What happens when food, dogma, a green chef, and a Ph.D. collide? Why a scientifically based feel good cookbook, that’s what.
How this cookbook review ended up on the website Energy Bulletin I have no idea. But the description is entertaining. I used to only worry about eating something that was too fattening, now I worry if that Snickers Bar will be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and cause us to pass a tipping point (and I’m not talking bathroom scales). So much to worry about, so little time.
Hmmm, here’s the premise:
“How do our food choices affect global warming? That’s what this website and project, named after the original title of the book, The Global Warming Diet, Cool Recipes for a Hot Planet, set out to discover.”
I wonder if Al Gore has tried this? Is there anything that is safe from being tied to global warming these days?
Cool Cuisine: Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming
Is global warming really the ‘best thing that has happened to the culinary world in a long time’ as chef Laura Stec suggests? The discovery that our food choices can reduce global warming as effectively as buying a new fuel-efficient vehicle inspires new strategies towards creating a more sustainable world. What we eat does have an impact on our planet and you can eat better tasting, higher-vibe food and find solutions for the global warming diet through Cool Cuisine: Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming by Laura Stec with Eugene Cordero, PhD (Gibbs Smith, Publisher).
Cool Cuisine is a smorgasbord of scientific fact and culinary art where the reader learns new ways to look at global warming. It presents the full cycle on how our agrochemical food system affects global warming and how global warming affects the food system. With in-depth research and interviews from over 30 scientists, farmers, ranchers and food professionals, it inspires personal life changes by offering easy recipes, ideas for your next “book and cook” club, and simple tips on how to prepare a global-cooling cuisine. The book is organized into three sections: the first gives background to global warming- food connections, the second highlights solutions, and the third is a “culinary how-to,” teaching simple techniques and tips for cooking a Cool Cuisine.
Laura Stec
Laura Stec is a San Francisco Bay Area chef and environmental advocate who enjoys teaching about the artistry, health and energetics of cooking. She trained at the Culinary Institute of America, the School of Natural Cookery and the Vega Macrobiotic Study Center before starting her own personal chef/catering business – Laura Stec – Innovative Cuisine, and joining Kaiser Permanente Medical Group as their Culinary Health Educator. Since founding one of the first U.S. food and environment organizations in 1989, Stec has been feeding us with the idea that one the most positive effects we can have on the environment begins on our dinner plate, a message she continues to promote while on staff 12 years at Acterra, an environmental organization based in Palo Alto, CA. With over 25 years experience in the food industry, Stec now partners with EcoSpeakers.com to lecture and consult with corporations and institutions on ways to bring regionally responsible cuisine into their food systems.
Read more about Laura at http://laurastec.com/aboutlaura.html
Eugene Cordero, Ph.D
Dr. Eugene Cordero is an Associate Professor in the Department of Meteorology at San José State University (SJSU) in California. His research interests are focused on understanding the processes responsible for long-term changes in climate through the use of observations and atmospheric models. At present, this work is supported by research grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA. Dr. Cordero is a coauthor on the WMO/UNEP 2006 Ozone Assessment report and is currently participating in projects related to evaluating the models used for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. In the Department of Meteorology, Dr. Cordero teaches various courses in climate change and is involved in projects working to improve methods of education that engage and ultimately stimulate social change.
Read more about Eugene at http://www.met.sjsu.edu/~cordero
(Hat tip and a carbon free lunch to David Walton)
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Make corn from biofuel to feed the starving. Simple recipe really.
Hey, capitalism at it’s finest. There are dog cookbook, cat cookbook, cancer, everything why not global warming.
On a side note I got you a reference on wikipedia and it stuck!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic#cite_note-link5-14
Pachauri has shown the way: no beef! no meat!
If you’re really serious, I think fungi are the only allowable food.
Plants are necessary because they’re busy eating the carbon dioxide.
Eating animals might be okay, but you can’t breed or feed them – they’ll want to eat plants.
I have just lost the will to live!!!!!!!!!!!!
I remain resentful that the original panic that animal fat would kill you has made it almost impossible to buy a decent piece of meat in Australia; has changed the way the entire world eats; and yet this story ran in the New York Times on October 9, 2007: Findings … Diet and Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus By JOHN TIERNEY with no outrage across the board; and apparently with no penny-dropping enlightenment that maybe we were born suckers all and should really sit down and do a little thinking for ourselves…
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html?_r=1&ei=5087&em=&en=53bfd0df7f448ca4&ex=1192161600&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin
Just another ozone hole in our head. Just another overheating globe. Piltdown Man was grade-school stuff to our sophistication in warping truth these days.
I wonder if the book covers a cap and trade solution to bean burritos?
But seriously, agricultural run off has messed with the nitrogen/phosphate balance in the oceans causing a reduction in plankton and the productivity of the basal segment of the food chain. There is some environmental merit to the premise of the book, but it will have no effect on climate.
New Scientist had this subject as their main article in a recent issue. Not that i read it just saw the headline, since they are against waste i decided not to waste my money.
Hey, what did you expect from a couple of people from the San Francisco Bay area… the hot bed of liberalism.
I hope they are just eating salads and other raw food as cooking itself is CO2 producing, whatever way you do it.
Regards
Andy
It is just the “Reduce World Population” conspiracy taking another little step forward.
This stuff isn’t even funny anymore.
It’s pathetic.
I used to laugh and, yes, snicker, but now I think they should just grow up.
OT
Interesting that the Daily Telegraph Uk has not published a single letter about its WWF report on Monday.
Wait a sec…Laura Stec is working with Kaiser Permanente? The same Kaiser Permanente featured prominently in Michael Moore’s Sicko? The same Kaiser Permanente that has screwed millions?
The ultimate low-impact planet-friendly diet is actually breatharianism. Your only nutrients would be oxygen and sunlight, and your only output would be carbon diox- er, actually no, forget it… :o)
Hardly a niche market…lots and lots of kooks out there.
I expect them to sell a million copies or more. NYT will hype it up and put on its bestseller list.
Meanwhile, I’m going to got out and enjoy a nice medium 1/2 lb. sirloin steak this evening, with a glass of red wine to boot.
By the way, what are all these Manhattan kooks now supposed to enjoy their red wine with when steak is a mortal sin? Celery?
Werner Weber,
I think an old slogan from the 70s is about to make a big comeback:
“Where’s the beef!”
It must have passed me by, but what is “higher-vibe food”? Is it a new word for vegetarian or vegan? Can anyone tell me? I’ve never noticed my food vibing or being musical!
“Cool cuisine” OK, but the point when you eat is the taste, not the planet.
I wouldn’t trust the recipes of a chef with such lack of common sense. I’m French and amateur of fine cuisine.
we may be onto another major antarctic re-freeze this year. It snowed in Southern Australia yesterday. Predict Arctic will still go ABOVE anomaly this year and well on way.
Another diet of the moment. {or is that another eye-roller moment?} Remember the low fat food craze? The tasty fat was replaced with carbs/sugar. Health got worse.
You want to save the planet? Don’t eat.
My diet – if it tastes good, eat it.
If you gain weight, eat less, exercise more.
Bottled water? Sure. Bought some last year and have been refilling those handy bottles with tap water ever since. Convenient way to keep water cold in the fridge.
As for Cool Cuisine, there’s a sucker born, etc. etc.
NSW experienced the coldest Oct day for 30 years today. It snowed on the tablelands, we had hail in Northern NSW.
Last night the ABC showed a doco that was advertised as :
A highly entertaining documentary which follows agriculturalist Dr Ken Street as he hunts for the wild chickpea which could save the world from mass starvation in the event of global warming.
Vaguely, the vegetarians I know all seem to be a little depressed. I’m personally curious about this because whenever I eat lean meat, my energy levels go up and my mood improves–I’m happier and more active.
Just what if the correct diet as mandated by Nature for Man is meat and veggies? I don’t see anyone asking the polar bears to stop biting baby seals.
Phillip Bratby (01:55:10) :
It must have passed me by, but what is “higher-vibe food”? Is it a new word for vegetarian or vegan? Can anyone tell me? I’ve never noticed my food vibing or being musical!
Ha Ha.. Ive always been taught that my food shouldnt still be moving when I’m eating it.. maybe they should cook it a little longer and it wont vibe:)
An absolutely fascinating journey into the world of smoke and mirrors. Dog, Green cook books, animal food (corn) converted to BioFuel, etc.
A Corn maize that is traveled by the first to enter is a real treat. Logic does not solve the future, applying past experience may. After 1000 pairs of feet trample the surface, any pretender-Daniel Boone may navigate at a rapid pace.
Will intelligent discussion deflate the AGW political direction of today? Has Dr. Eugene Cordero, Grant-financed, and his interest in “California temperature trends:”, consulted the Surface Station project?
Cold climate weather mandates meat eating survival. Foraging animals convert vegetation (poor human food) matter into condensed energy ‘meat’. Man over beast. So why is the worlds major population in the Norther Hemisphere?