Meatless Mondays

As many of you might have heard in the past year or two is the growing movement of Meatless Monday. The aim of this program is to start your week on the right step by eating all day without meat. Now for everyone that is already a vegetarian and a vegan, this might not be a big deal. There are still plenty of us that love meat, and I am one, and I will probably never give it up in my lifetime. I can help out the best I can towards the strained food system and reduce my carbon footprint by making sure that there is at least one day a week where I do not eat any meat. This is the idea that meatless monday was born under.

The origins of Meatless Monday comes from as a public health awareness program started by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future. In the past year, and even maybe the year before, Meatless Monday has really taken off through out the country. I figured to help with my goals to reduce my carbon footprints (and possibly eating healthier), it was time for my family to go meatless on Monday.

Obvious health benefits of Meatless Mondays include: limiting cancer risks, reducing heart disease, helping fight obesity, and fighting diabetes. Which in turn, can give you a better chance to live a longer and healthier life. Now, how does this help environmental issues? It is well known the the production of livestock and fowl has lead severe environmental degradation in places that it occurs, and that the pure transit and processing of the meat and food for the livestock leads to enormous amounts of energy being used and carbon being put into the air. Meat is responsible for one-fifth of green-house gas emissions worldwide. As for water usage from 1,800 to 2,500 gallons of water goes into a single pound of beef, versus Soy based tofu which on average is 220 gallons of water per pound. On average we need 20 times the amount of fossil fuels that go into every calorie of feed on a beef farm compared to the amount of fossil fuels that is used for one calorie of a plant-based protein.

  With these arguments, one might say, "Justin, why don't you just go vegetarian?". The truth is, like I said before, I can't. I adore hamburgers and steak. I can't pass up BBQ ribs or brisket. So, in turn what I can do is make a conscious effort to eat less meat, and Meatless Monday is a great way to begin. From here on out every Monday I will be telling you what I had on Monday, and tell you my recipe, and hopefully you can use them, and share recipes with  me!

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13th, 2010

For my first meatless Monday, I missed breakfast. Which makes things no easier than usually, since I probably would have just had toast for breakfast anyways. For lunch is where I had my first challenge, since I usually have a salami sandwich everyday for lunch. Today, I went with Grilled Cheese on Mountain Bread.

Grilled Cheese with fresh Watermelon JuiceNow, with my grilled cheese, I also had freshly juiced watermelon juice, which was amazing. As for the grilled cheese, well, it was grilled cheese. It was a fine lunch, but nothing to get too excited about. Now what was up next though was exciting. I would be making both Baba Ghanoush from some freshly picked eggplant, and attempt to make Dam Aloo (or maybe Dum Aloo, the internet seems to have both ways of spelling it). Let's start with the Baba Ghanoush. Baba Ghanoush is a dip that is fairly popular in middle-eastern and meditarian cuisine. It is based on eggplant, and is usually prepared with Tahini, which is also found in Hummus, making Baba Ghonoush a sibling to Hummus. I love them both and was excited to try the recipe. I found a recipe on allrecipes.com. This is the recipe that I followed:

Ingredients

• 1 eggplant
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Place eggplant, lemon juice, tahini, sesame seeds, and garlic in an electric blender, and puree. Season with  salt and pepper to taste. Transfer eggplant mixture to a medium size mixing bowl, and slowly mix in olive oil. Refrigerate for 3 hours before serving.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.
2. Place eggplant on baking sheet, and make holes in the skin with a fork. Roast it for 30 to 40 minutes, turning occasionally, or until soft. Remove from oven, and place into a large bowl of cold water. Remove from water, and peel skin off.
3. Place eggplant, lemon juice, tahini, sesame seeds, and garlic in an electric blender, and puree. Season with  salt and pepper to taste. Transfer eggplant mixture to a medium size mixing bowl, and slowly mix in olive oil. Refrigerate for 3 hours before serving.

I was pretty proud of this and it looked like it was going to taste pretty good, and from early indications it looks like it is going to be awesome!

What eggplants can do!Next was on to the Dam Aloo (Dum Aloo), which is an Indian dish that is centered around Garam Masala seasoning mix and potatoes. I am a big fan of Indian food and was pretty excited to try out this recipe as well, which came from ifood.tv. Here is the recipe that I used:

Ingredients 

• 450g small potatoes, preferably new
• 1 medium onion
• 4 tbl spn oil
• About 1 tpn chilli powder
• 1/2 tspn turmeric
• 25g root ginger, peeled and ground to a paste, or 1 tspn ground ginger
• 1/2 tspn sugar
• Salt
• 150 ml water
• 1 1/2 tspn garam masala
• Chopped corainder leaves, to garnish

How to make Dam Aloo

1. Scrub or peel the potatoes and cut them into even sized pieces.
2. Boil them until just tender.
3. Grind the onion to a fine paste.
4. Heat the oil in a pan, add the onion paste and fry until lightly browned.
5. Stir in the chilli powder, turmeric, ginger, sugar ad salt.
6. Fry for 1-2 minutes without letting the mixture burn, then add the water.
7. When the water begins to simmer, stir in the potatoes, cover and cook until the sauce has thickened.
8. Sprinkle with  the garam masala and remove from the heat.
9. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve.

It was pretty tasty, next time there are a few other recipies that call for yogurt to be added into the sauce, which I think I am willing to try to get a more and thicker sauce. That is just my personal preference though. Here are some photos of what it looked like:

 Dam Aloo (dum aloo) in the pan, chillin'!

The Dam/Dum Aloo in the process of being eaten by me!

In the future I would probably use a recipe that calls for yougurt in the sauce, which would make more sauce and and thicken it up a bit. I hope that you learned a lot from this, and start to share your own Meatless Monday recipies with me!

---Justin J. Stewart

Football season starts tonight, and the Arizona Cardinals go green

...link via Angie Fretz

The NFL's season officially kicks-off tonight with Minnesota taking on New Orleans, in New Orleans, a city that has been pushed to the brink and continues to suffer. For tonight, I hope the people of New Orleans get a great game and receive a few entertaining moments to help them find some comfort and peace for a few minutes.

This season the Arizona Cardinals will be powering every home game with 100% renewable energy provided by SRP. According to the SRP website:

The Cardinals will be one of only a few NFL teams to play in a green-powered facility during the 2010 season. For each of the Cardinals' eight regular-season home games and two pre-season home games, SRP's EarthWise Energy program will provide 113,500 kilowatt-hours of renewable energy purchased by University of Phoenix. The renewable energy will offset electricity used in University of Phoenix Stadium — from the concession stands to the parking lot lighting to the scoreboards. This amount of electricity, 1,135,000 kilowatt-hours over the course of 10 games, is comparable to what 60 average homes in the Valley will use annually.

The EarthWise Energy program for SRP puts 100% of the money towards building solar projects for non-profit groups. Recent projects have involved working with Habitat for Humanity and Sunshine Acres Children's Home. These are steps that can be made by large companies. Hopefully activities like these will lead to true renewable power for everyone in the state, including the University of Phoenix Stadium. Plus, with the Cardinals having 505,143 fans walk through their doors last year to check out a football game, that is 505,143 minds that can be opened up to renewable energy, just by being there in the stadium.

---Justin J. Stewart (link via Angie Fretz)

Tempe goes to green composting pilot, adds recycling around town...and I finally get a post out there!

First off, I must apologize for the lack of information lately. From this point on there will be more and more information and great ideas coming out from this blog! I appreciate all of the support that has come from the audience out there, but I am still looking for links and stories from you, the readers! If you have something in your community or your house that you think should be covered or want people to know about, leave us a note and we'll get it out there for ya. We are always looking for input and the more we keep talking the better for all of our communities and homes.

Now, on to the post.

Tempe, Arizona has done it again, leading the way with a new and invigorating ideas to improve their city and continue to promise green living to their community. Over a year ago they expanded their recycling program to include all plastic numbers, #1-#7, and now they are looking to include green compost waste. According to an August 24th, 2010 press release from the city they are piloting a program in some of their neighborhoods to college green compost waste. This is exciting news, especially from a community that already offers free compost bins to their residents. According to the release the waste is going to be used right back into their community:

As they say, what goes around, comes around - in a good way. Tempe's new pilot compost program collects green waste that comes back to the community in the form of rich compost for parks, ball fields and community gardens.

They also have released a nice video about the program and the important benifits of the program:

Once again, Tempe showing the way for other Arizona cities, and actually, United States cities. Does your community do this? If they do let me know, and I'll give an update and a shout out to those communities as well!

Also, speaking of Tempe. According to a July press release from the city, they have finally installed the much needed Mill Avenue District recycling bins for drop-off recycling. This should be a great benefit for the students that live off campus in apartments and houses in the area, where recycling is not necessarily offered. From the press release the location is:

It’s now a little easier to be green in downtown Tempe. This week, the City of Tempe in partnership with Downtown Tempe Community installed three new recycling containers in the downtown area – on Mill Avenue at both Fifth and Sixth streets and at Tempe City Hall, 31 E. Fifth St. – making it easier for people to recycle while visiting downtown Tempe.

This should be a great improve to a city always trying to look forward. For more information please visit Tempe's recycling website.

Speaking of recycling really quick, I recently took a trip back to Michigan, and was flying Delta. For the first time in all of my air travel, they actually offered in-flight recycling. I was shocked, but pleased. This probably isn't news since I don't fly more than twice a year, but it was comforting to finally see this in-flight.

Until next time, which will be sooner than last time, feel free to reach out to us and help us bring this community together and move forward one mind at a time, and spread the word!

----Justin J. Stewart

Link the Lake!

We here at Slay Energy Vampires! are now back from a short vacation, and we have a big announcement regarding this website's founded, Jay Fretz.

It has been announced that on December 4, 2010 that the Not One More Foundation, a group that raises bicycle safety awareness in the state of Arizona,  will be sponsoring and organizing a benefit ride for Angie and Anika Fretz. They have posted an open call to all of the bicycle organizations in the state, from the Link The Lake Facebook page:

Not One More Foundation Announces to all Arizona Cycling Teams, Clubs, Community and Friends a special Fundrasing Ride to "Link the Lake" for Jay Fretz. Sat Dec 4th. On May 17, 2010, 36-year-old environmental and bicycle advocate, Jay Fretz, was struck and killed by a vehicle while commuting home from work on his bicycle. Jay was a draftsman for a Tempe architectural firm. He left behind a young wife, Angie, and a 5-year-old daug hter, Anika. Aside from the difficult emotional consequences that encircle this tragedy, meeting the needs of comfort throughout this grieving time has taken the back seat to meeting another life or death need: supporting Angie in all of the ways a human can be supported as she endures chemotherapy for a diagnosis of breast cancer and ultimately, a mastectomy. She was diagnosed the week before Jay was killed. Angie Fretz is without health insurance now that Jay has passed, is self-employed and does not earn an income unless she is working transcribing accident tapes and must raise her daughter alone. She is currently on a leave of absence from her contracted work. The “NOT ONE MORE” Foundation and the cycling community mourns this great loss and is planning a Fund Raiser Event on Sat Dec 4th to help ease Angie’s & Anika’s burdens. This will be a Valley Wide Sat morning ride to Tempe Town Lake for All TEAMS & CLUBS as we join together and “LINK THE LAKE” for JAY FRETZ. Look for details soon here, in Club/Team emails and on flyers in Bike Shops on how to participate and how to donate to help the Fretz family. We hope THOUSANDS OF CYCLISTS will join us to completely “LINK THE LAKE” with our bicycles as a cycling community and say... “NOT ONE MORE” senseless cyclist death in our Valley and State. Sterling Baer & Dara Schulenberg Founders, Not One More Contact Info - 480-641-0755

This provides to be a great opportunity for cyclists to stand in solidarity, for those that bike for commuting, reducing their carbon footprint, or just enjoy biking as a recreational activity. Tempe has now had three bike related deaths in just as many months, and this issue needs to be addressed, especially in a city that prides themselves as a bicyclist community. The Fretz family has shown an amazing amount of strength the past three months, and every little bit of continuing support makes their lives that much easier.

Links of interest relating to Link the Lake:

 Not One More Foundation website

 Not One More Foundation Facebook page

 Red Mountain Brumbys bicycle club

 Link the Lake Facebook even page

Now that we are back, look for more updates and articles! Some future articles include airline recycling, Tempe recycling, Tempe public garden, urban gardening, and an update on my own energy use! Plus, much much more! 

As always, if anyone has any article ideas, or would like to contribute to Slay Energy Vampires! in any way, let us know! Thanks!

--- Justin J. Stewart

Solar power transportation, at night?! The future of commerical air flight.

...link via Kendall Crever

Now, this is still far off, but pretty impressive. We are not going to be flying in carbon neutral planes tomorrow to go visit the aunts and uncles, but it could very well be in our life time, and the first steps are being put in place right now. A Swiss Company named Solar Impulse, has successfully tested a solar powered airplane that lasted in flight for over 26 hours, including through the night on July 7th and July 8th. Their overall goal is an around the world flight via solar power, and a trans-atlantic flight by 2012. The craft flew just over 28,000 feet above sea level, and the wingspan of 208 feet same as a Boeing 747-400. This was just a lightweight prototype, but it shows that the technology is sound by staying aloff for 26 hours. It set records for the longest and highest solar powered flight. How does the power work? According to the Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, part of the U.S. Department of Energy:

"The aircraft's nearly 12,000 silicon mono-crystalline solar cells—mounted on its wings and on its horizontal stabilizer—absorbed the sun' rays on the ascent and supplied the craft's four electric engines and lithium-polymer batteries, enabling Impulse to average about 26 miles per hour for the flight"

The Solar Impulse HB-SIA in action, in the great blue yonder.What are the implications of this for you and I. Like I said before, these are babysteps, but they are important movements towards commercial aircrafts using this technology to create carbon-neutral flights for you and I. According to the Carbon Footprint Calculator at Terrapass a round trip for 2 to JFK Airport in New York from LAX Airport in Los Angeles would be about 3,468 pounds of CO2. If we can cut into that number in the future for normal passenger flights using this technology it would be a great victory. Right now the airline industry accounts for about 12 percent of all of the CO2 released into the atmosphere. This technology is a step in the right direction, and is exciting in a very nerdy type of way (the way I like it). I hope to see more developers get into this arena and hope to see solar panels on my flights in future years to come.

Whole article from the EERE can be found here:

Swiss Solar-Powered Plane Makes First Night Flight

---Justin J. Stewart (link via Kendall Crever)