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What's New at www.ecoplum.com
October 2010 Newsletter
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| Greetings!
Happy October! Yes, I know it's the middle of October already. But do you know WHY our newsletter is late this month? Because we've been really busy here at EcoPlum launching our completely redesigned site!! Thanks for all the amazing feedback you've been sending. We are thrilled by the positive response we have gotten from our customers, partners, and the media! It's all good. So to celebrate, we running a 15% off launch sale in our EcoShop through the end of October. With new vendors like Urthbags and Glass Dharma, we are sure you will find a way to use your coupon!
As the leaves turn colors and people go apple and pumpkin picking, you may be thinking about food: Shall I make an apple pie or apple sauce with all those McIntosh apples? Yum, time to roast the pumpkin seeds! What should I make for Thanksgiving dinner? or What is my kid eating in school these days? Well, whatever you may be thinking, we have got an entire issue dedicated to food this month!! Anne takes on the renaming of High Fructose Corn Syrup, Dede writes about what's going on with celebrities and meat these days, Emily brings us Part II of her amazing series on School Food, I even blog about some urban food programs, and we have an incredibly informative article on hidden chemicals in foods from guest writer (and Wellness in the Schools board member) Paula Seefeldt! LOTs of good stuff. I hope you enjoy it!
On that note, off to eat some lunch. If you are not on our weekly mailing list and missed our new site announcement last week, read about all the exciting new features we have brought to EcoPlum with the site redesign. And don't forget to use your coupon (see below) by Halloween!!
Best regards, Gia Machlin President and CEO
Please feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends and family!
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 Meet our team. This month...Silvia
Hello! I am proud to say that I am the new editorial intern for EcoPlum. I have worked with the entire EcoPlum team for the last few months, and I must say that I've had a blast. There's never a dull moment! Whether it's 9 a.m. and we are editing an article, or 11 p.m. the night before our newsletter goes out and we are scurrying to find pictures for our articles, the rush of meeting a deadline and making something as perfect as possible, is exhilarating to say the least.
So, you are probably wondering who I am and are dying find out some more about me. Right??? Or not. I actually just graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in online and newspaper journalism and a minor in nutrition. Weird combination, I know. I've always been interested in health writing, so to me, that was the ultimate concoction of fun and hectic classes. Needless to say, I've had my fair share of deadlines - but believe me, it never gets old.
I also work for Johnson & Johnson, in the Law Department, where I work with Trademarks. It's actually a really fun gig as well, and the people I work with are great. Since I want to go to law school in the near future, this is giving me the experience I need and want, without being too overwhelming. Let's see if I ever make it to law school...
My other job is at a specialty running store in New Jersey. Since I worked at Fleet Feet Sports in Syracuse for three years during college, I must say I am getting to be a running sneaker expert. This job is very easy-going and pays for my groceries every week. I like it!
In my free time, I like to hang out with my friends and family. One of my favorite things to do is go to the movies. There's something freeing about going to a theater and being submerged into another world and someone else's life, even if it's not always reality. And yes, I do occasionally enjoy a chick flick - although sometimes cheesy, some of them are pretty good! Too bad Josh Duhamel is already married :)
I also like reading books and magazines, and writing, of course. Even though I don't write as much as I'd like to anymore - so much for starting my journalism career - I must say that I am enjoying life at the moment. I have a great and supportive family, amazing friends, and I have three very diverse jobs, which allow me to show a different side of my personality every time I go to work. What's not great about that??!
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Featured EcoInfo:
 Featured EcoLiving Ideas: What Not to Eat
Have you ever looked at the back of a food label and wondered "what is that?" about some unidentifiable word? I know I have and I recently got quite an education when I teamed up with NY Green Schools to analyze some of the sweeteners, preservatives and chemicals frequently found in processed foods. So, what exactly are those indecipherable ingredients and are they really that bad for us? Well, my answer would have to be yes, most of them are terrible (but you probably already knew that).
The worst part is that these ingredients are constantly used in foods that are heavily marketed to children. And, it's not just the foods themselves. Even the packaging on some of these products is problematic. Last summer, Kellogg had to recall its cereal lines of Apple Jacks, Froot Loops, Corn Pops and Honey Smacks because chemicals from the packages were leaching into the food inside. Read More!
 Featured EcoTipz: Have an Orange, Black and Green Halloween!
We know that everyone hands out candy on Halloween, but how about some green tips for this Halloween season?! The Environmental Working Group has some great ideas for making this October a safe one for your kids and the environment. Instead of using hairspray to turn your hair different colors, use a wig or some ribbon which has less toxins. Also, why buy a brand new costume when you can make one out of items you already have? Maybe you can do a costume swap with friends and/or family and reuse an costume they probably only wore once! Check out more tips from the Environmental Working Group! Read More!
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 Greening Our Schools:
Last month, in the first of our three-part series of articles on the "School Food Revolution," we found out that Italian school children eat a whole lot better than American school children. In this article, we'll meet folks who are fed up with chicken nuggets and are working hard to improve school food and combat the childhood obesity epidemic in America.
School Food Revolution - Part II
In the last 10+ years, there has been a virtual explosion of non-profit groups tackling the school food issue: Wellness in the Schools, Better School Food, Farm to School, Vermont Feed, NY Coalition for Healthy School Food, Meatless Monday, The Healthy School Lunch Campaign, Food Fight, Just Food and Slow Food. Journalists, documentarians, angry parents turned filmmakers, teachers turned urban farmers, celebrity chefs like Alice Waters, Ann Cooper and Jamie Oliver, politicians like Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Michelle Obama, are determined to educate Americans about food, and change the way children eat in school. Read More!
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 Dede's Green Scene: To Meat or Not to Meat? To meat or not to meat? That is the question. And that question is definitely getting an answer. It certainly is a frequent topic of conversation in the media these days. Celebrities are making big headlines with their choices to be vegan/vegetarian. Some for health reasons and some just want look good. Regardless of the reasons, switching to a plant-based diet is great for the environment! There are numerous celebrities who have been or are vegan/vegetarians, but recently, some big names have jumped on the bandwagon. Former President Bill Clinton has admitted to being on a quasi-vegan diet (he occasionally eats fish). He first started the diet to drop weight for his daughter's wedding. But he's dropped 24 lbs and has since taken it on permanently for its great benefits against heart disease. Speaking of White House residents making headlines with their greener lifestyles, Michelle Obama has an organic farm in the White House. Read More! |
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 Accidental Locavore: I Say High Fructose Syrup, you say...Corn Syrup?
What do the following have in common? Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, Patagonian toothfish, prunes, and high fructose corn syrup? They didn't sell, so they got renamed, remarketed, and became stars. Let's just re-brand, and re-market an issue. Prunes don't sell, so let's call them dried plums and drop $10 million on an image makeover. Patagonian toothfish became Chilean sea bass and was so successful that it's now on the "avoid" list on Seafood Watch.
So what's next? The big bad guy of the food industry; high fructose corn syrup. Last week, the Corn Refiners Association petitioned the FDA to change the name to a much more innocuous sounding "corn sugar". Makes you want to run right out and stock up, doesn't it?
Please note, they're doing it for you. That's right, according to their Twitter page, "FDA petition was filed because independent research showed consumer confusion over high fructose corn syrup name." Gee thanks. Read More! |
Upcoming Events:
October 25
Columbia Business School Alumni Club: Making Green from Green Season Kick-off
Get the Green Job You Want Now
5:30 - 9:00 pm
Citi
October 31
Broadway Green at Kids Night on Broadway Special Halloween Edition
Featuring Adam Reigler from The Addams Family
11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Madame Tussaud's
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From The EcoPlum Blog:
Spam, Spam, Spam - Wonderful Spam
...or How Big Cities Will Transform the Way We Eat
I'm not talking about the kind of spam you get in your inboxes, I'm actually talking about the canned meat of Monty Python fame. Why? Well, I don't know exactly, but my topic today is sustainable food, so somehow I associate spam with... non-sustainable food? Anyway, I remember when I first conceived of EcoPlum back in 2007, and I had a team of students from NJIT's Capstone Project working on a prototype website. We were programming the "EcoTipz" section of the site and were looking for some tips to start off with. One of the students wrote "Eat Less Meat." Well I was SO uninformed at the time, that I actually thought this was a joke. I thought the student was just populating EcoTipz with random phrases to test it. Turns out, the student knew a lot more about sustainability at the time than I did. (Horrified? Read more about my green evolution throughout this blog). It wasn't until I started to educate myself in preparation for our beta site launch in October 2008 that I began to learn about how eating meat affects the environment. We then published several articles on the topic, and I learned more. Read More! |
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September Green Drinks at the Maritime Hotel
  
 
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Ecoplum Pie Archives
Now the old Ecoplum Pie newsletters are archived and available to view. Check it out.
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Contact Information
info@ecoplum.com
888-730-9990
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| Save 15% |
To celebrate our new site, we are offering a 15% discount an all purchases made directly through our EcoShop. Use Code: NEWLOOK at checkout. Coupon Details.
| | Offer Expires: October 31, 2010 |
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