Atlanta Entrepreneurs Think Outside the Boxcar with Healthy Corner Store

Reposting a Daily Good article on rebranding the food movement. Read more!

Atlanta Entrepreneurs Think Outside the Boxcar with Healthy Corner Store

As entrepreneurs and food activists attempt to bring fresh produce to more and more urban food deserts, they're setting their crosshairs on one target in particular: the corner store. Packed to the gills with cigarettes, lotto tickets, liquor, and processed foods, the shops do little to nourish the communities where they operate, and in many urban areas—particularly black, Latino, or low-income neighborhoods—these stores are the only places to buy any food at all.

According to Alphonzo and Alison Cross, founders of The Boxcar Grocer in Atlanta (and winners of GOOD's contest to redesign the supermarket), this needs to change. Their just-opened corner store alternative, where local and organic food options get prime shelf space, is an attempt to respect "the fact that every community desires fresh food, and locally made food is just about as fresh as you can get," says Alison.

The Castleberry Hill neighborhood, where Boxcar sits, is full of preserved railroad warehouses (hence the name), but doesn't have another decent grocery store within five miles, despite its proximity to City Hall and college campuses. "We chose to put the store here exactly for this reason," says Alison. "The demographics, to us, looked like a sure sign of success."

The brother-sister duo's mission is to broaden the appeal of the food movement to embrace more black eaters. The first step is the vintage train-themed brand. "Railroads are great connectors," according to Alison. "They are also what took African Americans out of the South, saving our lives in many instances, as well as brought them back to visit their families." While the typical branding on the nonprofits and businesses of the local food movement tends to idealize an agricultural lifestyle, that's "something the African American community does not really desire to go back to, even though we need to address lots of health issues directly related to the type of foods we're eating," Alison says.

The store has enjoyed the support of "the entire Atlanta community" since its launch in November, with residents of other neighborhoods already asking the Crosses to open outposts. "The only real challenge," Alison says, "is how to keep enough food on the shelves on a daily basis."

Find out more about Boxcar Grocer here!

How far are you willing to go for local food?

Another long break between posts! I'm in Auckland, New Zealand at the moment, staying with my housemate's family while I organize my student visa. The landscape is beautiful here and I've greatly enjoyed the hikes and walks around the Waitatere ranges.

Last weekend, we went out grocery shopping. There's a deal at New Worlds supermarket where you spend $200+ and get a 30 cent discount on gas. They managed to spend $235. Then, we head to this farmers' market in the city and bought some more eggs, cupcakes (which were quite yummy), and veggies. I figure okay, this is a good amount of food. But we're not done! 2 more stops at another farmers' market and a wholesake bakery (to get a week's worth of dessert it seems), back home to unload everything, and then to a farmers' market 40 min drive away to get veggies picked that day. There was SO much food and it was just for the 4 of us.

After having been here for a week and half, I've definitely noticed that they buy WAY WAY more food than they could ever possibly eat in a week. A good amount goes to waste or as they put it, if it's not good, just chuck it out and grab the next one because we have so many. As much as I think their intentions for environmentalism are sincere, I think they go about it in the wrong way. There's nothing wrong with stocking up, but one must take into account how much one can actually eat so that food doesn't go to waste. It'd save a lot of money as well, since they would actually just buy what's necessary instead of overcompensating.

The dilemma of local food versus how far you're willing to get said food is also highlighted here. Obviously driving out 40 min each way to buy groceries is not something you want to be doing each day. But eating freshly picked vegetables, picked THAT morning in fact, is appealing, and there are numerous other benefits to farmers' markets (getting to know your farmers, social interaction). The family is recognized by all the farmers and they exchange pleasant conversation at every stop. Weighing the pros and cons of such decisions ultimately pins different aspects of sustainability against each other - carbon footprint and time management of driving long distances, eating locally, farmer community. I don't think there's necessarily one right answer, but it helps to look at every angle and decide what each factor is worth to you.

Green travels to developing countries

Season's greetings, all! I was traveling abroad in Malaysia and Singapore for a few weeks this December. It was a wonderful trip and I loved being there. Southeast Asia is culturally similar to East Asia in many ways, but there were refreshing differences, such as the interesting mixing of Malay, Chinese, and Indian influences in the region. The food especially was amazing - I couldn't stop eating the street food, it was too delicious! That brings me to my next point - waste.

Street food in Asia used to consist of using reusable containers (glass jars for water while traveling, plastic containers for food) or compostable newspaper to wrap food with. What could be reused was and what left was thrown away, but because the material was compostable, there was little environmental impact. But with the rise of convenient and throwaway plastic bags and containers, the same habits of throwing things away created huge trash issues. During my travels in Malaysia and my past trips to China and India, I observed so many rivers clogged up with trash, city streets littered with plastic bags and bottles, and land covered with huge piles of waste.



Trash casually thrown away - my grandfather's hometown village in Guangxi province, China

At one point during my travels in China, my friend and I got so fed up with the constant plastic bagging of our street food that we decided to start reusing the old bags and chopsticks. Sometimes the hawker stall vendors would insist on giving us new bags or chopsticks. But eventually we got our way. It's a small victory to prevent one plastic bag or a pair of chopsticks from being thrown into the streets, but I hope that it gets people thinking about what they can do to prevent the waste from piling up.

Traveling to developing countries does make me realize how complicated the rise to first world status is. Environmental impact is just about the last thing the government will be thinking about when economic productivity is on the line. But I think that environmental sustainability is key to achieving first world status and it is not a luxury only to be obtained once economic success is had. Without sustainable foundations, society will be very unstable. I don't have any quick and easy answers to how to maintain that goal, especially when there are many other pressing problems to address in developing countries. But I do think that having that solid foundation will help ease the tension in the other areas.

Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet

I just finished Jeffery Sachs' book Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet and wanted to recommend it to any person interested in the environment and how it might tie into global politics, economics, and social issues.

The book includes a bit of everything - science, politics, social concerns, population demographics, economics. For those who aren't as familiar with climate change, Sachs gives a nice and easy to understand summary of the scientific evidence for global climate change and the environmental consequences that will follow. There are also chapters on population growth, poverty, and global politics.

For me, the most enlightening chapters were on US foreign policy and how these policies help solve (or more correctly fail to solve) global problems. Having traveled outside of the US, it now makes sense to me WHY everyone dislikes the US so much - the US takes the attitude of "you're with us or against us" rather than one of cooperation and neighborly conduct. The problems the world faces today are ones that everyone has a hand in causing and in resolving, and one country acting like they can just let the other countries deal with their own problems will eventually be detrimental to the world.

Another interesting section in the book was the statistics on foreign aid. I never saw the statistics on it before, but there is definitely a correlation between amount of foreign aid given to developing countries and how successful they became later. Foreign aid can help stop the poverty trap and prevent civil wars and conflicts that engulf the world from happening. Countries that have a large percentage of its population in extreme poverty are more likely to have troubled communities desperate to survive. Add on the environmental stress of climate chance, such as water scarcity and food shortage, and uncontrolled population growth, and you have a potentially explosive situation on your hands. Places where civil wars and conflicts that have occurred in the last few years have all been places where there was a high percentage of young people and where there was high environmental stress.

In short, I found the book really enlightening and I highly recommend everyone to read it, especially fellow Americans!

Dirty Dozen Foods

If you're looking to buy organic, but not sure where to start, here's a list of a Dirty Dozen fruits and vegetables from the Environmental Working Group that research has shown to be high in pesticide residues. It's best to buy these organic to avoid long term illness from the pesticides, especially for pregnant women and children. For those on a budget, it's also a great way to prioritize which foods to buy organic and which ones you can do without.

The list includes the following fruits and vegetables

1. Apples
   
2. Celery
   
3. Strawberries
   
4. Peaches
   
5. Spinach
   
6. Nectarines (imported to US)
   
7. Grapes (imported to US)
   
8. Sweet bell peppers
   
9. Potatoes
   
10. Blueberries
    
11. Lettuce
    
12. Kale

Alternatives to these fruits and vegetables include

• Watermelon, bananas, and kiwi
  
• Cabbage, asparagus, and broccoli
  
• Sweet potato
  
• Pineapple, papaya, and mango
  
• Tangerines, oranges and grapefruit
  
• Radishes and onion

Chicken raising tips

We had another great permablitz on Sunday, building a chicken coop and digging out veggie patches. One of the permablitz facilitators ran a workshop on chicken raising, so here are some things to keep in mind.

1. Chickens are social creatures. They naturally live in groups where there is a strict social hierarchy. When you first get your chickens, they'll bully one another but within a week or so, they should establish their pecking order and the bullying should stop. It's best to let them sort it out, even if the pecking gets a little rough. Chickens have a short memory though and only remember up to 25 individuals, so if you have more than 25 chickens, the social pecking order will never get established and the bullying will always happen. To avoid this and have healthier chickens, either raise less than 25 chickens in the same space or have enough room for smaller groups to form. When new chickens are introduced to the group, the bullying will continue for another week until the new pecking order is established. It might be a good idea to introduce two new chickens at once so that the bullying isn't focused on one individual.
   
   
2. Chickens remember where home is. To get your chickens to associate home with the coop you've made for them, keep them there for the first few days and don't let them out. From then onward, your chickens should always return to their coop to rest at night. If you move homes, the chickens won't have a problem if you do the same re-association exercise with the new coop.
   
   
3. In addition to the coop area where eggs are laid and the chicken run where your chickens roam freely, it's a good idea to have an intermediate fenced off fox-proof area/straw yard connected to the coop. This straw yard should give your chickens access to grass and water where they can do their scratching and chicken business without the risk of predators and without you opening the gate to the chicken coop every morning. It doesn't have to be too big, but it should be big enough to keep your chickens sufficiently happy and well fed/watered even if you didn't let them into the larger chicken run for several days (giving you the option of going away for the weekend without worrying about the chickens). It's also a good way of giving your chickens something to do when they get up in the morning before you come and open the latch to the chicken coop (chickens get very cranky if you don't let them out).
   
   
4. The chicken coop should be close to the house and have an easily opened latch to collect eggs from. It should also provide a roofed area from the rain for the chickens and ideally not be drafty in the winter time so the chickens can keep warm. The chicken straw yard needs to be fox-proofed via chicken wire. Fox-proofing requires digging out and placing wire about 10 cm down and 20-30 cm out from the coop. Living in the city doesn't mean there aren't going to be foxes, so make sure the area is well secured.
   
   
5. The chicken straw yard can also serve as a compost area. Instead of having a separate compost bin, you can layer straw on the grass/floor of the area and dispose of your kitchen scraps on top. The chickens will eat what they want from the kitchen scraps, turn over the rest (good for compost), and add their chicken droppings, which makes excellent manure. All of this can be used as fertilizer for the garden and it saves the energy of having to overturn and maintain the compost bin yourself.
   
   
6. Make sure that your chicken straw yard and chicken run have some shaded areas. Chickens don't take to overheating too well and will spend most of their time on hot days in the shade of fruit trees or whatever shade is available. Cool water is also essential.
   
   
7. Besides kitchen scraps, chickens love eating greens and bugs. They will scratch at the grass and any other green vegetables you might have, so be wary of including your vegetable patch in the chicken run. The chickens do make good lawn mowers though - one effective way of doing this is to create a moveable chicken run "tunnel" that can be moved from one end of the garden to the other, mowing the grass as the chickens dig up bugs. Any bugs you find from your weeding can be given to the chickens as grub. Keep in mind though that chickens can't survive on just greens and bugs - the bulk of their food comes from grains, either seed mix or pellets. Pellets can contain ambiguous oxides, but they are less messy than seeds.
   
   
8. Chickens may dig up lead or heavy metals in the ground from their scratching and may ingest it. If you are concerned about the soil quality or have a very active chicken coop where grass is torn out faster than it can grow back, you can try several things. Rotating where your chicken run is gives a chance for grass to grow back (thus preventing soil from being dug up by the chickens as they search for bugs). You can also put a sheet of shade cloth or other material on top of the soil/grass and layer the straw and kitchen scraps on top of that to prevent the chickens from accessing the soil. Testing the soil for contaminations is also a good idea in general, if only to know what the metal concentrations are and what vegetables can be safely planted.
   
   
9. Make sure your chickens are vaccinated, wormed, and deloused. There are a number of diseases that the chicken should be vaccinated against before purchase, including Marek's disease, fowl pox, infectious bronchitis and Newcastle disease. The two most common diseases are
   
   Coccidiosis: pale combs, loss of condition, blood in droppings, drooping wings. This can be treated with an appropriate coccidiostat medication.
   
   Respiratory problems: typical symptoms such as a runny nose, coughing, watery eyes or swollen face. Antibiotics are available.
   
   
10. For laying hens, the best age to buy is around 6 months, otherwise known as the pullet hens, when they are just about to lay. Laying hens are most productive in their first 2-5 years. Typically, they live to 9 years, but some have been known to live to 13-15 years.
    
    
11. There are many different breeds of chicken, all with their advantages and disadvantages, such as looks, size, ability to scratch, laying, temperament, etc. Likewise, there are many places to buy chickens. Check for local small farm/neighborhood breeders.

Zero Carbon Australia Transporation Plan

A great clip featuring my housemate about the future of Australia's transportation system. Check it out!

Technical Director of the Zero Carbon Australia Transport plan Patrick Hearps joined ABC 24's The Drum program to discuss the future of Australia's transport system. Electric cars, trams, metros and High Speed Rail powered by renewable energy... Now that's a vision!