Choosing Tofu for Your Health and Your Wallet

Happy belated Labor Day! Sorry you’re seeing this after Labor Day, but I just got the opportunity to sit down and write this blog. It wasn’t a particularly tough Meatless Monday because I didn’t go to a picnic. Instead, I went to the Strip District to pick up some groceries at Lotus Foods and Stan’s Market.

My main meal was tofu and Asian vegetables called, “Phooi leaves,” in a white sauce.

Tofu and phooi leaves in a Chinese white sauce

Lotus Foods is the only place in Pittsburgh I know that makes its own tofu. Today was the first time I bought tofu. Though I happily eat it when my mom or aunt prepare it, tofu isn’t something I feel confident preparing myself.

I felt so cool, like I was in the club, using a spatula to scoop up two 3-by-3 inch blocks of fresh, soft tofu.

Two blocks of tofu for $0.60! The Smarties are for scale.

When I went to the check out counter, I watched the numbers tick up for each of my purchases: Farmer brand peanuts, instant noodles, cilantro and of course, the tofu. The cashier rang up the tofu. It only cost $0.30 per block! What a value! I’ll definitely have extra for maybe a Meatless Tuesday.

I find that going veggie can save money. Though produce can be expensive, I’m buying about as much produce as would if I was just making sides for a meat dish. The savings comes when I replace my protein. When eating out, skipping meat on a pasta or salad usually knocks off at least three dollars per meal. It all adds up.

Going vegan, on the other hand, sometimes costs more money. From organic cotton clothing to non-dairy products, it can be a challenge. A few weeks ago I tried Rice Dream for the first time. It was a delicious addition to my cereal. Now, I have a 32-ounce carton of Almond Breeze almond milk in my fridge that I paid about three dollars for at Right by Nature Market. I feel a little guilty not buying the organic almond milk, but the Almond Breeze packs 20 percent of my daily calcium per serving. I couldn’t pass that up.

Almond Breeze brand almond milk

The taste is a little starchy, like the Rice Dream. But I love Almond Breeze’s sweet and nutty flavor. It’s something I could see myself drinking, unlike the Rice Dream. It’ll be a delicious addition to my morning cereal. And for how little I use milk (since I’m lactose intolerant), I think I can spring for the more expensive dairy alternative drinks.

So for the faithful Green Beet followers: How has going veggie or vegan saved you money?

Post and photos by Estelle Tran

Overcoming Thinking Icky, Being Picky

Like any picky eater, I hated most foods as a child. If it wasn’t beige or didn’t come from a box, I wouldn’t eat it. My diet consisted of four main food items: chicken, mashed potatoes, pizza (but not with too much sauce!), and bagels. During one particularly memorable family dinner, I was forced to try pasta. Clearly it should have fit in with the other foods as it is fairly bland and full of carbohydrates. Yet after one bite I declared it too “soggy” for my sophisticated eight-year-old taste buds. I shamed the family name. In our case, a long, consonant-rich Italian one.

All of that started to change this past spring. I read a book: Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. It offered a number of arguments for being a vegetarian appealing to all types of people: the environmentalist, the animal-lover, and anyone who just wants to know exactly what it is they’re eating. I definitely fit into the last category. Some of the descriptions of what the industry allowed to pass as meat had me thinking, yuck! So I decided to try becoming a vegetarian.

But that was obviously easier said than done. My mom worried that with all of the restrictions I placed on food, I’d never get all of the nutrients I needed without meat. Although at this point I had outgrown some of my rules and expanded my dietary repertoire to include pasta with a light sprinkling of sauce, I still refused certain staples such as soup, beans, humus, and other less than solid foods.

My mom and I have been working to overcome that this summer. We’ve been cooking our way through the Vegetarian Classics cookbook by Jeanne Lemlin this summer. Well, she’s been cooking and I’ve been stirring or rinsing or grating at her command. We’ve tried Zucchini Frittata, peanut noodle, corn chowder, and roasted eggplant sandwiches, all things that would have failed my earlier standards for consistency and taste but that now I’ve begun to find exciting and delicious.

A few nights ago we tackled Spanish Tortilla. Everyone’s familiar with a Mexican tortilla: a thin, round pancake made of corn or flour. But this is more like an omelet. The word tortilla comes from the Spanish word torta, which means cake. The -illa on the end is a diminutive. When you put them together, you get “little cake.”

The eggs, potatoes and onions cook ninety percent before the whole thing is flipped over.

This omelet is simple, with just potatoes and onions on the inside. Instead of placing the ingredients on top of the wet egg and folding it over into a half-moon partway through cooking, everything is mixed together and this omelet fills the whole pan. The climactic cooking moment comes when you have to flip the whole thing from the pan onto a plate and then slide it back into the pan to finish cooking. I let my mother do the honors.

We had some fresh greens on the side. It was a perfect meal in hot weather.

The Spanish tapas (meaning appetizers) bars serve their tortillas at room temperature, but ours was delicious right out of the pan--warm, mushy, and flavorful. Eating at the dinner table with my mother, I realized that there’s no faster way to overcome your pickiness than to be forced into trying new things by dietary restrictions. And it’s easier to be a vegetarian when you’ve got company. Although my mom and dad still eat meat, they also only want to make one meal a night. When there’s no meat around, it’s easy not to miss it.

Vegan Monday

It’s a Super Surprise Vegan Monday! Ding ding ding!

Wow, that was exciting. If you have been following my Meatless Mondays misadventures, you know this isn’t one of those hoity toity Meatless Monday blogs that boasts creative ethnic fusion recipes. Maybe one day it will be, but for now this blog just chronicles my journey to a new way of life.

I’ve always admired vegans and vegetarians, but when I think about being a vegetarian or a vegan, I always become fixated on what I’m losing. Without beef, that’s no more burgers or all-beef hot dogs. What will I do on the Fourth of July? Without pork, there’s no bacon, pepperoni or wonton soup. Going without chicken, fish and seafood would be the toughest hurdle.

So what gave me the push to consider vegetarianism? It was the New York Times best-selling book “Skinny B*tch.” The covers says it’s “a no-nonsense tough- love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous!” I can’t say that I recommend this book because it’s unnecessarily crude. But the short chapters make it a great book for reading on the bus.

The book covers information on chemical additives, animal cruelty, the environment and many other topics. The “Dead, Rotting, Decomposing Flesh Diet” chapter covered the mass execution processes and goes into gruesome detail about instances of struggling animals avoiding death on the kill floor and consequently being burned, skewered, and cut while alive.

In “The Dairy Disaster” chapter, the authors describe how the metal clamps attached to the cow’s sensitive udders often injure the cows. Their udders become infected and pus gets into the milk. Though I don’t accept everything in this book as fact or as a common occurrence, this description was enough to make me want to reduce my dairy intake. (I’m lactose-intolerant anyway. Why am I fighting nature in the first place?)

The book’s authors recommended Rice Dream as a milk replacement. I’m pretty picky about soy milk and only enjoy the sweetened kind I’ve had on the West Coast in Chinese stores. So, I decided to try rice milk.

Rice Dream and Special K With Red Berries for Breakfast on Meatless Monday week #5

It was pretty good! I can’t imagine drinking it, but to be fair, I don’t drink milk either. You should know that I take my cereal with skim milk, so the transition to the watery, somewhat starchy and sweet drink was easier. I don’t know how this would work in recipes, but it sure complemented my Special K with red berries.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has a great list of snacks and common packaged foods that are vegan. It includes Duncan Hines brownie mix, Pillsbury pizza dough, Oreo cookies and a few Progresso soups.

For lunch I’m having baby carrots sans peanut butter (shucks). On the bus going to work I realized that Jif creamy peanut butter contains mono- and diglycerides, which could be rendered from cows or pigs. I don’t see a clear answer if it is or isn’t vegan, so I’ll have to skip over regular Skippy and Jiff.

I added a tabbouli salad from Kassab’s to my lunch. A tabbouli salad contains chopped parsley, green onions, tomatoes, cracked wheat, lemon, oil and spices. It’s served with pita bread, which I understand is vegan-friendly.

Tabouli Salad, pita and chips for Meatless Monday week #5

So, that’s two meals down. Just dinner to go, and that’ll be the most challenging because I’m going home to my mom’s cooking...

Post and photos by Estelle Tran

Off The Beet: A Fashion Diet For The Environment

When I was in middle school, I had a friend who would write down what she wore every day in her little notebook. On the bus ride home, she would chronicle her outfit down to the brand and style of her jeans. She wanted to make sure she wouldn’t repeat an outfit in a month. Though I knew it was a faux pas to wear the same garment two days in a row, I never took clothing repeats so seriously.

It was easy for me, though. I have lots of clothes. Now I realize, I have too many clothes. So, when I read a New York Times story about shoppers on a “fashion diet,” it made me reassess my closet. The challenge: Wear six items of clothing or less for 31 days. Today, I’m on day 24.

Before I get too far, I better answer the common but-what-about questions. But what about undergarments? They don’t count in the six pieces. But what about socks and shoes? Fine. Outer jackets? A-okay. Actually all accessories are fine (including the suspenders I rocked on day three). The rules actually say you can have multiples of the same item to ease laundry woes, but I didn’t. I really wanted to explore how my clothes would wear in heavy rotation.

There are many motivations for this movement. Two of the biggest ones are to cut down on consumerism and to be more eco-friendly. This great article from Get Rich Slowly I read some time ago quotes fashion designer and Project Runway judge Michael Kors, who said our closets should consist of 70 percent “meat and potatoes,” or basics, and 30 percent flair. Cutting back on clothes we don’t wear saves us money and closet space, but also, it helps to save the environment.

When we buy cheap clothes, they usually don’t last as long. That means we use more water and pesticides to grow cotton, dye for jeans, and chemical fabric softeners. OnEarth magazine said it takes 1,500 gallons of water to yield the 1.5 pounds of cotton it takes to make one pair of jeans. Men, women and children in the United States get 1.5 new pairs of jeans a year. That’s 450 million pairs of jeans.

In addition to wearing fewer clothes, I managed not to buy any clothes. Twenty four days might not sound like a long time, but considering that I passed up the Shadyside Sidewalk Sale and dozens of e-mail offers from store like Urban Outfitters, Victoria’s Secret and Macy’s, I’m pretty proud of myself.

I purposely varied my fashion pieces in quality. For the past 24 days, I’ve worn:

1. A pair of dressy-looking black shorts from H&M
2. A pair of gray-wash skinny jeans from Express
3. A gray pencil skirt from Express that I bought second-hand

4. A purple V-neck shirt from Forever 21
5. A teal Armani tank-top
6. A tight black T-shirt from Express

It’s like a math test question. The prompt: If Estelle has three shirts and three bottoms, how many outfits can she make? The answer is nine, assuming all of the combinations match. It’s almost like wearing a uniform. Getting ready in the morning is a lot easier, but sometimes I wish I had more options. I chose three tight-fitting tops because I wanted to be able to tuck them into my skirt or shorts. If I had a do-over, I would have switched-out the purple shirt for a more flab-forgiving top (I’ve been sucking my gut all month).

I talked to people about my progress, and I’ve gotten reactions of complete surprise. Others noticed something was up. I realized that most people don’t notice the repeats, and if they do, so what? What I care about is wear-and-tear on my clothing.

Even though I’ve only hand washed and air dried these items, I can tell the V-neck won’t make it after the experiment. I’ve worn it to work and to parties, and it shows. There’s discoloration along the neckline and pilling on my hip and underarm areas. I’ve been battling the the pills on my black shorts with a fabric shaver that I picked up at a church flea market. There’s an As Seen On TV version that probably would work as well. Just don’t push the clothes into the shaver too much or you could tear the fabric.

With less than a week left, I’m happy to go back to the rest of my wardrobe while there’s some summer left. But I think this experience will change the way I shop for many seasons to come.

Post and photos by Estelle Tran

Off the Beet: Rocking out Green Style

My friend Sam and I drove 140 miles from Pittsburgh to Cleveland to see our favorite bands perform. After a sweaty night of being packed in with the moshing crowds, we revisited those roads with the air conditioning on full blast to get home. I rolled into bed, exhausted from our road trip, and wondered how much I had polluted to have an adventure. Between the gas we used to get there, the gas the band, crew, and other fans, and the electricity required to power the sound equipment and video screens, probably an awful lot.



Tegan and Sara perform in front of a screen displaying their lyrics.

The Honda Civic Tour, featuring Paramore and Tegan and Sara, advertised itself as going green. But with the green’s growing trendy status, it’s hard to just take their word for it and rest easy. I visited their website to try to get some facts.

The tour is partnering with a non-profit called Reverb that helps the music industry take on more sustainable practices. A portion of the ticket sales revenue will go to purchasing carbon offsets and to “boosting the tour’s capacity to make environmental change,” whatever that may mean. The tour’s website also lists some small gestures, such as biodegradable products backstage as well as reusable water bottles and filling stations for the bands and crew.

I find the last part a bit ironic. I wasn’t allowed to bring my metal water bottle into the show. I could purchase a bottle of water for four dollars and watch as the vendors poured its contents into a plastic cup. The planners may have wanted the band to have refillable water bottles and an ample water supply, but the same couldn’t be said for the hot fans staring up at the stage.

Like Paramore, the Black Eyed Peas are partnering with two environmentally minded non-profits for their tour, aptly named “The Energy Never Dies.” An apparel company, Rethink, also joined the team to make the concerts green. The company encourages fans to recycle their plastic bottles, which it advertises will later become Black Eyed Peas t-shirts. But only one of the twenty t-shirts featured in the official store uses the recycled plastic. There seems to be further contradictions. Will.i.am, the Black Eyed Peas rapper, released his own clothing line last spring, featuring numerous leather jackets and leather bags.

The only concert series I’ve seen so far that truly earns its green label is the Solar Concert Series, hosted at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh every Wednesday in July and August at lunchtime. The sound system is powered by the sun. People on the North Side generally walk over to hear the bluesy, acoustic music during their lunch hour. There are two more concerts this season: Applasia performs tomorrow and Jerome Hawk Freeman comes to town next week. These bands may never go platinum, but in my book they’re already green.

Post and photo by Amelia Possanza.

Wish I Was Wheatless on Meatless Monday

I’m trying to make the leap to whole wheat pasta. I’ve had it before, but I’m not too keen on it. Though I enjoy whole wheat bread, there are foods that just call for a slice of Italian. For whole wheat pasta, maybe the secret is hiding the taste. At least, that’s what I’m trying today.

My lunch consists of pasta Alfredo with broccoli and red grapes. Once again, I went with Whole Foods’ store brand 365 for the pasta. The Classico brand Alfredo sauce wasn’t enough to mask the taste of the grainy wheat pasta, so I added Parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper. I know ... what a calorie catastrophe. Marinara would have been smarter.

Meatless Monday lunch #4 - Red grapes and Alfredo pasta with broccoli

So, you might ask, “If you don’t like whole wheat pasta, why bother?” Well, I eat too much pasta. Farfalle. Shells. Penne. Elbow macaroni. Heaven comes in many shapes. I love ordering chicken Parmesan pasta, pesto pasta and baked macaroni and cheese at restaurants. Pasta is an inexpensive and always satisfying--unless it’s wheat--dish to make at home too.

According to the Mayo Clinic, whole wheat is packed with protein and fiber that will help give me the full feeling that I miss on Meatless Mondays. I didn’t finish my pasta today, for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because the wheat pasta filled me up!

Anyway, I found a website written by like-minded individuals who think whole wheat pasta tastes like soft cardboard noodles. Chow.com gave DaVinci pasta the best marks for taste. So, before I swear off whole wheat pasta forever, I guess I have to give DaVinci.

By the way, NPR aired a story about Meatless Mondays last week. Check it out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129025298

Post and photo by Estelle Tran

Off The Beet: The End of the Whale Tale

Whales seem to inspire books as long as the blubbery animals themselves. First there was Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick and then Sena Naslund’s companion piece, Ahab’s Wife. And now British author Philip Hoare has added his own nonfiction work, The Whale, to the list.

I picked it up out of love for Melville and Naslund’s works. While Hoare’s book is part chronicle of the inspiration for Melville’s, it is also part memoir of Hoare’s own experience with whales, part history of the international whaling industry, and part appeal to environmental conservation.

Hoare begins with the details of whaling in Melville’s day: large American crews departing on long, dangerous voyages in search of the Sperm Whale, an animal capable of destroying the very boats and men in search of it. The animal’s oil was rendered right on the boat and would later be used to light the lamps of New England.

"The Sperm Whale in a Flurry," an 1850s print by Currier and Ives, depicts the dangers of whaling.

Hoare moves through time to bring the reader to a more forgotten moment in whaling history. In the 1920s, European whaling took off with more advanced technology that eliminated many of the dangers of whaling and increased the catches. In one year alone more whales were taken internationally than in a century and half of New Bedford whaling. Whale parts were ubiquitous in everyday products--lipstick, margarine, nitroglycerin, corsets, and shoe soles. And every part of the whale, from the precious oil in its head to the blank canvases of its teeth to the fragrant lumps of its excrement, was used or marketed in some way.

Although whaling has been curtailed by an international agreement, human activities still threaten their existence. Pollution, climate change, fishing nets, and military sonar all disrupt the migrations and feeding grounds of whales. And some nations, such as Japan, continue hunting. Hoare foretells of extinction in a way that calls to mind W.S. Merwin’s poem about the Grey Whale, “For a Coming Extinction.”

In the wake of the publication of Hoare’s book and the gulf oil spill, New York Times reporter Randy Kennedy noted the parallels between our current hunt for oil and the hunt for the whale in his essay “The Ahab Parallax.” But the lengthy passages in The Whale where Hoare waxes on about the mysterious beauty and near-human intelligence of the animals suggest a key difference. Our curiosity draws us to whales, the unique sounds they make, and their complex social structures. So much so that tens of thousands of pages have been written about them and that word of their near-extinction produced an international hunting moratorium. The same can’t be said for the fuels we search out these days--they are faceless compounds of dead matter. They don’t pull on our heartstrings or invite our scientific questioning. Who’s to tell us to stop?

If you’re interested in Hoare’s book, one word of advice: buy the British edition. Not only does its more majestic title, Leviathan, seem more suited for the breaching beasts, it has better quality illustrations and a sturdier binding. Not only did the Brits begin to beat us out in whaling in the 1920s, they also seem to have developed a better grip on bookbinding.

Post by Amelia Possanza

Instant Organic

Three weeks into my Meatless Monday experiment, and I’m already feeling pressure. It was 11 p.m. last night, and I hadn’t packed my lunch yet. I thought, “Oh no. I have to make something good because I need to take a picture and write about my lunch. I can’t pack cereal!”

As I scanned my food shelf, I spotted a box of Whole Foods’ store brand 365 macaroni and cheese. My mom gave it to me for times just like these. So, I prepared the box of organic macaroni and cheese. On the side I have some steamed green beans and a peach.

Meatless Monday lunch #3

To be honest, the idea of instant or frozen organic food just seems strange. The host of The Allegheny Front, Jennifer Szweda Jordan, sometimes warms up an Amy’s organic frozen meal that she bought at Right by Nature, a grocery store in Pittsburgh that features organic food . Today, she had a garden vegetable lasagna. It boasts no preservatives and no bioengineered ingredients. I recognized all of the ingredients on the organic mac and cheese and the lasagna boxes. There were no unpronounceable chemicals or ingredients. Surprise, surprise!

Ingredient list for the Whole Foods' store brand organic macaroni and cheese

I opened the familiar white package of dehydrated cheese mix. But it said, “Organic yellow cheddar.” It made the cheese so distant from its original form. This didn’t seem different from regular Kraft instant macaroni and cheese.

Package of cheese

When I poured out the pack, the mix was a pale yellowish-pink color. It was a clear contrast from the bright orange powder that comes out of a Kraft box. I feared that I would have pink pasta. After I stirred in the butter and milk, the pasta took on its correct hue. I dusted some panko, which are Asian-style bread crumbs, on top for texture, and I had a lunch in 15 minutes.

Today, I scoured the Internet for news articles or studies about organic frozen and instant foods. To my surprise, I found none. Jennifer laughed at me for being disappointed -- let’s face it, a scathing study would make for a better read. I won’t say that these dishes compare to any dishes made from scratch, but they’re better than a lot of MSG- and preservative-filled products on store shelves. But with any other meal you don’t make yourself, make sure to check the nutrition facts. Remember that sodium, fat and sugar can be organic too, and we don’t want too much of that.

Post and photos by Estelle Tran

Heavenly Hot Dogs

The Allegheny Front’s host, Jennifer Szweda Jordan, said she felt inspired by The Green Beet intern blog. So, she wrote a post on her Earth’s Bounty blog about food and the environment. She visits Franktuary, a hot dog shop located in a church basement in Downtown Pittsburgh. The shop preaches good eats, including gourmet hot dogs with pierogies and locavore hot dogs made from grass-fed beef. Read about her personal journey to find a sustainable sausage.

Post by Estelle Tran

Off The Beet: The Magnet Powered LED Bike Light

I like reducing my carbon footprint as best I can. That being said, I am an advocate for carpooling and public transportation. Better yet, I appreciate the physical and mental advantages of walking, running, and biking to get to where I need to be. Just like the common pet peeve of drivers with cell phones glued to the sides of their heads, I personally hate seeing a bike without lights.

Some motorists are already reluctant to share the road with us cyclists, let’s not give them another reason. Nobody likes to be surprised, and I can’t begin to tell you the number of times that a collision almost occurred while a vehicle making a left hand turn didn’t see the unlit front end of my bike coming through an intersection at night during some er..dim times in my urban cycling experience.

So here's the answer to all of our out-of-batteries/don’t-feel-like-changing-them-right-now problems.

Reelight bike light on the front wheel of my bike

Batteries become obsolete with Reelight’s magnet lights, which are powered by magnets that pass each other during each revolution of the wheel.

Reelight offers a few different models, some with a reserve so that lights continue flashing even after the cyclist has stopped. Some offer a steady rather than flashing light while riding and some models connect to the seat post and handlebars. I bought myself a set that hooks up to my wheelset, and flashes when I'm in motion. At $40 per set and the fact that I don't ever have to replace batteries again, let alone every few months, this is one of my favorite bike investments. It feels good to have a completely D.I.Y. form of transportation, right down to the power-source for the lights that keep me safe, not to mention that it’s good for the environment too!

Thumbs up to never buying a bike light battery again!

Post and photos by Kayla Slicker

Sugar High Salad

This is week two in my Meatless Monday experiment, where I vow to go meatless every Monday, so I'm still really excited about preparing my meals. But with the excitement also comes some uneasiness that I won't feel full without meat. I love giant salads for lunch, but I usually like chicken in my Caesar salad. I feel like I need something dense to help me along.

BEFORE LUNCH: Today, you guessed it: I’m having a salad. Instead of chicken, I cut up a Fuji apple. The salad will also have pomegranate-flavored Craisins (dried cranberries) and a light raspberry vinaigrette.

Meatless Mondays meal #2: Romaine lettuce, Fuji apple, Craisins and raspberry vinaigrette

I’ll probably miss the chicken a little. Not only does it help to fill me up, but it gives me protein to keep me going. Sadly, I'm short on nuts, the obvious replacement, at home. I don't want Meatless Mondays to be costly. This experiment should be sustainable for the environment and for me. I'd love to make this a life choice.

On the side, I have "heirloom cherry tomatoes" from Harvest Valley Farms. Last week, I went on the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture farm tour and sampled some of these delicious tomatoes off the vine. Co-owner Art King told me that he calls these pointy-ended cuties, "heirloom cherry tomatoes" because he planted large heirloom tomatoes that somehow only grew a little larger than cherry tomatoes. My boyfriend and I celebrated the start of the heirloom cherry tomato season by visiting the farm store on Sunday and buying a basket.

Heirloom cherry tomatoes from Harvest Valley Farms

AFTER LUNCH: It's 1 o'clock, and I've just finished my lunch. Actually, I couldn't finish it. My salad was way too sweet. I could only eat half of it. My blackberry pomegranate yogurt remains untouched. I even had to walk over to Kassab's, a Lebanese restaurant in the South Side, to buy some baba ganoush so that my stomach wouldn't grumble for the rest of the work day.

This all comes after I had a peach and MultiGrain Cheerios for breakfast. It made me wonder whether I could consume too much natural sugar -- I realize that a lot of the items in my lunch are not natural. According to the Daily Mail, the fructose naturally found in fruit can lead to obesity. Next time, I'll make sure to pack foods that are a variety of different tastes.

On a side note, NPR Morning Edition released today an interesting story about how people are smarter because our ancestors changed from a fruit, leaves and nuts diet to a meat-based diet. This allowed our bodies to direct our energy away from digestion and toward our brains. Though I don't think my brain will atrophy with this discovery, it's some food for thought.

Post and photos by Estelle Tran

Off The Beet: Paddling at Sunset

I saw Pittsburgh’s bridges from below for the first time on Friday night. It was date night on the Monongahela River: old married couples riding in tandem kayaks, young couples paddling beside each other, and my mom and I pulling up the rear.

A few weeks ago my mom and I started to feel the pang of our summer coming to an end, so we decided to sign up for Venture Outdoors' Sunset Paddle. The Pittsburgh-based group tries to make it easy for city dwellers to get outdoors by offering guided hikes, bike tours, and paddling loops. Paddling seemed like a good idea since Pittsburgh was named one of the top ten urban kayaking cities by National Geographic.

Venture Outdoors gives each of their events a difficulty rating. The event my mom and I chose was rated “medium,” in other words, for people who have had experience with kayaking. My mom and I had shared a tandem kayak at the beach years before. On that outing, we fell so far behind that they had to tie a rope to our boat and tow us in. But I’m older now. How hard could it be?

Our evening began at Kayak Pittsburgh's launching spot, right on the riverfront alongside PNC Park. Twenty-five to thirty people milled around, snapping up their personal flotation devices and picking out paddles. Suited up in my Lycra pants and shirt (the synthetic fabric dries faster), I sat down in my kayak with my back to the river. One of the guides launched me, and I started paddling.



The Kayaks stacked at Kayak Pittsburgh's launch point are equipped with special lights for our after-dusk trek.

It was harder than it looked. Paddling is less about strength and more about coordination. I soon discovered that correctly placed shallow strokes were more effective than deep pulls. I hung towards the back on the way up the river, trying to work it all out.

I was also worried because I hadn’t brought gloves, one of the items, along with the synthetic clothing, on a long list sent out by Venture Outdoors. But as we paddled, I noticed no one else was wearing them. Some of the other people I chatted with admitted that they had never been kayaking before and that they would certainly be sore in the morning. And even though my mom was dead last, the “sweep,” a guide who brought up the rear to ensure no one got left behind, kindly stuck with her to chat and give paddling pointers.



The sun sets over the Monongahela River Bridge, a bridge used by the T light-rail system.

When we turned around to see the sunset, one of the guides helped me re-orient my paddle, which helped things go more smoothly. Once I got the paddling down, I could relax and enjoy seeing city life from a new perspective. I watched from below as cars sped towards the Fort Pitt Tunnel, as the T carried people back home to the suburbs, and as the Smithfield Street bridge lit up for the evening. I also spotted the incline and Heinz Field. And right in front of me, the setting sun turned the water a soft pink color.

We all returned safely, a little damp and tired. Our legs were a bit shaky on dry land. That could probably be explained by the fact that we hadn’t used our legs in two hours. But to me it felt like they were wobbling because we had returned from somewhere much more foreign than my hometown. I plan to go back for the Full Moon Paddle to see how the sights change in the light of the stars.

Post and photos by Amelia Possanza.

Planting the Seed for Meatless Mondays

Green is a relative term. I’m green compared to many of my friends, but I admit that when it comes to certain things, I’m behind the curve. My two biggest eco no-nos are my long showers and my diet. Meat is something I just won’t give up. Even though I mostly eat chicken and fish, I love pork wonton soup, beef chow fun and a cheeseburger now and then.

Last Saturday inspired me to make my foray into vegetarianism. My family, boyfriend and I embarked on an adventure to the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture’s Farm Tour. The annual farm tour welcomes visitors to explore more than 20 farms for tours and demonstrations.

We visited Soergel Orchards, the Dillner Family Farm and Harvest Valley Farms. At Soergel’s, we picked blueberries and raspberries. I enjoyed crouching down and reaching for a plump, dark blue blueberry. It was exhilarating picking my own food.

Soergel Orchards

At the farm store, I purchased mushrooms, peaches and green beans. We enjoyed deli sandwiches and the July pie of the month, peach and blueberry. At Dillner Family Farm, we also picked blueberries and took a tour of the tomato plants and melon fields. The Harvest Valley Farms tour was really educational. We learned about all different kinds of tomatoes, soybeans and beets.

Art King, co-owner of the farm, showed us how the farm makes the most of its water. They lay down plastic covering the soil, and irrigate the fields from underneath. The black plastic absorbs the light, and the white plastic reflects it. The white plastic allows the farm to grow cool weather plants, like broccoli, during the summer.

Art King, co-owner of Harvest Family Farms, explains the science plastic covers in an irrigation system.

King showed us the wispy asparagus plants, which are only harvested for about six weeks in the spring, and the Brussels sprouts. “If only I had a dollar for every time someone said, “Oh! Is that how they grow?” he said with a chuckle.

To my surprise, I didn’t see meat for sale at any of the farms from animals raised on the premises. By the end of the day, I had so many vegetables that I didn’t miss meat.

On Sunday night, I looked at my full fridge to see what I could pack for lunch the next day. I decided to saute the mushrooms from Soergel’s market and zucchini to go with some jasmine rice I had. Then, I added a side of my hand-picked blueberries from Soergel’s for snacking.

Lunch on Monday, July 26: Sauteed mushrooms, zucchini, jasmine rice and blueberries

After packing my lunch, I decided that I could and should do this more often. So, now I proclaim I will join the Meatless Monday campaign. Benefits of going meatless, even just one day a week, include a reduced risk of heart disease, a smaller carbon footprint and a lower risk of contracting cancer. So, stay tuned as I embark on my Meatless Monday journey.

Post and photos by Estelle Tran