It frequently happens that the people who live through historical times or in historical places do not realize it. I’m one of those people.

We’re living through a monumental time with regard to America’s consciousness around food – what food we eat, how much of it, and where it comes from. A plethora of books and movies in the past few years have created waves:

• Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma
• Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
• Food, Inc.
• Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals
• and so many more

Alice Waters

But while awareness of food issues is now exploding, one pioneer has been preaching the virtues of fresh, healthful, local and organic for 40 years – Alice Waters. Among her many impressive achievements, is the creation of the Edible Schoolyard. As described on its own site, “The Edible Schoolyard (ESY), a program of the Chez Panisse Foundation, is a one-acre organic garden and kitchen classroom for urban public school students at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California. At ESY, students participate in all aspects of growing, harvesting, and preparing nutritious, seasonal produce. Classroom teachers and Edible Schoolyard educators integrate food systems concepts into the core curriculum. Students’ hands-on experience in the kitchen and garden fosters a deeper appreciation of how the natural world sustains us and promotes the environmental and social well-being of our school community.”

The Edible Schoolyard

Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School sits on a corner and has one house next to it. For 4 years, shortly after the creation of the Edible Schoolyard, I lived in that house – a charming, wood craftsman. I walked through the Edible Schoolyard almost every day. It’s a wondrous place. My kids loved strolling through the garden and having me read the small, colorful signs that indicated what was planted in each section. We enjoyed watching what the students planted go from seeds to fresh produce.

But, as amazing as the Edible Schoolyard is, I didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of it. Living in the “Berkeley bubble,” I didn’t appreciate the uniqueness of school kids planting their own produce, picking it, preparing it for meals in the school kitchen and, most of all, learning a lifelong appreciation for what they ate. Now that my kids are a bit older and, much to my chagrin, have become picky eaters, I wish I could easily stroll through the Edible Schoolyard and have some of the magic of that place rub off on them.

As an entrepreneur, I always love meeting other folks who have taken a leap to do something they really love to do.  This Tuesday I was in London and had the opportunity to meet with entrepreneurs at two inspiring companies.

Not on the High Street is a marketplace offering 30,000 items from 1,500 small British businesses.  Founders Sophie Cornish and Holly Tucker are passionate about unique, carefully-made products for their homes, their children, their friends and themselves.  And they’re passionate about creative small businesses.  In just 4 years, Sophie and Holly have built the premier online marketplace and gift site in the UK. Unfortunately, Not on the High Street is not available in the U.S., but for a fun online browsing experience, check out their site.

Holly and Sophie are in the middle

Whenever I give out a business card, it leads to a fun discussion.  I say something like, “Every seller on Abe’s Market has a story, and we help tell that story in everything we do, even our business cards.”  I say that because I have customized business cards, each featuring a different Abe’s Market seller on the back. My business cards are MOO cards.  MOO prints custom business cards, minicards, postcards and more. They’ve done a masterful job of taking commodity categories and infusing them with personality. If you’re in the market for wow-worthy business cards, check out MOO. Lisa Rodwell, VP of marketing, is a bundle of energy who had some great ideas to share.

Sophie, Holly and Lisa: Thank you for your time, energy, creativity and inspiration. I look forward to staying in touch.

My wife has a journalism-business idea. Because she’s neither a journalist nor a businesswoman, though, she’s not likely to execute it, so I can share it with you. Her idea is to publish a newspaper that only reports happy stories. Dr. Andrew Weil warned years ago that everyone should take periodic news fasts, as the news tends to depress all of us. My wife’s idea would eliminate the need for such news fasts.

Like the general news, so much of the news in the world of natural products and sustainability is bad. Global warming. Child obesity. The demise of family farms. Big Box stores destroying Main Street. BPA from plastic leeching into our drinking water. Etc. Etc. With this backdrop, I love reading happy news from the world of sustainability. Here are two stories that could be published in my wife’s newspaper if she’d ever launch it.

Happy Story #1. This one comes courtesy of Barbara Damrosch and was originally published in the Washington Post, then republished on KitchenGardeners.org. In an ironic twist, housing developers, frequently responsible for destroying farmland, are becoming driving forces in saving that same farmland. A hot trend among residential home developers is to substitute golf courses with working farms. While home buyers have no obligation to work the farm, they get the right to do so. While few of these communities are fully sustained by the community farms, these farms enable residents to produce an increasing share of their produce as locally as can be, and farm-centered activities are bringing residents of all ages together. And these farm developments, which range in size, are not hippy enclaves. Bundoran Farm, near Charlottesville, VA, preserved 90 percent of its 2,300 acres, including orchards and cattle pastures. Prairie Crossing, in Grayslake, IL, an easy commute to downtown Chicago, has a 90-acre farm and a “learning farm.” Agritopia, in Gilbert, Ariz., is smack in the middle of an urban area, with an ambitious farm project underway. Other so called Conservation Communities are popping up outside Atlanta, in Vermont, in Northern Virginia, and elsewhere. What a great development (pun intended) for the local and farm movements!

Happy Story #2. This one comes courtesy of TreeHugger. In what TreeHugger calls possibly the most effective tax ever, Washington, D.C.’s $0.05 tax on plastic shopping bags has driven down the number of bags handed out by city stores from a 2009 monthly average of 22.5 million to just 3 million in January 2010, a staggering 19.5 million bag reduction. And to make this news even sweeter, the $150K in tax proceeds is earmarked to cleaning up the Anacostia River. A reduction in harmful plastic bag usage and proceeds going toward an environmental cause important to local voters! Can anyone out there argue the merits of this tax?

What good news or success stories have you seen lately in the world of natural products or sustainability?

Me and a mid day treat

Most of us drink coffee – lots of it. (I take mine straight up. Black.) And coffee is a hot topic with regard to sustainability. The sustainability issues cover the life cycle from how coffee is produced to how it’s consumed to how it’s disposed of.

Working backwards, the issues aren’t too confusing. The best way to dispose of coffee grounds is to compost them. Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen and aid bacteria in turning organic matter into compost.

The consumption issue is also relatively easy. The main thing is to drink our coffee in durable mugs, not disposable cups. Carbonrally.com claims that Americans drink 100 billion cups of coffee annually, of which 16 billion are in disposable paper cups. Placed end-to-end, these cups would wrap around the earth five times and weigh around 900 million pounds, equal to the combined weight of 927, 747 airplanes. The estimate for 2010 is 23 billion disposable cups of coffee in the U.S. To make those 23 billion cups, 9.4 million trees will have to be cut down to harvest the 1.4 million tons of wood needed, equivalent to 352 Central Park’s worth of trees. The astounding stats go on and on, but the last one I’ll provide is that it’s estimated that 4 billion pounds of CO2 are released into the atmosphere during the production and distribution of coffee cups. If a single, mature tree can absorb an average of 48 pounds per year of CO2, it would take 83.3 million trees to soak up all the CO2 released in the cup-manufacturing process annually. It’s pretty clear: disposable cups = not good.

But what about coffee production? What should we really care about? Let’s start by discussing 3 common terms frequently associated with coffee. What do they mean?

Organic: The easiest one. Organic coffee is grown without the use of chemicals, pesticides, herbicides or artificial fertilizers. It makes for a healthier coffee for us to consume, and it’s safer for the growers and the populations in coffee-growing regions.

Fair Trade: Per Fairtrade.net, “Fairtrade is an alternative approach to conventional trade and is based on a partnership between producers and consumers. Fairtrade offers producers a better deal and improved terms of trade. This allows them the opportunity to improve their lives and plan for their future. Fairtrade offers consumers a powerful way to reduce poverty through their every day shopping. When a product carries the Fairtrade mark it means the producers and traders have met Fairtrade standards. The standards are designed to address the imbalance of power in trading relationships, unstable markets and the injustices of conventional trade.”

Shade Grown: Julie Craves, who blogs at Coffee and Conservation, writes in detail about the intricacies of shade grown coffee. Coffee has traditionally been grown in forested, shaded areas, which, “discourages weed growth, may reduce pathogen infection, protects the crop from frost, and helps to increase numbers of pollinators which results in better fruit set.” Shade grown coffee is also generally believed to taste better, as longer ripening times yield more complex flavors.

In an effort to drive faster, larger coffee yields, some coffee producers have taken to growing coffee in sunny conditions. Beyond the adverse impact to the coffee quality, growing in sunny conditions reduces the biodiversity of the coffee plantations. This has led increasing numbers of consumers to value shade grown coffee.

Organic.  Fair trade.  Shade grown. You decide for yourself how important each is to you.

As Lisa and I share a passion for coffee, we’ll be happy to wax poetic on it more later. For now, kick back with a cup of Larry’s Beans or Zoka Coffee or Cafe Altura and enjoy. In a mug.

It was great to wander the aisles of Natural Products Expo West this weekend. Richard and I spent time with some of our current sellers (Nicobella, Eco-Me, Bag the Habit and others), met some soon-to-be Abe’s Market sellers (I’ll keep you in suspense for now), and spoke with some companies that may or may not sell on Abe’s, but they have great products and inspire me. Of the hundreds of companies I spoke with, here are are a few non-Abe’s sellers that stand out for me:

Preserve A pioneer in the natural products world, Preserve makes stylish, high performance, eco-friendly products. Using innovative methods, they turn used materials into razors, colanders, cutting boards, tableware and more. Cool concept. Great design.

Innovative Kids Books, games, puzzles and toys that help parents and kids cut through the clutter that makes up today’s over-marketed toy market.

Wow Baking Company All-natural wheat-free and gluten-free baked goods. These moist and chewy baked goods pack taste that rivals any traditional baked goods. You’d never guess them to be wheat-free and gluten free.

Vermints  All-natural mints from the Green Mountains of Vermont. Taste great. Fresh packaging with fun design. Organic, gluten-free, nut-free and kosher.