My Favorite Image From Good Magazine

But my favorite image from Good Magazine is this one:

Basically, it portrays how 50 passengers and how much road space it would require to transport them.  First is 50 people and 50 cars (astounding!), second is 50 people and 1 bus, third is 50 people and 50 bikes (so cute!).  Actually, I guess the image also shows 50 people walking too!  Often times we are so busy counting carbon emissions or mpg, that we forget about the aggregate effect.  Also, next time I almost get run over by a car, I will attempt to explain this graphic to them when I pull up to them at the next red light.  WHICH ALWAYS HAPPENS.

Nowhere was this graphic more apparent than at Pink Party this Saturday, which is basically a giant dance party on Castro and Market to celebrate acceptance and LGBT pride.  As such, people flow in from all over the Bay Area to dance it up!  And as such, the roads are completely stalled.  On our bikes, we passed soooo many completely stopped cars it was almost heartbreaking.  Lines of lights as far as you could see at pretty much every intersection (imagine the first image, at night time).  A + L who were bikeless and stuck on buses, had a hell of a time getting to and from and ended up mostly walking.  So while the bus image is cool, the 50 bikes are more fluid.  Thus, it took Pumpkin and I 30 min to bike, while it took A + L an hour to bus/walk.  Bikes for the win!

Biking and Walking Increasing With Better Urban Planning

According to Good Magazine, a great little production, biking and walking are on the rise.  While I debate the scientific veracity of this uncontrolled, single variable, correlational analysis, I like the results so I'm linking them here.  The more the Department of Transportation spends on walking and biking routes, the more people walk and ride.  Makes sense.  Thanks L for the link!

Groupon and Advertising

I see very little advertisements these days.  While the average American (who I'm always talking about), sees 3000/day, I see maybe 10.  Maybe.  I never watch live tv and even on Hulu, I mute the advertisements to do something else.  Once in a while I'll actually see the ads on various websites, but it's hardly compelling in their static state.  

However, recently I signed up for Groupon, which is a website that sends you a deal of the day- usually 30-60% off.  They do this by ensuring the deal giver a certain amount of customers.  Power of the numbers sort of thing.  Usually when my Groupon email comes, I read the title and ignore it.  I don't need massages and another fruffy nonsense.  But today, the deal was 45% off Let's Be Frank.  And to my surprise, Let's Be Frank is a sustainable hot dog place.  Maybe the first in the nation.  They source their beef from 180 miles away and the mission statement was to create a slow fast food.  Pretty sweet. 

And at 45% off, the franks were 5.33/lb.  That is a very respectable price, comparable to non-local, but organic Aidells (kicked out of Ferry Building Farmer's Market, oooooooo, scandal!).  So I bought the max amount, 36 ounces or 12 links.  

I am really happy with the purchase for a couple of reasons.  (1) I have not tried to make my own sausages.  While the endeavor would be interesting, sourcing it locally is not worth it.  I already have plenty of meat in the fridge and don't feel like butchering it further than ground meat (of one animal) or slices.  Maybe someday, along with my own bacon, when I start buying whole animals.

(2) I have only done a little research on sustainable sausages but pretty much resigned myself to the fact that everybody sources pigs from Iowa.  Which let's be frank, Let's Be Frank does for their pork sausages.  Their reasoning is that pigs do eat corn and so they should be as close to the corn source as possible.  I think this is...strange logic at best so I'll have to question whether or not I want to buy their pork sausage (or spicy Italian sausage).  Hopefully the latter is too spicy so I'll just end up with the beef sausages and call it a day.  Because I really love Italian sausage.

(3) We eat less meat when we cook with sausages.  One sausage is about 2-3 oz, and we'll eat 1/2 or 1 sausage per person.  And since less meat, even if the meat you buy is sustainable, is better, I think sausages are a good, flavorful way to trick my palate into submission.  It certainly worked this weekend when we had 4 sausages/person cover 4 different meals.

(4) Sausages are quick.  They are individually proportioned and freeze well.  And with my impending loss of freedom (more details later!), this may be the saving grace of it all.  But don't think I don't see your trick Groupon, I already was thinking of buying sausages last night, so this doesn't count as an impulse buy right?  Right?

Buying With Trust

I'm a geek.  I really like learning about things, researching, analyzing and coming up with best practices (as they say in policy).  As such, I have no trouble spending a lot of my free time examining who I buy from.  Last week, for the first time ever, I bought half a gallon of milk from Straus Family Creamery, a local creamery who seriously practices healthy farms.  From their waste management to pasture raised cows to the classy glass bottles, this was one of the only websites that answered all my questions.  And I had many.

But too often, I'm fooled by websites.  For instance Tom's of Maine, whom we trust our teeth with, is actually owned by Colgate.  Odwalla is Coca-cola and to compete, Pepsi bought Naked Juice.  See this article for more shockers!  

Like when Food, Inc included Walmart in their story, I'm on the fence about whether or not sustainable principles can be kept in the hands of faceless corporations only concerned with the bottom line.  Like I said in the beginning, it's not the fact we eat meat that puts us into environmental crisis, but instead the sheer amount of it.  Usually when things go bigger, it outgrows the natural system and externalities are pushed onto the environment to maintain a profit.  

And while I don't mind people making a profit, I absolutely abhor that they may be making 2x the amount just by slapping organic onto the label.  When one giant food conglomerate grows food conventionally next door to its giant organic field, the difference becomes negligible (except perhaps in pesticides).  See Micheal Pollan's "Behind the Organic-Industrial Complex." While that difference is enough for others to pay 2x as much and call it a day, I'm not exactly sold.  Although I certainly understand why they would stop at labeling- who has time to go through confusing advertising and purposeful misrepresentation?  Sometimes, even if you do the research, the results are murky.

I want to trust in what I buy, I want to trust that they are doing the best they can.  Nobody has to be perfect, except the Straus's who even agonize over the added weight of using glass for increased transportation emissions vs. being able to reuse glass containers 8x before recycling them.   And for that, I gladly chose them over Silk (Conagra), Horizon Organics (Dean Dairy Co, largest dairy in the world) and even Clover Farms and Organic Valley who are non-local farm co-ops.  This time, unlike a year ago, I didn't recoil in pain, I gladly paid 2x as much.  Because that's the kind of trust I want to buy behind.