Sustainability : Buzz

If you haven't been able to cop a ticket to a Stew dinner, here's a peek at a recent dinner and the trend that is spreading across the country.

"A Stew meal is not elaborate. The main course is soup; tonight it's a choice between vegan spring onion and rabbit with dumplings. Tickets to the event are $10 each. But there's more to this meal than the composition of a plate of radishes, or of the next course: spears of roasted asparagus, pleasantly salted, arranged to form squares that overlap at the corners.

Stew is the brainchild of the Baltimore Development Cooperative (not to be confused with the Baltimore Development Corp.), which was started in 2007 by three recent MICA graduates, all artists now in their late 20s: Scott Berzofsky, Nicholas Wisniewski and Nester. They wanted to use food to foster community and stimulate activism."

Read the entire article here.

If you haven't made it to one of the many farmer's markets in the Greater Baltimore area, you don't know what you've been missing...

"Vendors at farmers' markets in Baltimore, Howard and Carroll counties can only sell what they produce or what they make from something they grow, such as soap or baked goods. Goods travel no further than 50 miles to get to market.

The only drawback of shopping at local farmers' markets is you will only find foods that are in season.

"When you go to the markets in May, you won't see corn because corn isn't seasonal in this area until summer," Zimmerman says..."

Read the entire article here.

A new bill signed by Gov. O'Malley lets electric car drivers travel in HOV lanes regardless of how many people are -- or are not -- in the car. It's another incentive to get Marylanders to give up their gas guzzlers.

Here's an excerpt:

"If there was ever a sign the US is taking the whole concept of electric vehicles seriously, it is the recent news the State of Maryland has mandated free access to high-occupancy lanes for plug-in models.

State governor Martin O'Malley (D) has put his signature to a bill that not only gives EV access to HOV lanes, but crucially allows their use regardless of the number of passengers.

That's a pretty important distinction - the whole point of HOVs after all is 'high occupancy' but it sends a clear message that EVs will be given preferential treatment no matter how full.

The EV sector in Maryland will also benefit from fairly generous tax breaks - namely a $2,000 excise motor vehicle credit..."

Read the entire article here.

"Inner-city Baltimore is a 'food desert" with many fast food restaurants and corner stores, but few supermarkets," said lead author Hee-Jung Song, Ph.D., a researcher in the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. "These food environments result in less availability of and accessibility to healthy food and impact on the kinds of food consumed by low-income residents."

The study appears online in the journal Health Promotion Practice.

The Baltimore Healthy Store program provided monetary incentives or free food to store owners, coordinated education about nutrition and developed guidelines for the owners to follow to help overcome language and cultural barriers. This is important, since most corner storeowners in Baltimore are Korean-American, while the customers largely are African-American."

Read the entire article here.

Going vegetarian, if only for a day, is a growing trend not just in Baltimore, but around the U.S. Johns Hopkins Hospital recently joined the meatless movement, following in the footsteps of Baltimore City Public Schools.

Here's an excerpt:

"The campaign started in 2003 as a nonprofit public health initiative of The Monday Campaigns, in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future in Baltimore, Maryland.

But aside from the alliteration, why meatless and why Monday?

"Studies suggest we are more likely to maintain behaviors begun on Monday throughout the week," according to the Healthy Monday public health campaign.

Research compiled by the initiative suggests going meatless conserves water, reduces carbon footprints and lowers intake of saturated fats.

"You certainly don't need to eat meat to get protein. Meat is an important part of your diet, but you don't need to eat it every day of the week," Ralph Logiscli, director of the Healthy Monday Project, told CNN.

On April 12, Johns Hopkins Hospital's cafeteria began offering only vegetarian options in its Wellness Corner on Mondays. "If you think chili needs meat, you don't know beans," touts a promotional poster featuring the cafeteria's chef, Shawn Fields.

There are vocal critics.

When Baltimore City Public Schools adopted Meatless Mondays last year as a way to cut costs, conservative commentator Glenn Beck deemed it an indoctrination of children to vegetarianism and veganism and decried it as an over-extension of governmental control."

Read the entire article here.

The legislation, signed into law by Gov. Martin O'Malley, requires that benefit corporations create a positive impact on society and that boards of directors consider how decisions will affect employees, local jurisdictions, and the environment, rather than just looking at shareholders' interests. It also offers board members legal protection for taking social and environmental issues into consideration."

Read the entire post here.

The city of Baltimore replaced its flower beds in front of city hall with vegetables last year. The goal, says designer Angela Treadwell-Palmer, was to show that vegetable gardens could be attractive and to grow harvests to donate to a local soup kitchen. But the local charity reported that some crops�particularly beets, kohlrabi and eggplant�weren't appetizing to people.

So this year, Ms. Treadwell-Palmer is redesigning the garden to grow bigger yields of fewer crops like cabbage, kale and collard greens. The garden will also have a less-fussy, more minimalist look. And in the spring, at least, not all the beds will be vegetable plots, leaving room for some tulips�and more time for gardeners to breathe. "It was hard work," she says."

Read the entire article here.

Canada and Vermont may have tapped into the motherload of sappy harvests, but did you know that Western Maryland boasts its own sweet harvest?

Here's an excerpt:

"In a few days to weeks, the trees in Western Maryland will start blooming . . . buckets.

As maple syrup season nears, producers in Garrett County are readying their tapping equipment for harvesting time, which runs from the end of this month through April. The sap starts to flow during the spring thaw, when the combination of mineral-rich soil and temperate weather yields exceptionally rich and sweet syrup. (Quick dendrology lesson: Sap is the sugary water that circulates in a tree after it wakes up from a cold winter.)"

Read the full article here.

Looking for local taps? Find it them here.