Martha Stewart is easy to caricature. But the sister values good ingredients--and has realized that industrial agriculture churns out flavorless crap. That has caused her to ask second-order questions about the food system--and use her immense popular appeal to shed light on the horrors of factory meat farming.

She has devoted her latest episode to the topic of "vegetarian Thanksgiving." She delivers a powerhouse lineup of interviews: Food Inc. director Robert Kenner, pasture-based meat farmer Joel Salatin, celebrated vegetable chef Jeremy Fox, and novelist/anti-meat pamphleteer Jonathan Safran Foer, who helps Stewart whip up a little casserole. They don't allow the video to be streamed on other sites, but you can catch it here. Martha even declared that while she enjoys sustainable meat, she'll be attending a meatless Thanksgiving this year. Work it, Martha! 

Two notes. Martha and Fox, chef of Ubuntu in Napa, agree vigorously that foil should never touch food. "Never," Martha declares emphatically. Never heard that one. You?

Second, Martha and Fox, with an assist from Foer, delivers the goods on how to conjure up a fantastic vegetarian Thanksgiving feast without resorting to some horrific pre-fab soy log. Yes!

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A tasting of four meatless “turkeys” for the holiday table

Can such a "turkey" make your holiday feast soar?Photo courtesy of Jason HoustonGiven the ire I provoked in last year's turkey column, it's high time that this Grist columnist acknowledges that:

A. Meat-centric holidays such as Thanksgiving can be challenging for vegetarians and evoke all kinds of emotions -- including, but not limited to, extreme irritation toward carnivores.

B. These carnivores are likely to get very defensive, harrassed by the guilty knowledge that even a heritage-breed, biodynamic, locally raised, and gently killed bird probably isn't as environmentally or morally justifiable as a plant-based meal -- even if that plant-based meal is highly processed, lavishly packaged, and distantly shipped.

C. Any moral high ground gained by having a plant-based Thanksgiving may become absolutely meaningless if you screw up a happy, festive experience with a protein centerpiece that looks gross, or worse yet, has a flavor capable of sending guests, carnivorous and non, in search of a Butterball.

These facts, combined with a directive from my boss, have led me into the world of fake turkey. (Oh, I do it all for you, dear reader!) I went looking for a turkey-like main course that could please vegetarians and flummox the carnivores who insist that all faux meat sucks. And so I assembled a broad panel of tasters: three former vegetarians (including me, a former Michio Kushi-worshipping macrobiotic), one devout carnivore, and one actual full-fledged vegetarian (15 years running). The panel also included four children, whose ages range from two to nine, and whose approaches to eating run from adventurous to upsettingly fussy. Together we sampled several seasonal faux turkey products to see if any could produce the happy, bloated contentment of holidays past, whilst simultaneously embracing the spirit of change, earth-friendliness, inter-species kindness, and so forth.

How'd we do? Read on.

Box-to-table dining. Photo courtesy of Jason HoustonTofurky Vegetarian Feast
Ingredients: Water, vital wheat gluten, organic tofu (water, organic soybeans, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride), white beans, garbanzo beans, non genetically engineered corn starch, natural vegetarian flavor, expeller pressed non genetically engineered canola oil, shoyu soy sauce (water, non genetically engineered soy beans, wheat, salt, culture), spices, lemon juice, calcium lactate from beets.
Price: $24.99 for a total of 3 lbs of food -- "turkey" plus sides -- from Whole Foods. Note: You can buy a single Tofurky roast, but I decided to splurge on the "feast," which for some odd reason included not only a Tofurky giblet (!) and mushroom gravy also but dumplings and a jerky wishbone. (Who says vegetarians don't have a sense of humor!)

Tasters were not sure whether to be comforted or disturbed by the fact that this product had a skin, which one taster described as smelling like "art class." All tasters struggled for texture descriptors for Tofurky (motto: "America's Leading Turkey Alternative Since 1995"), but the most evocative was "squeaky on the teeth." Two tasters described the taste as bologna-like and most concurred that this "bird" was salty. Strangest overall comment: "Carp would love this." The most backhanded compliment came out of the mouth of a babe, who, to the chagrin of her parents, exclaimed "It tastes like McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, and I like those!"

Nothing says Turk'y like a box. Quorn Turk'y Roast
Ingredients: Mycoprotein (58%), rehydrated egg white, pea fiber. Contains 2% or less of autolyzed yeast extract, onion powder, tapioca and potato maltodextrin, natural flavor from non-meat sources, salt, dextrose, gum arabic, calcium lactate, sage extract, canola oil, citric acid, garlic powder, pepper, sunflower & palm kernel oil
Price: $8.59 for 16 oz roast at my local grocery store

This product came highly recommended from Steven, the frozen foods manager at my favorite grocery store who also happens to be a bona fide vegetarian. Indeed, our panel's own vegetarian taster admitted that she ate it "voluntarily" and deemed it the most turkey-like, juicy, and "pure." The devoted carnivore, meanwhile, agreed it was turkey-like, but added that it was "dry, like an over-cooked turkey breast." Overall, the group applauded Quorn's un-stuffed, putty-colored honesty: As one taster put it, "It's not trying too hard to be turkey." Tellingly, this was the only faux turkey product that the kids wanted more of, asserting that it tasted either like chicken, or, weirdly, like pizza. Thank god they didn't know it was largely made from fungus.

Full disclosure: The cooking directions called for this roast called for it to be cooked in its plastic "film." There was no way in hell I was going to heat food in plastic, so I wrapped it snugly in aluminum foil. If this compromised the taste or texture in any way, we were none the wiser.

How much will you give me to try this? Field Roast Celebration Roast
Ingredients: Filtered water, vital wheat gluten, expeller pressed safflower oil, naturally flavored yeast extract, barley malt, butternut squash, organic wheat flour, granulated garlic, apples, mushrooms, onion powder, garlic organic wheat flakes, yellow pea flour, lemon juice, red wine, tomato paste, irish moss (sea vegetable) extract, black pepper, rubbed sage, rosemary, spices, natural liquid smoke and paprika.
Price: $7.99 for 1lb roast at Whole Foods

Though it's maketed as a "roast," the manufacturer lists steaming as a method for getting this fist-sized, squarish product ready for the table. I associate the holidays with roasting, but got over my cultural baggage and gave steaming a try. The method wins points for quickness and ease -- but probably didn't help this product's texture, which inspired descriptions like "unfortunate" and was compared to rubber, cement, and -- oxymoronically -- "dried pudding." More than one taster declared its flavor spicy. More specifically, tasters said it was like "Vegeroni" or "varnished pine." The most damning comment came from a kid who said, "I would eat this for $10."

What's that in the middle?!Gardein Stuffed Turk'y Roast
Ingredients: Water, soy protein, vital wheat gluten, bread crumbs (enriched wheat flour (niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)), dehydrated cranberries, natural flavors (from plant sources), modified vegetable gum, potato starch, long grain white rice, wild rice, expeller pressed canola oil and/or safflower oil, dehydrated onion and garlic, parsley flakes, spices, pea protein, carrot fiber, organic beet root fiber, organic evaporated cane juice, sea salt. Breading: modified corn starch, modified wheat starch, corn flour, wheat flour, sugar, toasted wheat crumbs, wheat gluten, sea salt, sugar, garlic powder, spice, onion powder, sunflower oil, dextrose, guar gum, yeast, extractives of paprika, caramel color.
Price: Time for a "full disclosure." I couldn't find this product at my local grocery stores or the nearest urban Whole Foods (where it is allegedly found, seasonally), so I had to call up its Canadian producer and ask for some. I don't normally like to take freebies because I think they compromise journalists, but I was in a jam and there you have it. Oh, and they sent me some chicken-y items, too, that we didn't have the time or room to taste. Truth be told, after just four veggie products, my panel was pissing and moaning and very ready for pie to be served. (Btw: It was this pie, made freshly by the Devout Carnivore.) In any case, the suggested retail is $3.99 per individual Gardein Stuffed Turk'y Roast.

Although this product looked like a "dog treat," as one taster aptly put it, it was the runner-up to the Quorn roast, at least for the adult tasters who almost unanimously found the taste to be smoky or hot-dog like. Most laudatory comment: "Nice crunchy coating." Most frustrated: "What the f**k is in the middle?" It fared dramatically worse with the kids, who reacted to it with terrible faces. One child, perhaps owing to the fact that bedtime was approaching and dessert had not yet been served, even threw her chunk onto the floor and wailed that it tasted like "rotten eggs."

All's well that ends well. Photo courtesy of Jason HoustonOne more disclosure: I also ordered a Stuffed Faux Turkey Breast from Café Indigo to see if a local (New England, in my case) and more boutique product ($25 plus shipping) was somehow tastier. But because of a shipping snafu, this banana bread look-alike seitan "breast" did not arrive in time for the group tasting and therefore did not have the benefit of an expert wine-lit panel. But I will say this about it: Seitan products are all more alike than they are different. They tend to be chewy and, at least to me, they all smell like bullion.

The Bottom Line: Do not, under any circumstances, let your dinner guests see any faux turkey products in pre-presentation form. Use the time-honored technique for overcooked real turkeys: Serve it sliced and attractively fanned out, smothered with gravy and cranberry sauce, presented to appropriately hungry diners whose palates have been primed by way too much Beaujolais Nouveau. In that spirit, consider the unpretentious and affordable Quorn roast. Otherwise, consider starting an entirely new tradition, one that skips highly processed and packaged food products and bases the entire meal on, say, homemade pie. There's a new Thanksgiving tradition I'm sure vegetarians and carnivores could all agree on.

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When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the Web.

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Get 'em while they're hot.  • For years, Barry Estabrook reported on food politics for Gourmet Magazine and its Web site. In a sense, he played the role of the conscience of the foodie set--at the margins of a magazine devoted to celebrating the latest cooking techniques, ingredients, and vacation hotspots, Barry gently but tenaciously informed pleasure-seeking readers about issues like the brutal economics of dairy farming and the ecological consequences of mindless fish-eating.

I always thought that Barry's toehold at Gourmet would inspire other glossy food magazines to open their pages to serious discussions of the U.S. food system. It never happened--Gourmet's competitors continued  singing the glories of, say, the steak, without troubling readers with information about how steaks are made in America. And now Gourmet is gone.

Barry, thankfully, isn't. He's launched a blog called Politics of the Plate. His latest post is typical: a well-reported piece on the creepy harassment members of Florida's Coalition of Immokalee Workers are getting as they try to force the supermarket chain Publix to pay up for fair tomatoes.

• I sometimes enjoy New Yorker critic-at-large Adam Gopnik's food writing. For example, I loved his 2005 piece comparing British chef Fergus Henderson, famed for utilizing the "whole beast," with French chef Allain Passard, who shocked the cooking world by dispensing with beast altogether. I am forever in Gopnik's debt for introducing me to the work of Henderson, whose prose style and cookbooks I admire, as I hope someday to admire his restaurant. (If I hadn't read about Henderson in Gopnik's piece, I might never had landed a review of Henderson's book The Whole Beast in Gastronomica a couple of years ago.)

So I was excited to see Gopnik's long rumination on cookbooks in the latest New Yorker. I, too, have a complicated and loving relationship with cookbooks. I wanted to like Gopnik's piece, but didn't. For me, Gopnik laid out a thicket of sentences, some 4,000 words' worth, many of them over-elaborate or too dense by half, to belabor one point: "Anyone who cooks knows that it is in following recipes that one first learns the anticlimax of the actual, the perpetual disappointment of the thing achieved." Besides the "first" bit--don't most folks learn that lesson before they first crack open a cookbook?--that seems true enough. And that (eventually) brings him here:

When you start to cook, as when you begin to live, you think that the point is to improve the technique until you end up with something perfect, and that the reason you haven't been able to break the cycle of desire and disillusion is that you haven't yet mastered the rules. Then you grow up, and you learn that that's the game.

That's well-said--but also well-established: Another way of saying that it's the journey, and not the destination that counts, in cooking as in life. Okay.

But what about the ways people's relationship to cookbooks has changed? Gopnik takes a quick glance at one: with the Web, it's now easy to quickly search for recipes and information of on ingredients, meaning we reach for our laptops more and to our bookshelves less.

Here's another, related one. In the old days (the mid-1990s), I would often be inspired by a recipe from a cookbook--say, a kibbeh from Paula Wolfert's wonderful Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean (1994). I'd procure the ingredients at a combination of the supermarket and ethnic markets and then go home and cook. The results ranged from delightful to disastrous to that melancholy in-between described by Gopnik.

These days, settled as I am into the new-wave tradition of local and seasonal cooking, I start with available ingredients and then seek preparation ideas (when I don't just lean on my established repertoire). This latter method is much more suited to the broad universe of Google than the inherently narrower universe of the cookbook shelf. Yet I still love cookbooks.

• I've been impressed by the emergence of the young novelist Jonathan Safran Foer as a public intellectual on the question of meat.

I haven't read his new non-fiction book Eating Animals yet. I found his big New York Times Magazine essay on why he went vegetarian plodding and unconvincing; but his Wall Street Journal piece, "Let Them Eat Dog: A Modest Proposal for Throwing Fido in the Oven," was brilliant. In a way I haven't seen since the great J.M. Coetzee's performance in the novel Elizabeth Costello, Foer plumbed the moral depths of meat eating.

I believe that mixed farming systems--ones that grow grains, veggies, and livestock synergistically--are probably the most productive and sustainable. Moreover, I cherish the cultural heritage of the globe's various cuisines--most of which include meat, if usually in moderation. Thus I eat meat occasionally, and enjoy it greatly when I do. Yet the moral questions around systematically killing sentient beings--and arbitrarily declaring one species "pet" and another "dinner"--must be confronted and thought through.

Moralists like Coetzee and Foer push us to do just that. Even if we end up rejecting their insistence that we become vegetarians, they remind us of the suffering we cause when we eat meat--and thus they inspire us to do so only in moderation, and with great care for how the animal was treated.

On the other hand, wittingly or not, their appeals suggest a hallowed moral status for vegetarians. But in a society in which relatively few people are engaged in food production, morally upright victuals are hard to come by. Supermarket tomatoes carry the taint of exploitation and even slavery;  and even buying organic doesn't guarantee socially just conditions in farm fields.

"Every document of civilisation is at the same time a record of barbarism," wrote the great German writer Walter Benjamin. Vegetarians, nearly as much as omnivores, need to conduct a withering critique of the moral and ecological liabilities in the processes that feed tham--and work to transform them accordingly.

• For the wine-obsessed, The New York Times' excellent Eric Asimov has an overview of six recent wine books. Eco-wine enthusiasts like me will want to get their hands on two of them: Been Doon So Long, by the pioneering California vintner Randall Grahm; and Liquid Memory, by wine-world enfant terrible and polemicist Jonathan Nossiter.

Grahm, proprietor of Bonny Doon Vineyard, is legendary for his wacky and hilarious label prose and his trend-setting wine-making ways. According to a great piece by Asimov last spring, Grahm is now moving to organic farming and natural wine-making techniques. May a thousand imitators bloom in California wine country

Nossiter, a former sommelier at Manhattan's Balthazar, is most famous for directing the documentary Mondovino--which doubles as a stink bomb hurled at makers of highly manipulated, lavishly marketed, and overpriced wines, and a love letter to Europe's remaining traditional vintners.

• For the beer-inclined, here's Paste Magazine's "25 Best American Breweries of the Decade." Any quibbles you might have with the list--there are 19 better breweries than San Diegos's Stone?--just underscore the pretty truth: we're in the full flower of a spectacular beer renaissance in the United States.

• Did y'all see my Newsweek piece?

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Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

For those times when fresh vegetables are not available, are canned or frozen veggies the way to go from a sustainable and nutritional standpoint? Assume that we recycle in our household. Cheers!

Mark L.
Sanford, Fla.

A. Dearest Mark,

I thought you Floridians would just live on fresh oranges and lemons all winter. Scurvy must have its opposite, I suppose, and one never hears of orange casserole or orange stew.

On the sustainability front, there is no clear and dominant difference between canned and frozen veggies -- or, to say that another way, studies differ. The major ding on frozen food is the energy you use to keep it frozen; for canned, it's the energy used to make the cans.

Based on what I read, I would recommend that if you cannot purchase fresh vegetables for some reason, you purchase high-quality processed vegetables with no additives, that you eat frozen vegetables within two weeks, and that you religiously recycle your steel cans. Of course, you should first be buying whatever fresh produce is available in wintry Florida.

Grade A frozen foods are harvested when ripe and quickly taken to the freezing plant, where they are (even more quickly) flash frozen at extremely low temperatures. The modern industrial freezing process retains almost all the original nutritional value of the food (according to nutrition guru Marion Nestle's helpful book What to Eat). Good to go on the nutrition angle. But it's important to have an efficient freezer. One study using 1970s data found that the longer frozen foods sit in the freezer, i.e., are using energy in storage, the more they fall behind canned goods in the efficiency smackdown.

The canned goods are a bit less nutritious, but a study that looked closely at this issue found the differences between frozen and canned carrots to be insignificant. Carrots in syrup, or whatever they might put carrots in, would of course fall in to the category of dessert or a processed food, and cannot be favorably compared to fresh. As you know, the ecological issue with canned carrots is the steel can itself, which has high embodied energy costs. If a study assumes the recycling of the steel can, then canned vegetables can compete favorably with frozen vegetables on the sustainability index. (One health consideration is that BPA is often used in the linings of such cans.)

All this to say, the two forms of commercial preservation are ecologically comparable, so we can all put this issue out of our minds and focus on eating our recommended daily allowance of fruits and vegetables. As we discussed last week vis bike helmets, it is ecologically important to remain in good health and away from hospitals. Fruits and vegetables help us achieve this goal. They also help us eat low on the food chain, an even more vital objective in the sustainable kitchen.

Five a Day-ly,
Umbra

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Q. Dear Umbra,

Vegans don't eat eggs because it's an animal product like honey and milk and also because of how animals are treated. However, does eating an egg kill a baby chick that could have had a life? I am a vegetarian and people often argue that the eggs in the grocery store are not fertilized and would never have a life. Is that really true? I know being vegan is the best way of living but does eating eggs really kill something that could have had a life? It would be great to get your opinion.

Harshita S.
Cambridge, Mass.

A. Dearest Harshita,

One foot on the floor.It is not my opinion but rather a fact that if a hen's egg has not been fertilized by a rooster, no embryo or chick will form. In general, an egg sold in a grocery store will not have been fertilized. There is a chance that you are shopping at a small store that carries eggs from small-scale producers, and in this case a rooster might be at the henhouse and the eggs might be fertilized. However, even a fertilized egg is unlikely to result in a life. Let us back up for a moment.

Hens, like women, produce eggs whether or not there is a chance of fertilization. Hens have one ovary, which regularly forms yolks inside its follicular sac. When the yolk is ready, the sac breaks open and releases it into the oviduct. If a hen happens to have a fresh set of sperm from a rooster stored in her infundibulum (the opening of the oviduct), the sperm gets a chance to fertilize the yolk. Whether this occurs or not, the albumen and shell are added in layers to form the complete egg as the yolk continues on a journey through the oviduct. When the egg is completely formed and the hen is ready to push it out, taa daa! Some hens will lay an egg per day.

A fertilized chicken embryo will grow and hatch in about 21 days if the right conditions are met, that is, if it is kept at 80 degrees. Either a hen must brood upon the egg until it hatches, or it must be incubated in a heated machine designed for the purpose. Few breeds of chicken will still brood, as this habit is inconvenient to the egg farmer and has been removed from the genes.

To recap, two things must be present for an egg to have a life: roosters and incubators. It is unusual for either of these conditions to be in place on a modern egg farm. Either the farm is such that tens of thousands of hens are in small cages pumping out eggs, with neither rooster nor free space in site. Or the chickens are roaming around, with perhaps a rooster or several roosters ruling the roost, but the farmer is in the egg-selling business and collects every egg to bring to your store. The only way an egg is a potential life is if that farmer sometimes collects and incubates her own eggs, and your egg happens to be fertilized but was not chosen to hatch out. So you see I am really stretching the possibilities here.

Here's the thing: if you do choose to eat eggs, despite the captivity of the birds, you should be buying eggs from small egg operations. These operations should have freely ranging chickens, and may have roosters. Hence, if you are going to eat eggs, it is better to buy and eat the ones that extremely hypothetically might have resulted in a live chick. Large-scale chicken egg farming is economically, ethically, and environmentally repugnant.

Mildly,
Umbra

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The other day I highlighted a new piece from Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker, which was critical of No Impact Man and other "stunts" in hyper-green living. Mainly I used it as an excuse to point to my old piece on the civic sphere, which, ahem, you should read.

I should have made it clear in the post that I have not read the No Impact Man book (or the other books mentioned in Kolbert's piece), so I'm not really qualified to comment on whether her criticisms are fair.

Not surprisingly, Colin Beavan -- No Impact Man himself -- doesn't think so! Kolbert's main charge is that personal lifestyle changes like his, no matter how committed or extreme, tend to obscure the fact that the big changes needed are collective -- social and political. One person changing doesn't amount to much.

Beavan wrote me to protest that a) he agrees with Kolbert's point entirely, b) his book actually contains a whole section toward the end about volunteering for NGOs and going to lobby Congress, and c) he has consistently used his platform to push for social action. One of Beavan's supporters also mounts a convincing defense in this post. It does seem that, whatever you could say about the other books in Kolbert's review, she did seem to squeeze Beavan into a box to make a point, a box in which he doesn't really belong.

You could argue, I guess, that whatever Beavan's intentions, and whatever he may have said in his book or blog, it was inevitable that the stunt -- going without toilet paper, etc. -- became the focus. The net cultural effect, even if unintended and explicitly disavowed, was roughly what Kolbert charged. Then again, you could just as easily counter that it's hard to get people involved in social change, period, and that you have to do whatever you can to get people's attention to begin with; that's what the stunt was, something flashy to draw people in and get them thinking. Not like other methods of pulling people into social change are working!

I certainly don't know the answer; if I knew how to make change, I wouldn't be a misanthropic shut-in blogger. I will say, though, that it's extremely easy to second guess other people's choices, much easier than taking action yourself. Whatever you might think of No Impact Man, Beavan has put skin in the game -- real, intense, sustained effort -- and that's a hell of a lot more than most people do. So props.

A final point: if people are going to do these kind of personal-behavior performance pieces, it's important that they convey accurate information about the impact of personal behaviors. That is information the public desperate needs. McKinsey found, in a 2008 survey of consumers:

Our study shows that more than one-third of the consumers who want to help mitigate climate change don't really know how. The top three ways for them to reduce their own emissions are to drive more fuel-efficient cars, improve the insulation of their homes, and eat less beef. Yet when we asked the consumers in our study to name the top three, they fingered recycling, energy-efficient appliances, and driving less. Few consumers knew how eco-friendly it is to shun beef.

Peoples is confused.McKinsey and Co.

As you can see, the American people are deeply confused about how to reduce their impact, even if they wanted to. I cringe every time I see someone on TV going on about unplugging power strips -- the most time-consuming, irksome, low-impact change a person can make. If you want to reduce your impact, replace your car with a Prius or take public transit, insulate your home, and eliminate beef from your diet. Do that and you can relax about, say, toilet paper.

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Carl M via flickrThose of you following our last post (Should Kuba Have a Puppy?) can see that both votes and comments on this question are running 9 to 1 in favor of the gratification of pet ownership. This is even though eco-curmudgeon Ken has made the point, with hard statistics, that keeping domestic animals essentially ensures the death of wild creatures that we would all heartily agree to preserve (indirectly, through habitat loss and overuse of resources).

So what?

Well, the JP Green House is meant to be a demonstration project. We aim to build a zero-carbon house on a low budget, grow veggies and raise chickens for eggs, cut our consumption to a level sustainable for the planet, and make it all public. This means full transparency of finances, building dilemmas, relationship agonies, parenting fiascos, and just the overall messiness of the thing. (Quick house and garden update: Foundation finished, windows and insulation are next, debating exterior options, many radishes, one pumpkin, fabulous dahlias, still short 50k.)

How does the utopian vision jibe with the fact that Kuba wants a puppy, the reality that Ken bought a motorcycle last week, the admission that I am writing this on a 95-degree day in Boston with my window AC blasting?

Are we a demonstration of hypocrisy? Or the immense difficulty of living within our earthly means? I'm afraid we're bound to reveal it all.

Fellow climate-organizer A., who does not own a car and rides his bicycle 12 miles from a prosperous Boston suburb to protests and meetings in our neighborhood, is one of the most sincere environmentalists I know. He writes brilliantly about the failures of major green groups to reckon with the true implications of climate change. He rants inappropriately at meetings, and never avoids calling people on their lifestyle failures. He’s more of a crank than Ken (and that’s saying something). And he smells a little funny.

A. enjoys bugging people. Last week out of the blue he responded to an email I sent from work about the economic crisis by accusing me of ignoring the true ecological disaster. Do you always address people you barely know this way? I snapped back. Basically, his answer was yes. In contrast, I try to walk a tightrope on which I avoid offending anyone by openly criticizing their consumption. I know I might regret my general affability and politeness in twenty years. Geez, we were all too busy to go to those climate protests and write our Congressman before Greenland melted...

I’ll leave you with all this hypocrisy, unresolved in my own mind.

But now for our next poll. I was over at Sue's house around the corner, today, drinking my third cup of coffee and bitching grandly about the past week, which has just been a slugfest for me, when I came up with a brilliant new question.

"How do you think the neighborhood would react if we raised rabbits for food?" I asked Sue. "I love rabbit--we used to eat it in Europe a lot. Delicious with garlic and spinach."

"Around here?! I don’t think so. You’ll have all the vegetarians and vegans picketing by the front door."

"Really? Do people realize where store-bought meat comes from?" I launched into a tirade about factory farming and got the evil eye from Sue, while her ten-year-old daughter turned pale across the room. (Point of fact: Our family is omnivorous, but we currently buy only meat raised humanely and organically on a local farm. We eat it with relish, however, the blood running down our chins. Also, I wish I had a picture of the day Eli ate a raw baby octopus, with the tentacles hanging from his mouth.)

So, the JP Green House question of the week is: Should we raise cute fuzzy bunny rabbits and slaughter them for their meat? Should we make moccasins and baby booties from their skins, sell rabbits-foot keychains for good luck, so as not to waste any usable byproducts?

Well why the heck not? Cause it's mean?

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Q. Dear Umbra,

Why is it eating less beef can save water? In addition, if we skip meat to save water, will that affect our health? Besides beef, what other food or drinks use a lot of water to produce and process?

Thanks!
Jocey

A. Dearest Jocey,

Wow, you meat-eaters sure are hungry for information -- check out my colleague Lou Bendrick's recent exploration of beef and methane.

Drink to me only with thine tasty thighs.USDA.govAs for your question: It takes a lot of water to grow and feed a large mammal, and yet more water to cut it up into small pieces and clean up the mess. Water use in beef production includes the water the cattle drink, the water used to clean their housing, the water used to grow their grain, water evapo-transpired from any grass they eat, and water used in the slaughter process. Water impacted by beef production is any water affected by the runoff from beef farms -- runoff that can include pathogens, heavy metals, and nutrient contaminants such as nitrogen.

Agriculture worldwide uses 70 percent of the world's fresh water. Obviously we have to eat, and beef is not the only agricultural product to use water. It's just that beef, particularly industrial beef, represents a double hit: it's fed grain that's grown and watered just to produce the meat. That cropland could have feasibly produced a protein crop that wouldn't have the total final water use (and water contamination) of beef.

How much water is needed to raise a certain piece of beef is a little hard to parse. Reports sponsored by the California Beef Council come in at 3,682 liters per kilogram; the President of the Pacific Institute estimates 15,000 to 70,000 liters per kilogram. Other than beef, other meats would be the main users of water. Many processed items use a surprising amount of water, including nuclear power, plastic bottles, and Coca-Cola.

Skipping conventionally raised beef will indeed affect your health -- in a positive way.

Water availability is a growing issue worldwide, but water use is not yet as quantified for consumer items or daily activities -- or beef production -- as are climate change impacts. I think if you focus your eating preferences based on climate change impacts (eating lower on the food chain, not eating heavy things shipped from far away, eating fewer processed foods ...), you'll be doing well by the world's water supply.

Moistly,
Umbra

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This is part two of a two-part series on organic ice cream; see our previous review of conventional, dairy-based ice creams by Tom Philpott.

Cow juice alternative?The Sheppard family has what you might call an ice cream problem.

When I was 8 and my brother was 5, we went to Disney World. After a day of themepark excitement, my brother started walking with a pronounced limp. My mother asked him what was wrong. "My leg hurts," he replied. "I need Mickey Mouse ice cream."

Another time, when I was about 12, my father lurched up from his chair in our living room in the middle of prime-time television, grabbed his chest, and fell to the floor yelling, "Arrrghhhh!" This was followed by, "I'm dying! There's no ice cream in the house." My mother, who had assumed he'd had a heart attack, was nonplussed by his plea for dairy delight.

Needless to say, ice cream was the dessert of choice in the Sheppard household. Imagine my dismay when, sometime during my senior year of college, my body suddenly developed an inability to digest lactose. I'll spare the details, but let's just say it makes my dairy air not so pleasant.

I only recently discovered the non-dairy alternatives out there, derived from soy, rice, and coconut milks. Sadly, I find most of the soy- and rice-based options gross -- their texture is nothing like real ice cream, and they seem to add way too much sugar to compensate for the lack of cow juice. I was excited to discover that coconut-milk based brands come much closer to the taste and feel of regular ice cream, but I had to get over the fact that they remind me of eating sunscreen.

In search of the best options out there, I assembled a panel of judges to conduct a highly scientific taste-test of six non-dairy ice cream varieties to find out for you, dear readers, what ranks highest. Of course, it will never be the same as real ice cream. I think you really have to create a separate category for these types in your mind and taste buds, divorcing yourself from the idea that they will ever be like the real thing. My roommate put it best in an eloquent analogy: "Soy ice cream is to real ice cream as a vibrator is to sex." Still enjoyable, but just not the same.

Rice Dream Organic Vanilla
Milk base: Rice
More details: Organic, dairy-free, gluten-free
Price: $3.69/pint

One reviewer remarked that this one had a "papery taste." Another thought it tasted like that weird white Laffy Taffy stuff you ate when you were a kid -- not like real vanilla. It is decidedly not rich, creamy, or ice-cream-like.

Organic So Delicious Dairy Free Mocha Fudge
Milk base: Soy
More details: Organic, dairy-free; Turtle Mountain supports sea-turtle restoration, sustainable ag
Price: $4.45/quart (quarts only)

This one is creamier than the other soy options, but panelists complained that it was too sweet. The taste of the sugar made it hard to actually discern that it is supposed to taste like mocha. The chocolate swirled into it, however, is pretty tasty. The overall conclusion from tasters was, "Take it or leave it -- it's not that good."

Luna & Larry's Coconut Bliss Chocolate Hazelnut Fudge
Milk base: Coconut
More details: Organic, soy-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, agave-sweetened
Price: $7.95/pint

This treat elicited squeals of delight from panelists, who heralded its proximity to real ice cream. It's very chocolatey, and the nuts are good too. They're very small and mild, so they don't overwhelm the other tastes (which is good, as I am generally opposed to nuts in ice cream). The hazelnut and chocolate tastes work well together, and they also work with the faint taste of coconut. The texture and sweetness are both just right.

Good Karma Organic Rice Divine Mint Chocolate Swirl
Milk base: Rice
More details: Organic, dairy-free, gluten-free; supports sustainable ag, donates a portion of proceeds to hunger organizations
Price: $3.99/pint

This cream tastes good at first, but the mint leaves a strange (and not particularly good) aftertaste. There is not much in the way of chocolate swirl, despite the claim on the package. The texture is nothing like real ice cream -- it's not creamy and it doesn't even melt on your tongue right. It also tries to compensate for its deficiencies with too much cane juice, resulting in an ice cream that somehow manages to be both too sweet and too bland, with an aftertaste that one panelist likened to Kaopectate.

Turtle Mountain Purely Decadent Dairy Free Cookie Dough
Milk base: Soy
More details: Organic, dairy-free, gluten-free; Turtle Mountain supports sea-turtle restoration, sustainable ag
Price: $4.99/pint

Of the soy-based options, this is probably the best. Or at least, it got better as it melted a little bit, according to our panel. At first panelists complained the texture was all wrong, but their opinions improved the more they ate, and the meltier it got. The cream part is pretty good, but the dough balls were almost uniformly categorized as gross -- they had a "sandy" texture, according to one taster, while another said they were "grainy." It was also deemed too sweet, but passable as ice cream.

Turtle Mountain Purely Decadent Coconut Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl
Milk base: Coconut
More details: Organic, dairy-free, gluten-free, agave-sweetened; Turtle Mountain supports sea-turtle restoration, sustainable ag
Price: $4.99/pint

My immediate reaction to this was that it tasted like chocolate-flavored sunscreen, and that those two tastes should never mix. But a few more spoonfuls convinced me otherwise, once I grew accustomed to the presence of a mild coconut flavor hanging in the background to the flavor it's supposed to be exuding. The peanut butter swirl is also very tasty, and compliments the other flavors quite nicely. This one has great texture -- very smooth, and it actually feels, looks, and melts most like dairy-based ice cream. Unfortunately, the fact that you need to get over that coconut flavor makes you more inclined to eat the whole pint yourself.

The bottom line: The coconut-based brands are the way to go, as long as you're not averse to the ever-present hint of coconut flavor. While both coconut ice creams in this tasting ranked well, Luna's sky-high price could put it out of reach for some. In general, anything chocolatey is probably a better bet than vanilla, and soy-based is better than rice.

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Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Hi Umbra,

I was shopping in the commissary (our lovely military grocery store) this afternoon when I noticed the "reduced for quick sale" meat section. [As a former vegetarian], I literally feel the weight of the world when I buy meat ... but when I saw this meat, it occurred to me that it was going to be thrown away within the next day or two if someone did not purchase it. To me, this is a worse crime: To have had that animal suffer a cruel factory farm existence only to have its meat completely wasted.

What do you think? I ended up buying some pork chops. Am I rationalizing my purchase? Am I fueling the factory farm that raised that pig? Or were they already paid when the commissary bought the meat and I just ensured the meat didn't go to waste? What's the best choice, to waste it or use it?

Megan S.
Fort Hood, Tex.

A. Dearest Megan,

Waste it. The lowered price does not change the essential character of the product. And if demand starts to dwindle, then ideally fewer animals will be sent to slaughter.

You have probably already resolved this waste-or-not dilemma in other situations. What do you do when given meat for dinner at a friend's house? The friends already bought it, so the factory farm has already been paid. The meat is cooked, and if you don't eat it, it may be wasted. Or what about attending a State Fair? At the food stands, hamburger has already been purchased and prepared for your dining pleasure.

There are many ways to protest conventional meat production -- whose problems my fellow columnist Lou Bendrick has recently covered in gory detail -- and I wager the most common is non-participation.

Well, no, probably omnivores sitting around and talking about disgusting factory farms is the most common (and least effective). Second most common protest is to eat less or no factory-produced meat. Avoiding meat affects multiple links in the food chain. Vendors sell less meat, hence buy less from producers, who purchase fewer calves/ chicks/ piglets/ bags of grain, and on down the line. Not that we see the impact of vegetarianism on the consumption numbers, alas: since the 1950s, the only meats we Americans have begun to eat less of are veal, eggs (nascent meat), and lamb. Our total annual poundage of meat consumption has gone from 138 pounds in the '50s to around 220 pounds in the '00s. I feel full.

A more promising trend is the obvious growing preference among affluent consumers for non-industrial meats. Organic certified livestock numbered about 11,000 in 1992, and in '05 was up to 196,000; broiler chickens (aka dinner) went from 17,000 to more than 10 million. Organic and other "naturally" raised meats are better for all concerned, and I include your wallet here as a player. If you persist in eating meat (which, after all, is tasty, easy to prepare, and popular), two key habits are to eat it infrequently and buy it locally/free range-raised. These two habits dovetail nicely. Non-industrial meat is more expensive than conventional meat, hence we can afford to purchase less total poundage. But that's OK, because we wish to eat meat less often anyway -- but when we do, we wish to send a message.

Just for kicks, I tried to find out how much it costs a conventional meat farmer to raise beef. It depends on equipment and feed costs, as well as economies of scale, but the ballpark number I found was $0.658 per pound. As you note, the producer has been paid by the time the meat hits the store, so this factoid has little relevance to your purchasing decisions. But what great cocktail party conversation. Right up there with reciting the Gallic Wars.

Gallia est omnis divisaly,
Umbra

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Think people who love the planet are all wimps and weenies? Think again. Here are thirteen who are giving green a bad reputation—in a good way. Read on to learn more about these Mother-lovers—and leave your own nominations in the comments section below.

Training day.Beige Luciano-Adams/ELLA13. Homeboy Industries. With the tagline “Nothing Stops a Bullet Like a Job,” you know these homeboys aren’t messing around. Thanks to an ambitious job-training program that includes solar-panel installation, the former East L.A. gang members are slashing energy use instead of each other.  “I wanted a new way of life,” says ex-convict Albert Ortega. “Solar puts me on the cutting edge.” Can we get that on a tattoo?

Bonds rallies support for her mountain home.OHVEC 12. Judy Bonds. It takes a badass to take on Big Coal, and Judy Bonds is doing it. The daughter of a coal miner and a self-described “hillbilly,” Bonds has gained international notoriety for her tough bituminous talk. It’s all an effort to protect her native West Virginia from the mountaintop removal practice she says turned her home into a “war zone.”

He wrestles with his conscience.11. El Hijo del Santo. This Mexican wrestler may hide his face with a silver mask, but he makes no secret of his intentions when it comes to the environment. As spokes-hero for the nonprofit WildCoast (CostaSalvaje), El Hijo del Santo is packing a world of hurt for the ocean’s enemies. Watch out, polluters—you don’t want to endure the Tope de Cristo.

The Isa-ing on the cake.eight double via flickr10. Isa Chandra Moskowitz. This vegan-punk chef is taking over the world—one decadent, dairy-free delicacy at a time.  As an author and co-founder of the cooking show Post Punk Kitchen, Moskowitz is bringing mainstream audiences two flavors of badassery for the price of one. But will punk officially be dead when The Man starts baking vegan cupcakes?

Global Coolio-ing.9. Coolio. When the rapper toured historically black colleges and universities to throw down the truth about climate impacts last year, he was fully armed—with stats. But earlier this year, Coolio made headlines by denying the reality of anthropogenic climate change. “The earth’s been doing this for millenniums,” he puffed on Celebrity Big Brother. Oh Coolio—stop blowing smoke up our ass.

An offer you can’t refuse.8. Wind farm mafia. Looks like the garbage biz is yesterday’s news: a leading mafia family got busted in a Sicilian wind-turbine scheme earlier this spring, leading to a major investigation into fraudulent power-selling practices. Translation: There was no wind in their sales.

That’s Mr. Mayor John to you.thecapsolution.org7. John Fetterman. The mayor of Braddock, Penn., is a big, bald, tattooed badass. Who just happens to have a heart of gold. “Mayor John,” as he’s known, is reinventing this downtrodden steel town in Pittsburgh’s shadow—and getting the word out about proactive climate and energy solutions. Yeah, that’s right, he’ll carbon cap your ass.

Just the flax, ma’am.EPA.gov6. EPA Criminal Investigation Division. Didn’t know the EPA had a Most Wanted list, did you? Didn’t know the agency tracked and shot its first eco-fugitive earlier this year, did you? The EPA: Not just for prairie grasses anymore.

Grr.5. Ah-nold. Yes, he’s the most overreported “unexpected environmentalist” of the new millennium. But how could we make this list and leave him out? We know what lies beneath the fancy suits, Arnold. Once a badass, always a badass.

Who you callin’ shrimp?Texas Gold4. Diane Wilson. A fourth-generation shrimper who captained her own boat, Wilson turned activist when she found out her Texas county was the most polluted in the country. The self-dubbed “unreasonable woman” took on Gulf Coast manufacturers, wrote a book about it, and hasn’t stopped fighting since.

His dedication is permanent.mytats.com3. Jess Yen. This award-winning southern California tattoo artist has a yen for influencing people’s perspectives on green issues. Amidst the tat-samples on his site, he dedicates some ink to educating clients about climate change—and gives 10 reasons to go vegetarian. “As an individual or an eco-tattoo artist,” he told one interviewer, “I do what I can every day to cherish and conserve the sacred resources.”

Don’t let the grandfatherly smile fool you: Ted is tough.governor.oregon.gov2. Ted Kulongoski. Sure, he looks like a gentle 69-year-old who merely “cares” about climate legislation, state parks, sustainable housing, and tailpipe regulations. But the governor of Oregon, whose second term ends next year, has a storied past that includes stints as a Marine, truck driver, bricklayer, and steelworker.  On top of that, he was raised by nuns—so you know he’s got a tough hide.

Munter puts it best: “Never underestimate a vegetarian hippie chick with a racecar.”NextEra Energy1. Leilani Munter. Stunt double? Check. Race car driver? Check. Biologist and conservation activist? Uh, OK. Munter doesn’t mess around when it comes to the environment: she hopes to educate racing’s 100 million racing fans about green living, serves as an ambassador for the National Wildlife Federation, has testified on Capitol Hill, and wants to convince her industry to use more alternative fuels. Says this CarbonFreeGirl: “Just because you’re green ... doesn’t mean you can’t be fast.”

This badass list was created by Ashley Braun and Katharine Wroth.

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Take a bite out of summer.It’s Memorial Day weekend! Say hello to the long, hot days of summer and goodbye to all the rest. However you celebrate this seasonal turning point, we’ve got advice for making it just a bit greener.

First, we hoist the flag with Umbra, who tells us how to be proud patriots 24 hours a day.

Now for the juicy stuff: Planning a cookout? Check out Umbra’s quick ‘n’ easy advice on eco-friendly grilling (quicker still: chuck the charcoal) and these illuminating BBQ FAQs. If you know how to fuel your fire but can’t decide what to cook, here are a few ideas on grilling without red meat and a cookbook or two to inspire.

Before you head out to buy watermelons and Not Dogs, check out our tips on prioritizing organic purchases, washing produce, and what those codes on produce really mean. And read Lou Bendrick’s beefy take on the real impacts of meat production.

Worried about bug bites? Check out our buzzworthy review of DEET-free bug repellents and read this rundown on eco-friendlier insect repellents and sunscreens. Be sure to keep an eye out for our brand-new test of eco-sunscreens, coming in early June.

And if you’re using this weekend as a chance to spruce up your grounds, check out our ideas for lawn alternatives, advice on fertilizers, and tips for the best way to water.

Finally, a verging-on-earnest note: we know Memorial Day is about more than cookouts and bug bites. But we don’t have many links to offer on the topic of sacrificing young lives in faraway lands. Still, we hope you’ll take a moment this weekend to thank the men and women who made your vegan sausagefest possible.

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Brad’s not the only one who digs green building—his brother’s joining him to support a hometown eco-stadium. The groundbreaking was just the other day ... you might say officials Doug a Pitt.

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Faced with a recite-the-whole-bill threat from Republicans, House Dems hired a speed reader. Hilarity ensued when, zipping through page 523, he said “Maxwan-Warkey” by mistake.

Have you haired the news?
German-auto heavyweight Daimler invested in Tesla. Which is too bad—we were really hoping they’d get behind Whitesnake.

My sister’s leaker
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The Belgian city of Ghent will be the first in the world to go meat-free one day a week in an effort to cut the city's carbon footprint, battle obesity, and say "veggiedag" as many times as possible.

They're even passing out "veggie street maps" to help citizens find vegetarian eateries around town. But not to worry, there are plenty of Belgian waffles to go around.

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Courtesy Global GrindHip-hop mogul Russell Simmons is the co-founder of Def Jam Records, a sometime reality star, and an entrepreneur who's launched a number of successful ventures including clothing lines Phat Farm and Baby Phat. He's also a yoga-practicing vegan who's hoping to use his resources to make change in the world of hip-hop -- and the world at large.

Describing himself as "hip-hop to the bone," Simmons is quick to hail the power of that community in influencing politics, pointing to a recent change in drug policy in New York State. "That was because Jay-Z and Puffy and Rev Run and LL Cool J and many other people came out to rally," he says. "A lot of politicians joined them, but the artists made the noise and created the energy and made the change."

Simmons has high hopes for rallying that same energy in the fight against climate change -- an issue, he admits, the community has yet to truly embrace. But he's harnessing more than the power of lyrics and videos to get the message out. He's recently given birth to a new-media company called Global Grind -- a hip-hop HuffPo, if you will -- featuring news stories, video clips, and celeb blog posts on topics ranging from music and entertainment to "politricks."

Simmons has also taken on the role of spokesperson for the America's Greenest Campus campaign, an effort to get college students (a key hip-hop demographic) to reduce their carbon footprint. The contest runs through October and offers prizes to the school with the most participants, the school with the largest percentage of carbon emissions reduced, and the creator of an online ad for sponsor SmartPower.

During a recent phone call -- and between bites of a Gardenburger-topped salad garnished with both salad dressing and ketchup (a combination his staff poked fun at, he says) -- Simmons talked about his commitment to reducing his own footprint, the brand power of hip-hop, and the importance of well-informed consumers.

Q. Tell me about the America's Greenest Campus contest. Why have you signed on to help publicize this campaign?

A. The hip-hop community has not been as concerned about the environment as they could be, so if I can loan my voice and my resources ... into growing it very quickly, then I believe that companies can create more awareness on this subject. It's something that I'm very committed to, so I want to tie this educational vehicle, Global Grind, directly to this "America's Greenest Campus" idea, and I want to see how I can help others to lighten their footprint.

Q. What role can young people play in helping change the way we think about climate change in this country?

A. [This campaign] is an educational tool and an empowerment vehicle. People don't understand what it is to lighten their footprint, what steps to take. So if we give them the simple steps and we tell them exactly how much it affects the environment if they make certain changes -- being a vegetarian, doing other things that make a dramatic difference in how much weight they carry in the world -- people want to know that. When they realize that by changing simple things they can make a difference, it's an empowerment vehicle.

Photo: Brett WeinsteinQ. You've said that you used to live a life of overconsumption and abundance -- how have your priorities changed over time?

A. One thing is that I'm an animal activist. I felt very disturbed about the way humanity treats its species on this planet. It was a spiritual matter, and it was not connected, at first, to the environment. And then when I found out that your footprint is so much heavier because you eat animals -- that's [a bigger] cause of global warming ... than all forms of transportation put together -- it became a part of my discussion when I was trying to get people to stop eating animals and abusing themselves by eating them. I didn't realize how much they were abusing the planet as well.

Q. Hip-hop culture definitely trumpets a life of luxury and overconsumption, and that message is going straight to the youth, so it feels a little bit contradictory to say "hey, green your campus, lessen your footprint" but also be telling them "have the pimpest car and the blingiest bling" --

A. I'm going to interrupt you. First of all, the abuse comes from the top down. The president's flying around in a private plane. Stop playin'! Everybody's abusive and every channel's abusing us ... All the people pointing the finger at hip-hop need to point at themselves.

If hip-hop decides to buy something that's popular in culture and talk about it, that certainly doesn't make them more abusive. They're more conscious, not less. They're less homophobic, not more. They're less violent, not more. They're less racist, not more. But it's wrong [to say that] in general, they're less concerned.

I will say that it is a community that needs to be enlightened more. But that's not the issue -- their mission of getting ahead. That's a mission America sends on every network, in every promotion, on every channel, and every commercial.

Because they sing about the things that people buy? I think that's a reflection of us. They are reflections of us, and our dirt is coming right out of their mouths ...

Q. Do you think the hip-hop community can lead the charge to help shepherd these changes?

A. You've gotta hope so, because the biz is depending on hip-hop to pick which color diamond is popular. The only way [the Maybach] beats Phantom Rolls Royce is to get rappers to choose it. Tommy Hilfiger's praying that hip-hop discovers him again. So is Coca-Cola; [they're] worried what hip-hop says versus Pepsi.

We need them; they're the best brand-building community in the world. If we can get a large number of hip-hoppers to take this on, then they will have a greater impact in lots of forms of media.

Q. Are there any artists in particular who have taken on this cause?

A. I don't have a rapper that I can point to the way I can point to Leonardo DiCaprio. But I'm going to work now as an individual, and I'm trying to find some leaders in the community who can make a huge difference.

Q. Have you done any work to move along environmental changes in the music industry -- or have you seen any promising changes in the way the industry is run?

A. I don't know that they've done a lot of work yet. The reason I signed on [to this campaign] is because I felt they were not serving this initiative. They work on many things that are social and political, but this has not been one. It's not been on the forefront in their minds, and that's why I'm trying to make a difference now by joining on. I'm not joining on because they have a lot of hip-hoppers involved in the environmental movement. I'm joining on because they don't, and I think that we can put it in their face and they're conscious people and a lot of them will join.

Q. What about your clothing lines? Have you made moves to ensure they have minimal impact on the earth?

Not as much as I should. It's something we've talked about a lot. In fact, we had a discussion about making a lot of organic cotton for Wal-Mart yesterday.

Q. What's holding you back on that front? What needs to happen so that it makes sense from a business point of view?

A. You have to get customers to value it. Some of these choices we want to make -- in order for us to be competitive and still make a difference, we have to be profitable. There is a resistance on the part of some consumers that is making it more difficult. We have to promote the value of organic choices to the consumers ... We're working on it. It's a marketing exercise.

Q. Do you feel it's your role as a public figure to use your status to promote change?

A. I try to go to work every day and make sure my businesses have a light footprint in every area. I stopped my licensees a long time ago from making fur; my new companies are not making leather. I'm trying, you know? I try to every day do a little better, but that's for me to sleep at night. If you live by example, if you speak in a way that people can digest it and see the value in it, then you can get people to join in. I know that as [people] learn to do better, they do better, they feel better, and they sleep better as a result of making a good choice.

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