Green Spotlight:  Notes From Nancy Grant

The usual advice for wise energy use includes saving gas by planning your driving route carefully to avoid backtracking.  But what if you’d like to leave your car or truck out of your errand-running loop altogether? Here are three good ideas:

Shank’s mare – This old-fashioned country term means using your own two legs for travel. Whether you’re starting from home or your workplace, just put on comfy shoes and it’s right foot, left foot all the way to the co-op. If you’re new to walking outdoors, you’ll find it’s quite different from a treadmill–traffic and signals to watch for, people to chat with, birds to watch–but you can estimate that each half mile will take ten to fifteen minutes. The return trip may take a bit longer because you’ll have the added weight of whatever you bought. A child’s wagon or other wheeled contraption to pull along can be a big help.

Bicycle – Whether your human powered two-wheeler has one gear or twenty, when you arrive at the co-op you’ll find a sturdy bike rack near the front door where you can park it safely. Before you leave, take a minute to balance your load of shopping bags in your front handlebar basket or pannier baskets over the rear wheel; small bungee cords or carabineer clips will help keep your packages in place as you pedal.

Bus –The co-op is on MVTA’s bus route #442. Help planning your public transportation travel route is just a click away at or www.mvta.com.

Bonus tip: In the store, look for the display of reusable thermal bags to carry your purchases home. Available in two sizes and costing less than a single gallon of gas, they’ll keep your hot items toasty or your frozen items icy cold.

Energy journalist and blogger Nancy S. Grant is a member of the Cooperative Communicators Association.

Click here to read the Valley Natural Foods Green Report 2010.

April is Earth Month so we thought it would be fitting to promote the 2011 Summer Institute!

All grades 3-12 educators are invited to join the Will Steger Foundation on an Exploration of Minnesota’s Changing Climate at the Summer Institute August 11- 12, 2011.

The Summer Institute will be held at the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley, MN. This year’s Institute will focus on the Will Steger Foundation’s new Environmental and Natural Resources Trust Fund project: Minnesota’s Changing Climate; Engaging Students in Environmental Stewardship Through Adventure Learning.

Participating grades 6-8 classrooms from the metro area are eligible for $500 grants due to a unique partnership with the National Park Foundation, Mississippi National River and Recreational Area (National Park Service) and Mississippi River Fund. For more information about the institute, please visit Will Steger Foundation Summer Institute

You can see what happened at last years institute by visiting: 2010 Summer Institute Recap

Roger and Dawn Hubmer, owners of Prairie Pride Farm of MN, have been awarded the USDA Conservation Stewardship Program Grant for their sustainable farming practices on their 5th generation family farm near Mankato. This is a 5 year program grant awarded to a few family farms that implement several sustainable farming practices and are willing to do more for the environment in which they live.

The Hubmer’s sell their packaged pork products at Valley Natural Foods, including a great line of sausages. They are frequent host at our demo kiosk, so watch for their next demo at our Co-op Calendar.

Many people envision healthy nutritious eggs to be those raised organically or naturally with free-range pastured hens, but have you ever thought about what happens after the eggs are collected?

Recently some alert members spotted an article on this very topic and were concerned by what they read.

Eggs need to be porous, allowing air to pass through to the inside of the egg so that it can breathe, yet at the same time the egg is protected from bacterial invasion by a natural waxy coating called the bloom.

Commercial industry practice is to wash eggs thoroughly. On the surface this appears to be a positive thing, but as they say, the devil is in the details. Unfortunately, this washing removes the bloom, opening the egg to infection. To compensate for this, commercial industry practice is to replace the bloom with a mineral oil coating. More unfortunately, mineral oil is a petroleum-based product that can penetrate the porous egg shell. The International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) states, “exposure to mineral oils should be kept to a minimum.”

Valley Natural Foods offers organic eggs from two providers: Organic Valley and Schultz Organic. According to Organic Valley, their “shell eggs are never washed or sanitized with chlorine, and they are never oiled.” Instead, the eggs are “washed with a soap approved for organic use. The eggs spend less than one minute in the wash process. After being washed, the eggs travel through a rinse section, and into an air dry section.”

If you’d like to go one step further, consider this from Larry Schultz: “Our eggs typically reach the store before they are over a week old. We do not use any oils, chlorines, lye, peracetic acids, or sodium carbonates. Our eggs come to the store as clean and natural as we can with nothing applied.”

So if you like healthy fresh petrochemical-free organic eggs, stop by our dairy department for the best eggs nature can provide!

What do you get when two cool companies collide? The perfect brew for the perfect day, and incentive to peace out in a green way. Groovy.

In less pyschedelic terms, Peace Coffee and Blue Sky Guide have joined forces to celebrate World Fair Trade Day on Saturday, May 8. For one day only (May 8, 2010) you can get a free one-pound bag of Pollinator Blend from Peace Coffee when you purchase a 2010 Blue Sky Guide – while supplies last. So shop early, savor a sample cup of the brew and enjoy the coupon savings for the remainder of the year.

World Fair Trade Day is a global event. Peace Coffee is 100% Fair Trade, 100% soul-soothing and taste-bud satisfying. They are a local roaster, making small-batch coffee for the Twin Cities. Pollinator Blend is a spring seasonal coffee with complex blending notes of carmel and ginger sweetness with a brisk, black tea-like flavor, hints of chocolate and a crisp, refreshing finish.

Sip, sigh and save with the World Fair Day one-day-only-deal! See you Saturday by the coffee pot.

  Food and optimism is the name of the game at the Sustainable Community Banquet, hosted by the School of Environmental Studies. Students who attended COP15 in Copenhagen this year as U.S. high school delegates will be featured. They’ll share their perspective on environmental sustainability at the local level. Join the School of Environmental Studies and the COP15 Delegation for an evening of food and an environmentally optimistic discussion.

Sustainable Community Banquet

May 8, 2010

5:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m.

Cost: $10 per ticket

Location: School of Environmental Studies | 12155 Johnny Cake Road, Apple Valley, MN 55124

RSVP by May 1, 2010 Beth Schulz: 952-237-1382 Ashley Burdge: 651-271-8727 email: banquetcrew@gmail.com

In honor of Earth Day, Valley Natural Foods will be hosting a table at EarthFest, a party for the planet at the Minnesota Zoo on April 17 and 18, 2010, from 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Stop by and see us!

To learn more about EarthFest and view a schedule of events, please visit

http://www.mnzoo.com/events/Events_earthFest_2010.asp.

Will Steger with Northland Students

One of our key relationships directly connected to sustainability has been our on-going relationship with the Will Steger Foundation. The WSF understands the vital role food production plays in the bigger picture of sustainability. They provide to-notch, science-based education for educators to help instruct the upcoming generations on climate change. Each year the WSF sponsors an education outreach called the Summer Institute.

This year, the 4th annual Summer Institute for Climate Change Education is on Wednesday August 19th, 8:30-4:30 pm at the University of Minnesota. Applications available for download: www.globalwarming101.com

The Summer Institute will focus on the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen and unveil a brand new curriculum on international climate solutions for grades 9-12. Keynote speakers include renowned author and climate activist, Bill McKibben, along with Will Steger.

Registration opens in May for 100 onsite participants ($75/teacher or $100/pair) and an unlimited number of participants for our online webinar ($25/teacher). Onsite participants will receive the Citizen Climate Curriculum and online participants will be able to download the curriculum free of charge from the Global Warming 101 website.

The institute will highlight the critical need for international cooperation on climate change solutions, and equip educators with the tools necessary to empower student learning and leadership on the topic. Educators will also learn about the Midwest youth delegation to Copenhagen, led by the Will Steger Foundation, and ways that they can follow the youth experience online through multi-media dispatches including text, images, and video. The Summer Institute will include break-out sessions on topics addressed in the curriculum, including cap and trade vs. carbon tax; equity in negotiation; climate technologies; carbon cycle and more. Visit www.globalwarming101.com to watch the Summer Institute video, download the application and learn more.