I'm Rebecca Lando.
I'm an award-winning writer, producer, and editor and upcoming cookbook author based in New York City.
In 2009 I launched Working Class Foodies, a cooking show that creates affordable meals from local, seasonal, and/or sustainable ingredients. Working Class Foodies is a part of YouTube Next Chef and airs on NBC New York's Nonstop Foodies.
I wrote, produced, and edited FilmFan, an award-winning weekly movie review show, for MSN from 2010-2011.
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WORKING CLASS FOODIES
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Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Nuclear waste is miniscule in size—one Coke can’s worth per person-lifetime of electricity if it was all nuclear, Rip Anderson likes to point out. Coal waste is massive—68 tons of solid stuff and 77 tons of carbon dioxide per person-lifetime of strictly coal electricity. The nuclear waste goes into dry cask storage, where it is kept in a small area, locally controlled and monitored. You always know exactly what it’s doing. A 1-gigawatt nuclear plant converts 20 tons of fuel a year into 20 tons of waste, which is so dense it fills just two dry-storage casks, each one a cylinder 18 feet high, 10 feet in diameter. But contrast, a 1-gigawatt coal plant buns 3 million tons of fuel a year and producest 7 million tons of CO2, all of which immediately goes into everyone’s atmosphere, where no one can control it, and no one knows what it’s really up to. That’s not counting the fly ash and flue gases from coal—the world’s largest source of released radioactivity, full of heavy metals, including lead, arsenic, and most of the neurotoxic mercury that has so suffused the food chain…
Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Discipline (via ericmortensen)
The great grocery smackdown
Can Walmart really go up against Whole Foods? Long the bane of enlightened consumers, Walmart has been experimenting with local and organic meats and produce. The Atlantic decided to see how they fared against Whole Foods and the results are pretty interesting.
It’s certainly an interesting question: can WalMart do something good for food/communities/the environment? I’d like to hope so, but it’s WalMart.
The article, although intriguing, definitely left me with some unanswered questions.
My parents’ town in Florida has a weekly farmer’s market. A few local farmers hawk their homegrown fruits and vegetables, but they compete with megatables set up by people who buy produce in bulk at Sam’s Club and Costco and pass it off as local, organic produce.
- What oversight measures will consumers be guaranteed to make sure WalMart’s local small farms are actually growing the produce they sell?
- What oversight measures will consumers be guaranteed to make sure WalMart is itself being honest?
It’s fairly common knowledge that terms like ‘organic’ and ‘free-range’ don’t mean what they used to, or should. The meanings for terms like these, instead of being signifiers of quality, method, and care, are now somewhat dubious and hard to prove for the average consumer concerned about what they’re eating.
- What measures can be guaranteed to keep the terminology of WalMart’s experimental foray into local, small-farm food honest and true?
If WalMart can prove, continuously, that it can account for itself, its farmers, and its statements, then fine - this can be a great thing. If not, then it might only set us back further on the road to good food for a good environment.
New York Turns Parking Meters into Bike Racks
Biking is way up in New York, but the city only has one bike rack space for every 30 cyclists. The solution? Repurpose old parking meters:
Under the city’s latest green transportation plan, about 225 parking meters across the city will have their heads hacked off and be turned into bike racks.
The transformation starts this spring on the Upper East and West sides; Park Slope, Brooklyn; Riverdale, Bronx; and Ridgewood, Queens. The metal pole that remains of the meter will become circular racks.Drivers will pay for parking at communal “muni meters” at the end of each block, rather than feed individual meters.
the ‘dropnet’ by german designer imke hoehler is a fog collector which has the potential to provide drinking water supplies to to isolated areas or areas with low infrastructure. using natural and local resources, the collector filters tiny water droplets from fog clouds causing the droplets to coalesce. (via imke hoehler: dropnet)
The best set of speakers for your home are made of wood, there’s a reason for that, wood makes music sound better. Thinksound began with a simple goal; to create incredible sounding headphones with the smallest eco-footprint possible. Their headphones are made with real wood, creating a more natural resonance and unparalleled acoustics. (via ThinkSound Rain & Thunder Headphones)
Klean Kanteen: Special Edition Bottle by SHFT and Studio No. 1
Ever since coming back from Cambodia I’ve been thinking about their water. And of course that leads into the whole “well it’s too big of a problem worldwide for me to do anything about it” thing. Well, if you’re in the market (and you should be, stop drinking water out of those plastic dasani or aquafina bottles) for a clean, reusable drinking bottle, take a look at Kleen Kanteen’s stainless-steel bottles. They’re a bit expensive but you can find deals on amazon.com where they are a bit cheaper (about the same as a comparable Nalgene bottle) but if you want to donate a little bit of that extra money you’re spending on a kleen kanteen, buy one of these printed ones direct from the company and let some of your money go to help provide clean drinking water to everyone across the globe.
Jamie Oliver has been doing some great work trying to educate people about food to combat the Western epidemic of obesity. He won the 2010 TEDPrize and wants to teach every child about food.
Best Buy E-Cycle Billboard Features Letters Made From Recycled Electronics
Awesome.
GETTING THE POINT 101. Good work, Best Buy.
Announcing HuffPost Green's Week of Eating In
“We think taking responsibility for actually preparing what you eat for a week will be an (outrageously fun) consciousness-raising activity. Reading food packages, learning your way around your local grocery store or farmers market, and understanding what actual ingredients go into making your favorite dishes will empower you to think about what you eat in new ways.”
I could not have said any of this incredibly level and persuasive introduction by Katherine and Adam at Huffington Post nearly as well. So excited to see what will happen with so many people not eating out for a week!
I’m so excited for my friend Cathy’s book release. I’m totally in!
A report last year by the Sustainable Packaging Alliance, commissioned by Woolworths, found reusable bags have a lower environmental toll than single-use bags, but only when used 104 times - or once a week over two years. The impact on global warming of a reusable polypropylene bag used only 52 times is worse than a standard plastic shopping bag.
ABC Kitchen, a market-driven restaurant where everything from the bathroom soaps to the cleaning products will be organic. Even the wine and spirits will be organic or artisanal.
[…]
The décor, conceived by local Brooklyn furniture designer Eric Slayton, will be a modern take on farm-to-table with rustic furnishings and sustainable building materials like steel and concrete. “There was a tremendous amount of research that went into every detail because of our focus on a sustainable philosophy,” Slayton explains.
Working in Guatemala as a Peace Corps volunteer, Laura Kutner helped a community build a school using plastic bottles and bags. More photos available in the story in the Oregonian.
