More than 50 officials call on the EPA to help local governments cut food waste in their communities
Joy Saha – November 1,2023
Person Throwing Pizza In Garbage Getty Images/Andrey Popov
On Tuesday, more than 50 local officials penned a letter urging the Environmental Protection Agency to phase out food waste disposal in landfills by 2040 to cut emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane, Reuters reported.The letter came in the wake of two reports from the EPA that spotlights America’s food waste crisis and its detrimental environmental consequences. More than one-third of the food produced in the U.S. is never consumed. Much of that waste ends up in landfills, where it generates astounding amounts of toxic methane.
Food waste causes 58% of the methane emissions that come from landfills, the EPA said in an Oct. 19 report that calculated those emissions for the first time. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the EPA set a goal in 2015 to cut food waste in half by 2030. But very little progress has been made and the EPA has been criticized for “under-investing in the issue,” Reuters said.
“Without fast action on methane, local governments will increasingly face the impacts of warming temperatures, sea level rise, and extreme weather events,” the officials said in their joint letter to the agency. They also called on the EPA to update landfill standards to “require better prevention, detection and reduction of methane emissions,” per ABC News. Landfills are responsible for about 14% of U.S. methane emissions, the EPA also found. Reuters added that compared to carbon dioxide, another powerful greenhouse gas, methane is 28 times stronger over a 100-year period.
My centenarian dad lived to be 101. Here are his lifestyle tips I’m following to live a long life, too.
Louisa Rogers – October 29, 2023
My centenarian father lived a very healthy life but recently died at 101.
His practices mirrored Blue Zone principles: eating in moderation, exercising, and reducing stress.
I hope to live as long as him, so I’ve incorporated these habits into my life to be healthy.
For as long as I knew him, my father, who died a year ago at 101, lived a very healthy, active life. He ran every morning until he was 70, kept his stress level to a minimum, and enjoyed close bonds with family and friends — three of the principles described by Dan Buettner in his book “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest.”
The author with her father.Courtesy of Louisa Rogers
Because I also hope to live to become a centenarian, I’m following his example. I’ve incorporated many of the practices I saw him live out — and a few others — into my life.
Eat and drink in moderation
“Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper,” Daddy used to intone. He always ate his smallest meal in the early evening. At mealtimes, he followed another rule of Blue Zoners: Stop eating when you’re 80% full.
While I have a history of overeating, I’ve learned to eat healthily and moderately most of the time — I eat a 90% plant-based diet with occasional fish, and I indulge in junk food sparingly. I do tend to have my main meal in the evening, but it’s typically a simple one-pot dish.
As for alcohol, many centenarians do enjoy a glass of wine, but they don’t overdo it. My father, however, was a heavy drinker until the last five years of his life, when, after serious catheter surgery, his doctor ordered him to stop drinking. I have two glasses of wine at night, and I think of it as my guilty pleasure.
Exercise frequently
My father was a hiker, backpacker, and runner, starting in his college years. At 70, he switched from running outdoors to using an exercise bicycle and a treadmill.
I began running during college with my dad and slowly expanded into loving exercise of all kinds; I call myself an “adult-onset fitness lover.” Being physically active, especially outdoors, gives me great pleasure, whether I’m walking long-distance routes in different parts of the world (my husband, Barry, and I walked the 540-mile Camino de Santiago), riding my bike, or paddleboarding.
I also find ways to incorporate physical activity into my daily routine, like many centenarians, who often don’t exercise in the modern sense but incorporate movement into their daily lives. And unlike my dad, who lived in the suburbs, I live in walkable communities — I split my time between Mexico and California — so I rarely drive, and it’s easy to get a lot of walking in each day.
Reduce stress
While my father had a great deal of loss in his life — he outlived not only my mother and two later wives but also two of his five children — he was very resilient. He kept marrying, which was not always easy for me, but now I realize it helped him avoid loneliness, which a surgeon general advisory says is about as deadly as smoking.
As for me, a few years ago I told a friend, “I don’t do Christmas stress.” Gradually, that attitude has expanded into the rest of my life. It’s not always that simple, of course. Naturally, I sometimes experience stressful events, but I’ve learned to mitigate it through walking or other exercise, talking to a friend, journaling, and meditating.
Have a sense of purpose
Centenarians know why they want to get up in the morning. I never asked my dad what his purpose was, but he was very engaged in life. After 9/11, for example, he joined an interfaith group made up of Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and later went to the Middle East on a peace delegation. When he was 80, he volunteered to build houses in Honduras.
I love connecting with people, learning, and being creative. I write, cook, and paint. During the parts of the year when we’re living in Mexico, I also speak Spanish and spend a lot of time volunteering.
Maintain strong connections with family and friends
My dad lived in Pennsylvania. Though none of his children lived in the same state, we visited often and were in frequent contact by phone.
For 30 years, he met with a group of friends every month, and they all shared about their lives and reflected on current issues or a book they’d read.
I don’t live near my family members, either, but I’m in regular touch with them. And while I have friends in both communities where we live, I also regularly “prospect” for new ones because I’ve seen that close connections can unexpectedly end through moves, irreconcilable differences, or death.
Nurture a sense of spirituality
Unlike most centenarians, my dad did not have a strong faith. I’m not a traditional believer, either, but I act as though I am. Call it the placebo effect. I write notes to God and ask for help when I’m struggling, and somehow, it works.
There are no guarantees, of course. Plenty of fit people die young. Still, there’s no harm in improving my chances, especially since I enjoy these activities anyway and they add to my quality of life. What have I got to lose?
The city landed that title through multiple metrics including its inflation rate and the cost of gas. The report also considered living costs from annual housing costs, median gross rent and high fees associated with homeownership.
The report said home prices exceed the national median sale price and added that many in San Diego’s downtown area must pay homeowners association fees to maintain living in housing complexes.
“Living in San Diego is not particularly affordable,” the report reads. “San Diegans are willing to pay these elevated prices, though, often referring to the cost-of-living differences as the ‘sunshine tax,’ or the price of enjoying a year-round temperate climate.”
Los Angeles was ranked the second most expensive city, followed by Honolulu and Miami. California actually made up seven of the top ten spots in the report and around half of the top 25. New York City, the most populated U.S. town, earned the 11th spot.
According to the report, the cities at the top of the list require the most amount of wealth in order to live comfortably.
What are the most expensive cities in the US?
These are the 25 most expensive American cities according to the U.S. News & World Report. For information on each city’s various qualities like value and quality of life, click here.
Scientists warn of ‘silent pandemic’ stirring across the globe: ‘[This] could cause 10 million deaths per year by 2050’
Leo Collis – October 7, 2023
After the coronavirus pandemic, the world is on high alert for the next global health emergency.
Scientists are now warning about the risk to humans from the food production network, and factory farms are among the most concerning areas that could spawn the next virus.
What’s happening?
At the Compassion in World Farming event in London in May 2023, scientists, policymakers, and farmers met to discuss challenges within the industry and potential threats to human health.
Among the issues discussed was the use of antibiotics in factory farming, which has been found to lead to a potential problem when humans eat meat.
“Most antibiotic resistance in human medicine is actually due to the human use of antibiotics,” scientific adviser at the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics Cóilín Nunan told Euronews.green. “However, there is clear evidence that the farm use of antibiotics is also contributing, not just to antibiotic resistance in farm animals, but also to infections in humans.”
With animals kept in close quarters on factory farms, hygiene standards are poor, and disease spreads more easily, so antibiotic use is frequent.
Why is this a concern?
The World Health Organization has described antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a “silent pandemic” and one of the top 10 global public health threats. Bacterial AMR has already been estimated to kill 1.3 million people a year.
If antibiotics are overused in farming, it could impact humans higher up the food chain as bacteria develop resistance to the drugs and multiply.
“If some of the bacteria have developed resistance, then these bacteria are unaffected by the antibiotic and can continue to proliferate, spreading from human to human, or from animal to animal, or from animal to human,” Nunan explained, per Euronews.green.
Nunan also described how animals fed antibiotics could end up with resistant bacteria in their gut at slaughter, leading to potential contamination of the carcass. This can spread to humans when handled or when undercooked meat is eaten.
Further, resistant bacteria can also enter the food system via animal manure, which is used to fertilize crops.
How can we prevent a “silent pandemic”?
Controlling AMR is essential, as experts predict it “could cause up to 10 million deaths a year by 2050,” per Euronews.green.
Nunan noted that better animal husbandry, such as providing animals with more space and improving hygiene, is one of the keys to preventing the spread of disease and, thus, the overuse of antibiotics. But there are already positive changes happening in the farming industry.
The EU has banned all forms of routine antibiotics on farms and the use of antibiotics to make up for poor farm husbandry.
The U.K. has also seen a 55% decrease in antibiotic use on farms since 2014, Euronews.green reported.
Consumer choices like buying responsibly sourced meat can also make a difference and discourage cheap and intensive farming methods that lead to animal disease and potential problems later on in the food chain.
Years in the making, this rock star’s winery is a new ‘focal point’ in Arizona wine country
Richard Ruelas, Arizona Republic – October 2, 2023
For years, before Cottonwood became a destination for wine fans, the plot of land sat abandoned. It was as if no one had use for a parcel on a hill with soaring views of the Verde Valley.
When Maynard James Keenan saw it, he knew it was the perfect spot to showcase not only his wines, but that also could, quite literally, elevate the state’s wine industry as a whole.
Keenan has planted an eye-catching vineyard on the steep hillside. Two wineries on the site, one partly open-air and the other with large windows, will let spectators spy a hint of the winemaking process. And he has built a trattoria offering pastas and pizzas designed to pair with his wines, meant to be enjoyed on the expansive patio that offers sweeping views over Old Town Cottonwood and the Verde Valley.
“That’s where I stood…and said, ‘this is the view,’” Keenan said pointing to the patio during a late September tour of the facility, days before Merkin Vineyards Hilltop Winery & Trattoria’s scheduled opening.
To get to the restaurant, visitors can take a staircase. Or ride the motorized tram up the 50 feet to the top.
Keenan started planning to build on the land nearly eight years ago. In 2016, as he showed a Republic photographer and reporter the tasting room, Merkin Osteria, on Main Street in Old Town Cottonwood he was opening, he walked them up the hill to show off the vacated building where he eventually planned to build a winery.
That plan has come to fruition. Keenan expects the completed Merkin Vineyards facility to serve as gateway for the Arizona wine industry, spilling customers out onto Main Street to try the other tasting rooms that “don’t have the budget to build something insane like this.”
Keenan, who is the singer for the bands, Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer, has a flair for the theatrical. And the largely open-air facility was designed to attract the eye.
“The attention is the initial foot in the door, but recognition is the goal,” Keenan said. Once someone has wandered into his funhouse, Keenan expects to seriously hook them with his wine. “Recognition has legs,” Keenan said. “That has longevity, the staying power.”
This Merkin Vineyards project converted a property that had previously been used by the Cottonwood chapter of the Freemasons. That group intentionally designed its building to be insular. Keenan, with a $1.9 million loan taken out by a company he controls, has transformed it into an open-air showpiece.
The Masonic lodge closed in 2005, consolidating with the Sedona chapter amid declining membership. The building and parcel of land would sit vacant.
At the time, Old Town Cottonwood was known for its rock shops and antique stores. There wasn’t much at night, other than a thriving methamphetamine trade that centered around a run-down motel on Main Street.
In 2010, Cottonwood started courting area wineries to open tasting rooms in the area. That effort, coupled with a methamphetamine crackdown, revived the street. It’s now dotted with restaurants, shops and nightlife. The former drug den on the north end of Main Street converted to a boutique hotel called the Iron Horse Inn.
Some businesses started looking at the site on top of Verde Heights Road, seeing if they could make a project feasible, said G. Krishan Ginige, president of Southwestern Environmental Consultants, who was hired for initial consultations. All the businesses that looked at the land were related to wine, Ginige said, and none pursued it very far.
Part of the reason was the unique topography. “It’s a huge site with a very small footprint on top,” Ginige said during a phone interview.
Making the site work economically would mean figuring out what to do with the land on the hillside, Ginige said.
Keenan was the only one who came to Ginige with the idea of planting a vineyard there, he said. And that presented its own challenges.
Ginige said his company spent about two months trying to figure out how to create a vineyard on the steep hillside that would be both practical, economical and stable. He studied other hillside vineyards, including some in Italy, but couldn’t find an exact parallel. “It’s not something you see in any other place,” he said.
One hillside vineyard was Keenan’s own Judith’s Block in Jerome, also along a steep grade. That Keenan already had a similar vineyard planted let him know it could be done and made him somewhat exasperated that the new project was taking so long to engineer.
Keenan also knew he was setting himself up with another vineyard, like Judith’s Block, that couldn’t be harvested using machines.
“It’s so hard to farm. Hand-picked, hand-sorted, hand pruned,” he said. “All those fun words.”
Keenan also wanted to build two wineries on the land on top of the hill, one for his Merkin Vineyards line and another for his higher-end Caduceus Cellars. With so little usable land on top of the hill, Ginige said, the answer came from digging the building 10 feet into the hillside and holding them up with concrete pillars set deep into the mountainside.
Doing so keeps the wineries well insulated. Keenan said it is a hedge to protect the wine in the fermenting tanks and barrel room in case of a long-term power failure.
The building that held the Masonic Lodge became the restaurant, said Reynold Radoccia of Architecture Works Green, the architect on the project. Though it had to be reconfigured. The Masons built it in 1952 with few windows, Radoccia said.
“The Masons weren’t necessarily interested in the great views of the Verde Valley,” he said. “They required more privacy in their building.”
Radoccia said he tried to honor the construction style in the new building, attempting to mimic the style to honor the history.
Then there was the tram, a conveyance on fixed track similar to what was built to transport miners in another era of the Verde Valley.
Keenan thought of a tram early on in the project. He did not want his winery to tower above Main Street. Instead, he wanted to be a part of it. So, he envisioned a tram that would take visitors from Main Street up the hill, giving the winery something of an amusement park vibe.
Cottonwood Mayor Tim Elinski said adding that tram has expanded the footprint of Old Town Cottonwood. “Before, I didn’t think about (that site) being in Old Town,” he said. “But, now it’s a focal point. He’s done a great job of punctuating it.”
The project attracted no words of protest as it went through the required zoning hearings, , a measure of the city’s support.
“Really, the entire community has wrapped its arms around the wine industry,” Elinski said.
The Merkin Winery will replace the previous one housed in an anonymous industrial building off Old Highway 279, south of the city. The Caduceus Cellars winery will add capacity to the previous “bunker” Keenan had built alongside his home near Jerome.
The restaurant will replace the Merkin Osteria that had been on Main Street. That building will be converted to a fried chicken restaurant that will pour wine from another Keenan project, Four Eight WineWorks.
A winery for connoisseurs and casual drinkers alike
Keenan said he thought the facility would appeal to people with disparate types of wine knowledge.
The casual tourists, including the ones who might not believe Arizona can grow wine grapes, will be able to see proof with a thriving vineyard on the hillside, Keenan said.
Wine aficionados, from the hilltop view, will recognize the similarities between this area and other wine regions around the country and world. It’s a similarity Keenan himself recognized when he first moved to northern Arizona.
And for those with the means and desire, Keenan will offer a $199-a-person food and wine tasting experience in an exclusive room where he hopes aficionados will note the unique characteristics of the state’s wines. The Ventura Room experience will offer the only opportunity for guests to tour the winery and taste and buy Caduceus Cellars wines with the grapes grown on the hillside vineyard.
Grapes for other Caduceus and Merkin wines come from vineyards in the Verde Valley and Willcox.
Although the price might be high by Cottonwood standards, Keenan said the omakase-style tasting experience can stand alongside tourist offerings in Sedona. And he’s not worried about shooting too high.
“Every time someone’s tried to raise the bar, it’s worked,” Keenan said.
Everything in service to the wine
On a late September afternoon, Keenan walked through his trattoria as staff were being trained. His pizza chef, an 18-year-old named Kai Miller brought out pies with blistered crusts from the wood-fired oven. Keenan looked at a margarita pizza and mocked exasperation. “What is this?” he yelled, channeling his inner Gordan Ramsey, the chef from television’s “Kitchen Nightmares.” Miller showed no reaction as he strolled back into the kitchen.
Miller, a former state wrestling champion, came to Keenan’s attention through a clinic for the team Keenan held at his Brazilian jiu-jitsu studio. Instead of ending up a trainer, Miller said he had a passion for pizza and was hired.
The menu at the trattoria mirrors the one at the former Merkin Osteria on Main Street. Vegetables and herbs will largely come from a farm Keenan has at a property near Jerome and a greenhouse on the hilltop Merkin Vineyards site.
As Keenan settled in a booth and ate and praised the pizza, one of his restaurant managers brought something new out from the kitchen — calamari, lightly breaded and fried.
Keenan said he liked the dish, but said that it didn’t fit the overall mission of the restaurant. Not unless the calamari came directly from the Verde River. “It’s not really what we do here,” he said.
Keenan said he’s not aiming to merely create an Italian restaurant, but a place that celebrates what can be grown in Arizona. And one that compliments the Arizona wine that will be served alongside it.
For Keenan, this project was intended to be a winery, first and foremost. Everything else — the food, the gelato stand, the tram, the view — is in service to the wine.
“We do wine,” Kennan said. Everything else “is literally there to support what we all know is the cornerstone of what we’re doing in Arizona, which is wine.”
Choosing a wine to pair with your meal is an intimidating task. Selecting a wine whose flavors complement your dish can heighten your entire dining experience or ruin it if you choose a poor pairing. So how are you supposed to know how to choose the best wine for different types of dishes? Well, the good news is, there is no right or wrong answer. If it tastes good to you, then you chose a good pairing, but if you want to have some baseline knowledge in your back pocket for the next time you’re out having a fancy dinner, then we’ve got all of the info you need.
We recently spoke to Martha Cisneros, a sommelier, wine educator, and founder of Wine Divaa, to put together a handy guide to choosing the perfect wine. Growing up in Mexico, wine wasn’t as common as beer or tequila at the dinner table, but when Cisneros studied abroad in Madrid, she fell in love with wine and has now dedicated her career to sharing the joy of wine with her audience and showcasing the talented and brilliant winemakers in the Hispanic community.
“If I am in a French restaurant, and I am going to be having French dish, I’m going to want a French wine,” Cisneros told SheKnows. “My rule of thumb is if they grow together, they go together.” Cisneros added, “I am also very into adventurous pairings. I like to try, for instance, French food with Mexican wine or the other way around. But that’s better for when you’re a little more comfortable.”
Cisneros’ main rule of “if it grows together, it goes together,” is simple enough to remember but if you want to take things a step further, we asked Cisneros for her top wine recommendations for different types of dishes so you can maximize the flavor potential of your meal and impress everyone else at the dinner table.
First up, we asked Cisneros about the best wines to pair with dishes like pasta, rice, bread, or potatoes as a base. “You know, it really depends more on the type of sauce or flavors added to your pasta or rice or risotto,” Cisneros explains. For acidic or tomato-based dishes, Cisneros suggests going with a chianti. “Or even for something like pizza, I would always go with something Italian, maybe even a Brunello.”
If your dish is more on the creamy side, Cisneros recommends a Côtes-du-Rhône white.
Steak
The best wine to pair with steak is going to depend on how the steak is prepared and what it is served with. “For something simple like a grilled steak, I would go with something like a zinfandel from Lodi, California or a Primitivo from Sicily. The zinfandel is going to enhance the smokiness and create a wonderful experience,” Cisneros says. “If the steak has a chimichurri sauce or something similar, a Malbec would be a great choice.”
White meat
As a general rule of thumb, white meat usually pairs nicely with white wines. “For something like a roast chicken or grilled chicken, I would go with a Sauvignon Blanc,” Cisneros says.
Seafood
“I am a pescatarian,” Cisneros reveals. “That’s what I eat every day so this is my favorite one and I love to pair seafood with Greek wines.” Specifically, Cisneros prefers Assyrtiko. “It’s a grape that comes from Greece and has the perfect medium body and crispness and the perfect acidity to bring out the flavors of the seafood.” If you can’t find a Greek Assyrtiko, Cisneros has another suggestion, “Vinho Verde from Portugal is another great option because it offers a liveliness and crispness that pairs perfectly with seafood.”
Cheese
Wine and cheese are a classic pairing but the type of cheese you’re eating makes all the difference. “For something buttery and creamy like brie, champagne is the obvious choice,” Cisneros explains. “For harder, salty cheeses like parmesan, prosecco is the perfect pairing.”
Sweets
Last but certainly not least, when you want to finish your meal with a little something sweet, Cisneros recommends a Zinfandel for chocolatey treats but adds that “as a general rule of thumb, you just want to match the level of sweetness.”
