textbook that a child can physically enter, a vibrant and alive setting where he or she can observe, explore, test and practice math, science and other subjects."

Students with access to a school garden learn through experience. "Educators are able to teach children about concepts such as sedimentation, the nitrogen cycle, weather patterns and metamorphosis by observing these processes as they occur, in addition to reading about them," McCarty explains. "Last year, students at Fitzgerald Elementary School in Arlington, Texas, voted and chose science as their favorite subject because of their school’s dynamic garden."

Research shows that parental involvement goes up in schools with gardens, which McCarty notes is also frequently linked to student achievement.

In the end, school gardens are instrumental in helping students become well-rounded, engaged citizens. "While traditional academic learning is critically important, so is raising a generation of children who are happy, healthy and engaged in the world around them," McCarty says. "There is a wealth of research that indicates the positive impact of school gardens on children’s health and well-being, social and life skills development, civic responsibility and academic achievement—all essential ingredients for strong, competent, well-adjusted individuals."

REAL School Gardens currently supports 66 elementary schools in five urban school districts in North Texas by providing expertise in garden design and care, training teachers to use the garden for teaching and learning, and hosting events that bring people together throughout the region.

(Photo credit:Pink Sherbet Photography, flickr)

Do you really need to know what an antioxidant is in order to eat wisely? Food journalist Michael Pollan thinks not. In fact, cutting through the clamor of the latest research on this and the greatest supplement for that is the key to what Americans need to know to become healthier overall. We need less detail and more common sense food savvy.

"After spending several years trying to answer the supposedly incredibly complicated question of how we should eat in order to be maximally healthy, I discovered the answer was shockingly simple: eat real food, not too much of it, and more plants than meat," Pollan writes at The Huffington Post. "Or, put another way, get off the modern western diet, with its abundance of processed food, refined grains and sugars, and its sore lack of vegetables, whole grains and fruit."

So Pollan began collecting advice from people who ate real, whole foods, developing a list of common sense reminders that help keep grocery store shoppers and restaurant diners on track. His resulting book, Food Rules, presents that collective wisdom in 64 pithy principles for healthier eating.

From Food Rules:

• Avoid foods you see advertised on television. Food marketers are ingenious at turning criticisms of their products—and rules like these—into new ways to sell slightly different versions of the same processed foods: They simply reformulate (to be low-fat, have no HFCS or transfats, or to contain fewer ingredients) and then boast about their implied healthfulness, whether the boast is meaningful or not. The best way to escape these marketing ploys is to tune out the marketing itself, by refusing to buy heavily promoted foods.
• If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't.
• Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk. This should go without saying. Such cereals are highly processed and full of refined carbohydrates as well as chemical additives.

Not only does real food taste better and offer a healthier way to eat, but it could go a long way toward solving the chronic health problems dogging Americans and swelling our need for more and more health care interventions. Observes Pollan: "Make no mistake: our health care crisis is in large part a crisis of the American diet -- roughly three quarters of the two-trillion plus we spend on health care in this country goes to treat chronic diseases, most of which can be prevented by a change in lifestyle, especially diet."

(Photo credit:Michael Pollan)

Looks like we're not the only ones who think real food stands a fighting chance at making it back onto the American plate. Our friends at Change.org have put "mainstream concern about cheap food" at the top of their list of sustainable food trends to watch for 2010. "We eat unhealthily largely because our industrial food system processes subsidized corn into food-like stuff that we place at the center of our diets where fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains should be," writes Katherine Gustafson. "To the health-conscious or those active in food politics, that statement will come as no surprise."

Surprised? Not us. We've lent our voice to the growing chorus all year long. Get the big picture by scanning our list of the best 20 stories on what we call "real food" from the past year.

1. Can Big Beef censor the sustainable truth?
2. Safer bottles haven't canned BPA problems
3. Big Ag's growing appetite for lobbying
4. Top 10 riskiest FDA-regulated foods
5. Obama's health plan: the missing element (it's food!)
6. Unlock the facts on GM seeds
7. Demand for organics reaches all demographics
8. Cheerios are a drug, says the FDA
9. Fast food chains riding the green train
10. Nastiest junk food ingredients
11. The unexpected influence of biofuel on pest control
12. Whose fault is elite meat?
13. Vilsack leads changes in food politics
14. The oxymoron of organic junk food
15. Pork industry breeding superbugs?
16. The dirty dozen: Know which produce is heavy on pesticides
17. Artificial sweeteners: Sweet and lowdown
18. The industrialization of organic food
19. Go organic when it counts
20. Eat locally everywhere: Locavores go mainstream
21. Can you name 3 foods high in trans fats?
22. Recalls point to processed food pitfalls
23. Can organic survive the economic downturn?
24. Mercury found in high fructose corn syrup

Ok, you're right—that was 24 stories, not 20. We couldn't find four stories to trim from the list that we didn't think you need to read.

What can you do to serve up real food? Unfortunately, we're still at the "let the buyer beware" stage—so let Super Eco show you how. Here's to taking heart, taking action and eating healthy in 2010.

(Photo credit:ckforjc, SXC)