sarah's sustainable life

a few weeks ago, a couple of guys came to my coffee bar and ordered tea. being a tea enthusiast myself, i am always thrilled to chat with people who go out of their way not to order coffee, and so a conversation began. these two gentlemen are in business together, and i wanted to tell you about their grand opening so that you can support a local business. the pho sure vietnamese restaurant and saatea lounge is located at 741 w. ashby st near downtown san antonio. the vietnamese restaurant has been open for some time, but they are expanding the space to include a tea lounge (the grand opening of which will be this weekend, october 3rd). as part of the opening, there will be live music, free organic snacks, and free kambucha tea. if you are available this saturday, stop by for a little while and enjoy! i hope to see you there.

apparently, FEMA has had blueprints for a machine that turns biomass into fuel for first responders in an emergency for some time, but the machine is huge and expensive, so a 31-year old welder from washington state spent several months condensing the “gasifier” into something more practical. the plans are that every family will own one in the future and our garbage will be turned into fuel for our vehicles. pretty cool! if this were available tomorrow for several hundred or even a thousand dollars, would your family spring for one? it sounds like a great investment, knowing you’ll never have to buy gas again. i’d like to think we would buy one pretty quickly.

it’s the eternal struggle (on the supermarket level). which is healthier when it comes to fruit and vegetables, fresh or frozen? here’s my take on this dilemma:

fresh:
automatically, fresh fruit and veg come out on top when considering nutritional benefits – or do they? when buying seasonal produce from a local farmer’s market, fresh really is best. in that case, the goods have been freshly harvested and still hold most of their nutrients intact. seasonal produce is also cheaper than that which must be shipped in from afar or coaxed into existence under unnatural circumstances. if you are looking for the most nutritional produce in a supermarket, look for big sales on the fruit and veg with the least amount of packaging.

frozen:
frozen food gets a bad reputation for being second rate, but it’s actually a very good first choice, nutritionally speaking. unlike canned fruit and veg, the frozen variety can be kept on hand for months at a time for convenient use without the addition of salt, sugar, or other chemical preservatives. also, most frozen produce has been picked at the peak of season and quickly frozen. farmers and supermarkets do this because the food looks great and sells well, but the benefit to the consumer is that most of the nutrients have been locked in during the freezing process. so, the average fresh produce has been sitting in trucks or on shelves for days or weeks losing nutrients every hour while the frozen stuff has maintained its nutritional integrity. frozen veg is usually extremely inexpensive, too! for some reason, frozen fruit is out the wazoo expensive, so i recommend freezing leftover fruit just when it becomes too ripe to use – it makes great smoothies!