"Living Downstream" Coming to Chicago on Illinois Screening Tour

Happy October! We're excited to announce that the documentary film Living Downstream is coming to Chicago this month on a multi-city screening tour. This must-see film is based on the acclaimed book by ecologist and cancer survivor Dr. Sandra Steingraber. It follows Sandra across North America as she works to break the silence about cancer and its environmental links.

Handsomely photographed and powerfully argued… Steingraber's scientific cool and unflagging sense of mission make for an arresting portrait of a self-styled modern-day Rachel Carson.

     - Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post (04/23/10)

Each screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Dr. Sandra Steingraber and filmmaker Chanda Chevannes. The Chicago event will be held on October 19th at 7pm at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Advance tickets available online or by phone from Brown Paper Tickets or in person at Women and Children First bookstore. Hope to see you there!

A Late Summer Visit to the Chicago Honey Co-op

For Labor Day, Dorothée and I took a little field trip to the Chicago Honey Co-op apiary in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood to snap some photos and chat with Co-op founder Michael Thompson. Six years ago, Thompson struck a deal with a real estate investor allowing him and others to keep bees on the cracked concrete of a deserted Sears Roebuck truck parking lot. Now, after scaling up a bit and ramping back down, the cooperative seems to have struck a good balance with about 60 hives buzzing on the east side of the lot and a lush vegetable garden growing to the west.

Thompson says the co-op has been successful enough that they're no longer able to take on new members. The co-op pulls in enough revenue from local sales of jars of honey, candles and soap to pay Thompson and one other worker part-time wages, but he emphasizes that it's not a huge money-maker.

In terms of amenities, the co-op is a pretty bare-bones operation. Aside from a small tool shed, it's just concrete, hives and the vegetable garden. For water, they attach a hose to the fire hydrant on Fillmore Street. Simplicity is part of the beauty of the Honey Co-op, where Thompson and his co-op members took a forsaken plot of land and created something beautiful and productive.  

PHOTOS: Scenes from FamilyFarmed.org EXPO

This weekend we had the pleasure of attending the Family Farmed EXPO in Chicago. On Friday night, we had a blast tasting some of Chicago's best local food at the Localicious Party. My favorite dish was an offering with house-made sausage and lentils from Osteria Via Stato and the best pastry goes to Pasticceria Natalina for a delicious almond concoction featuring honey and flower essences.

On Saturday, we checked out the Food Festival where we caught a chef demo with Paul Kahan and got a chance to hang out with Myles Harston of Aquaranch who was sampling his tasty Lemon Basil Vinaigrette. We also checked out great workshops led by Chicago visionaries and educators including: Ken Dunn, Terra Brockman, Seneca Kern and Blayne Greiner. 

Can't wait for next year!

-Dorothee

Family Farmed Expo Starts Today in Chicago

Local food is on the tip of everybody's tongue in Chicago today, because the fifth annual Family Farmed Expo starts today and runs through Saturday at the UIC Forum.

Billed as "the Midwest's premier local food event," the expo is open to the public and it will feature exhibitor booths from local food producers, chef demos, and organic and local food workshops.

We'll be heading over to UIC to get in on the action this week. To learn more about the Family Farmed Expo, check out this promo video of FamilyFarmed.org President Jim Slama:

Fish Food: Chicago's Appetite for Aquaponics

The February issue of Mindful Metropolis, a Chicago magazine about green living, is on newsstands, and it features an article I wrote about several organic aquaponics farms that are planned for the city.

Here's a excerpt:

In aquaponics, the plants are fertilized with nutrients and bacteria from fish water, and the plant roots filter the water so that it can be circulated back into the fish tanks, creating a symbiotic loop between fish and plants. Growing Power actually has several urban farms in Chicago that are managed by Allen’s daughter Erika, but none of them incorporate aquaponics technology. In fact, no commercial aquaponics operations exist in Chicago, because Chicago law doesn’t currently allow it, but several key players would like to see that change. 

“There’s nothing on the books in terms of the zoning as far as fish are concerned, but because they’re living beings they’re considered livestock,” says 46th Ward Alderman Helen Shiller. “Well, obviously we have to separate that.” 

Shiller hopes to convert the former Salvation Army building at the corner of Broadway and Sunnyside Avenue in Uptown into a multi-use building that would house aquaponics fish tanks and grow beds, an educational center, a community kitchen, and an on-site market. But she needs to address zoning issues in order for that to become a reality. 

Allen caught a break with the Growing Power property, because it was already zoned for agricultural use when he bought it. “He’s the last farmer in Milwaukee,” Shiller says. “You could probably not do what he’s doing anywhere else in a city without having the same problems that we’re having.” Shiller recently raised the aquaponics issue with the Chicago Departments of Zoning and Community Development, and she hopes to see the livestock designation change within the next year. “More and more of our colleagues are saying, ‘We really want to do that, so as soon as you figure it out we’re going to do it,’” she says.

Read the whole story at Mindful Metropolis, where you can read a digital version of the entire magazine.

-Mark

Green Grocer Chicago's 2nd Anniversary Party

Yesterday was a special occasion for the OrganicNation staff. Our neighborhood grocery store, Green Grocer Chicago, celebrated its second anniversary yesterday, and we were on hand for a couple hours in the afternoon, selling raffle tickets and munching on the free samples.

Green Grocer gets mentioned a lot on this blog for a couple of reasons. Owners Gary Stephens and Cassie Green (pictured below with Dorothee) do an excellent job of sourcing the majority of the food in the shop from local and organic producers, and for a small storefront, they have an excellent selection. They're one of the only places where you can dependably find high-quality local and organic produce year-round in Chicago. Most importantly though, they're located just a block from where I live, meaning that I don't have to get in the car, and I never buy more than I can carry.

To me, the existence of small, independent grocery stores like Green Grocer is crucial to the sustainable food movement. Farmers markets are great, and I shop at them whenever it's convenient, but a great independent grocery is sort of like a daily, year-round farmers market, and it's another place to meet people who are passionate about good food.

-Mark

Why to Buy an Organic Christmas Tree

Snowy branches / Flickr user randomdepthNOTE: This post first appeared at our new ChicagoNow blog, The Dirt on Green

People give plenty of thought to how their food is grown and where it comes from, but what about Christmas trees? They all look green, but like any monoculture, Christmas trees are heavily sprayed with a cocktail of pesticides and herbicides including glyphosate, dimethoate and di-syston 15-G, according to the Organic Consumers Association.

Most of those poisons won't make it into your living room, because they wash off in the rain and snow before the tree is harvested. However some do, and because of both health and environmental concerns, some buyers are switching to either organic or natural Christmas trees.

According to a recent New York Times article, trees can be certified-organic, meaning they were raised sustainably without the use of synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. Or they can be "certified-natural," a new designation that means essentially the same thing but saves farmers time and money on paperwork and filing fees.

Click to read more ...

Scenes from Chicago VeganMania!

Neither Dorothee nor I are vegans, but when we caught wind that an event called "Chicago VeganMania" was being held just a half mile up the road, we couldn't resist. The event was held at the Pulaski Park Fieldhouse on the North Side of Chicago, and it featured about a dozen vegan food vendors and more than 40 other artists and vendors.

Saturday's event was the first VeganMania ever to be held in Chicago, and judging from the crowds it drew, I expect more to follow. When Dorothee and I arrived, we had to fight our way through a crowd just to get in, and once we did, we encountered an hour-long line for some of the food concessions.

We stopped to chat with Leanne from Vaute Couture, and to admire her innovative vegan winter coats, and before we left, we tried some vegan organic chocolates from Cru Cacao, a sustainable chocolatier based in Chicago.

-Mark