Greeniacs Sustainable Living Articles

The National Organic Program (NOP) is an extension of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) created to accredit local organic certifying agencies.  The NOP accredits a total of 95

With hundreds of millions of people around the world living in hunger, food security is a major modern day issue. What is the best way

“Food miles” has become a new buzz term, suddenly so common in the environmentalist vernacular that people may be shy about asking what it means!

It has almost become expected to see a McDonalds in every city across the United States or even in any major city throughout the world.

Solar cooking is such a simple idea, yet it may have huge benefits for the environment. Solar ovens can be found in many different forms,

People always seem to be talking about organic-this and organic-that, and all it really seems like people know about the word “organic” is that it

Biodynamic agriculture is one of the most sustainable methods of agriculture.1 It does so by incorporating organic farming techniques, composting, crop rotation, and attempts to integrate

In Hollywood the hottest new celebrity diet, major eco-food trend and secret is about to emerge as the next major national sensation! Did you know

Free-range meats and eggs are exploding in popularity around the world. In the United Kingdom, free-range eggs have actually outsold those from traditional farms, and

For the greater half of my life, my daily diet has been vegetarian. My middle school years turned me onto the animal rights movement, causing

As a child growing up in the Midwest, I was able to enjoy the luxuries of our seasonal vegetable garden and other fresh produce from

A PETA Kind of Pork It all began with Dolly the lamb. Now scientists have taken cloning to a whole new level: meat production. That’s

Farming grows up… The sky is the limit, especially when it comes to the future of farming. In fact, vertical farming was recently named the

The rundown on antibiotics and livestock… If you have ever seen a doctor for a cold or any other bacterial infection, it is almost certain

How do we decide what food to eat? From PROCESSED FOOD, food made cheaper with PESTICIDES and ANTIBIOTICS, to LOCAL, ORGANIC and higher quality food, Americans choose how they eat based

For all of us residing between ten degrees North and Alaska, August marks the opening of the floodgates for farmers large and small.1 Festoons of tomatoes, basil,

Vegetarianism Goes Mainstream! The vegetarian diet has been around for thousands of years and consumed across many different cultures. Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma

LEED Certified Winery Set to Open at U.C. Davis… One of the best Viticulture and Enology programs in the country lies on the University of California

Who wants some eggs?! The answer is: a lot of us…on average, each American eats about 250 eggs a year.1 There are around 340 million egg-laying

Are you familiar with the new food lingo? There’s organic and slow food, pastured and GMO-free. There are locavores and omnivores, CSA members and foodies.

Caffeine is the world’s most popular psychoactive drug.1 Scientists even speculate that plants use caffeine to paralyze pests.2 Nonetheless, every person in the world drinks an average of

Chocolate is indulgence, youth, love, and happiness—except when it contributes to deforestation and child labor! Make a change and this Valentine’s Day, get your sweetheart a chocolate treat that

They’re yellow, sweet, seedless, always about the same shape and size. We love them in our breakfast cereals, our yogurts, our breads, and just on

Soy is a plant native to Southeast Asia and, perhaps surprisingly, is a member of the pea family, Fabaceae. The soy plant can grow from one

Climate Change Impacts Cassava CropsAccording to the Huffington Post, cassava is still a “neglected root” in most developed countries.1 I thought I had never tried

Americans drink about 13.8 billion gallons of sugar-sweetened beverages every year—we’re talking about sports drinks and soda here, just to name a couple of the

Drought brings cornucopia of problems for the United States’ corn industry… It’s hard to miss the effects of the summer of 2012’s prolonged drought when

The story starts with a tomato – the Flavr Savr by Calgene.1 This was the first commercial use of genetically modified organisms, aka GMOs, and was

As time passes by, there are more and more mouths to feed  across the globe. The demand for crops during their offseason or in locations they are

Talk of fish is everywhere these days, from discussions about , and if you recall, this past November, the state of California had on its ballot

With global population levels soaring to more than 7 billion,1 it is often taken for granted how the world has been able to sustain such a large

The 1920s marked the start of a regional planning movement in the United States during which many leaders attempted to transform conventional industrialized food systems

If you plan on buying chicken at a grocery store you will find a myriad of terms jump out at you while perusing the poultry

Over the past few months, we have profiled several foods that are frequent victims of “food fraud,” such as coffee  and orange juice. iCoffeeIn August 2011, a

The word “juice” always used to remind me of my childhood, when my classmates and I would get hyped up on sugar via juice boxes