I often look at the chemical ingredients in what I buy. I shop at farmers markets for organic produce and use green cleaning supplies. So, it caught me off guard when a friend remarked, "you are so aware of what you eat, why aren't you just as curious about what you drink?" Well, we drink organic coffee but not organic wine. I was worried about sacrificing taste and I just didn't think most vineyards were heavily sprayed with pesticides. Then I learned that wine grapes are the second most sprayed crop in the state. This didn't seem like it could be that good for the farm workers, the Earth, or the consumer. Several studies have found trace amounts of pesticides in wine. They may be at extremely low amounts, but what kind of impact could pesticide residues have overtime?

Armed with a new green cause, I set out to find more information about eco-wines. I learned that organic wine is just one type of green wine — there is also wine made with organic grapes. It turns out I had been drinking some of these wines and enjoying them. The thing is, you can't call it "organic wine" if the wine has added sulfites, a naturally occurring compound. Most winemakers add sulfites to help preserve the wine and make it more stable. If a wine is made from organic grapes but contains sulfites, the world "organic" can only be mentioned as part of the ingredient claim on the back of the bottle. No wonder I didn't know I was drinking wine farmed organically.

It turns out northern Sonoma County and Mendocino county are hotbeds for green wine. In the course of reporting this story, I visited several of these wine makers. Bonterra Vineyards, below Ukiah, has been farming organically since 1987 and now farms one of their ranches, McNab, biodynamically. Their red blend is nicely balanced and tastes very good.

Biodynamic is a novel form of organic farming practice with its roots in France. A biodynamic vineyard is a self-sustaining ecosystem — making organic compost, removing chemicals from the soil and farming with the cycles of the Earth.  Biodynamic has its own international certification. (Here is a list of their certified wines). Just up the 101 from Bonterra is Parducci Wine Cellars. This family run company is farming organic grapes and in some cases, biodynamically. Parducci also claims to be one of the most sustainable wineries in the country.

Sustainable is a squishy term. Sustainable wineries may be running off solar power or doing creek restoration to save spawning salmon but they are not necessarily organic and they are not certified. However, the California Sustainable Winegrowing Program is working toward an industry certification. The idea is to raise the entire industry's practices and help vintners make more eco-friendly choices that often include using less chemicals in the vineyards.

Back to sulfites. This ended up being the main reason for the stigma still associated with green wine. Twenty years ago, green wines were uneven and there were not that many choices. Now, several of these eco-wines are winning high points from the industry. Organic wine can only contain naturally occurring sulfites, under 10ppm. Wines farmed organically must keep the added sulfites below 100ppm. Conventional wine can contain sulfites as high as 300ppm. When I was reporting this story, several folks asked me if I was going to explain why they get headaches from red wine. Isn't it the sulfites? Actually, it is not known why some people get headaches from drinking red wine. It could be the histamines. It doesn't look like it's the sulfites. Less than 1% of the population, according to the FDA, is sensitive to sulfites. The reaction is a respiratory one.

Anyway, if you enjoy wine, I encourage you to think beyond red and white but to consider green, too. To find out more, listen to our radio story and check out our links. Also, green wine pioneer, Paul Dolan together with Parducci has created a green wine handbook which is very helpful.

Listen to the The Politics of Green Wine radio report online.

Chef Ryan Farr demonstrates the art of the butcher.

On Thursday night, the Society of Agriculture and Food Ecology and Meatpaper Magazine co-hosted a panel discussion at UC Berkeley titled, "The Art of the Butcher". Using whole animals from local ranches was the topic of the night, and judging from the standing room only crowd, it's an area that the sustainable agriculture community is gravitating towards.

Marissa Guggiana of Sonoma Direct led the panel, which included both chefs and producers. Melanie Eisemann and David Budworth of Avedano's butcher shop discussed how butcher shops typically don't break down whole animals in-house, and usually provide only the most popular cuts of meat such as the tenderloin, ribs and chops. At Avedano's, they encourage their customers to try lesser-known cuts that can be cheaper and more flavorful depending on the method of preparation. They also offer regular classes on how to butcher your own meat.

Producer Mark Pasternak of Devil's Gulch Ranch described the change he has seen in the marketplace from both chefs and consumers. He's able to sell his pigs to restaurants and markets that are looking for local animals that are raised outdoors, and Bay Area customers are helping to increase the demand for this sustainably raised meat. Chefs Nate Appleman of A16 and Ryan Farr of Ivy Elegance are both dedicated to using every bit of the pig that they can, from the ears and skin all the way down to the hooves. Appleman serves 20 pounds to tripe of week.

The culmination of the evening was a demonstration by Chef Ryan Farr on how to break down an entire side of a pig. It was divided up into CSA shares, which were pre-sold to members of the audience. For more on local meat CSA's, check out this Quest story.

Watts in your kitchen?

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which develops product testing for the Energy Star program, recently reached an agreement with LG, one of the world's largest manufacturer's of appliances and consumer electronics, over some LG refrigerators that failed to live up to the Energy Star label.

DOE allows manufacturers to test their own products. Some LG refrigerators were tested with their icemakers turned off and earned the Energy Star label, meaning that they are among the most energy efficient refrigerators on the market. But consumers don't generally turn their icemakers off. The LG refrigerators in question, with French doors and through-the-wall ice and water dispensers, can use up to twice as much energy than is reported on the refrigerator labels.

If you own one of the notorious refrigerators–go to the LG special web site to find out–then LG will send someone out to make some modifications, and hand you a check to cover all the hidden energy charges for the life of the refrigerator. Home Energy's Senior Executive Editor Alan Meier estimates that LG will be spending around $150 million on home visits and energy rebates.

Is LG the only manufacturer to circumvent performance standards? Probably not, so we are watching the news for more DOE settlements.

Do you know how to spot hidden energy guzzlers in your house? If you get your gas and/or electricity from PG&E, you can compare your home energy use over time and spot those peaks and valleys that indicate something is wrong, or something is right. If your electric bills shoot up soon after buying a new refrigerator, TV, or other appliance, and it isn't due to a change in the weather, you can easily spot the culprit.

If you have an online account, login, click on the "Billing" link, and then click on "Usage History". What's really cool, at least for energy geeks like me, is that you can pull up graphs showing two years of electricity use, gas use, and electricity and gas charges. And you can pull up a graph that superimposes your gas and electricity use with a graph of "heating degree-days" and "cooling degree-days". The degree-days give you a snapshot of the load on your heating and air conditioning systems–more on that later.

This sushi is good enough to eat.
Photo credit: Andrea Kissack.

There is a new trend in town. Sustainable sushi. The Monterey Bay Aquarium, and two other ocean conservation groups (Blue Ocean Institute and Environmental Defense Fund), have come out with new advice for making better sushi choices. Modeled after the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s popular Seafood Watch Pocket Guide, the new sustainable sushi guide helps consumers make informed choices by categorizing seafood into three areas: Green (or best choice), Yellow (or good alternative) and Red (what to avoid). Just what kind of sushi you should avoid may surprise you. Until now, Unagi (bbq eel with avocado), seemed pretty harmless and a good choice for reluctant sushi eaters. Well, Unagi is farmed, freshwater juvenile eel so that definitely gets a red light from the Seafood Watch folks. You can try a sustainable alternative to Unagi at Tataki Sushi Bar in San Francisco. It may be the only restaurant of it’s kind in the country. The owners of the all sustainable sushi restaurant say they don’t want to become a niche as much as they want to influence the rest of the industry to change its’ practices. And with sushi a growing multibillion dollar industry, consumer preferences can have a big impact.

So how do you green your sushi? Try Pacific Halibut, farmed scallop or North American Albacore. Monterey Bay Aquarium biologists consider these among the “best” seafood because they come from abundant, well-managed fisheries or are raised using sustainable aquaculture methods.

Each big storm with a high tide and an
onshore wind takes a big bite out of Sarichef.Photo By Shishmaref Erosion and Relocation Coalition

In an email this week from John Woodward, an Alaska builder and Home Energy author, he wrote, "I put together a working/management group to manage the relocation of the community of Shishmaref sustainabely. They live on Sarichef, a barrier island that global warming is wiping out."

Shishmaref is home to a small community of Inupiat, a Native American tribe. John is working with the Inupiat Tribal Government, the City of Shishmaref, and the Shishmaref Erosion & Relocation Coalition, to salvage as much of the village as possible before it goes under water and move it, along with the island inhabitants, to a new plot of land in the interior of Alaska.

The Army Corp of Engineers gives the island about 5 or 10 more years of livability. But as the ocean and permafrost warm and the ocean rises, unpredictable storms take a heavy toll on the island. "Each big storm with a high tide and an on-shore wind takes a big bite out of Sarichef," says Woodward.

The community is seeking funds for a comprehensive alternative energy plan, an anaerobic pump/methane generator, and the retrofit of all existing buildings, including more than 110 homes, community buildings and a school. The homes will be retrofit to use less than 5 Btu per square foot to heat. Heating load calculations can be pretty complicated, but in general, contractors recommend furnaces that can provide 30-50 Btu per square foot to heat homes in the Bay Area. To reach such a high level of energy efficiency, the Shishmaref homes will have the insulation installed on the outside of the structure, a technique that Woodward has successfully used in the past. The new village will have the look and functionality of the Inupiat culture as defined and designed through community planning.

"Our community planning process involves community charettes with the whole community gathered in the school gym," say Woodward. "The goal of these meetings is the rough-out of a comprehensive community plan for sustainable relocation of the existing salvageable infrastructure and the development of the new village site."

The Inupiat will build their new village to suit their needs and lifestyles, to be efficient, and to be in harmony with its surroundings-in other words, sustainabely. Let's keep an eye on our northern neighbors, who may teach us some valuable lessons. How long before whole towns in California will have to relocate because of water shortages? We all witnessed what happened in New Orleans a few years ago. How long before towns and cities on the coast of California will have to move inland or be seriously reconfigured because of the rising Pacific Ocean?

You can e-mail John Woodward with questions, comments, ideas, and offers of help at panuktuk@yahoo.com.