You Are What You Eat: Eco-cuisine

If our bodies are our temples, then our charge is taking care of the temple. Food is a big part of temple maintenance, but it seems to be increasingly more difficult to find healthy options. G Spotter Margaret just wrote a piece on Huffington Post about the beef recalls at Whole Foods. I mean, if we can't find healthy, safe, local options at Whole Foods, or which we thought was the temple's temple, what are the other options?

Our new favorite sister blog team Eddie, Cupcake, and Pleasant Gehman aka The Haphazard Girls, whoe are thankfully coming through on the clutch with solid alternatives to Whole Foods aka Whole Prices. The Haphazard Girls blog is majorly informative and practical in providing the most up to date info that the FDA doesn't always want us to know... Until Whole Foods re-ups the food standards and company values which they used to rock, we should all be wary; Little Red Riding Hood and her Grandma, type sh*t.

For instance, check out the Eat Well Guide to find local, delicious foods using google map technology. Another one we love is Sustainable Table. They are working with schools to create playground gardens and teach and provide students with local organic eating education.

Hess Natur Comes Hard with Eco-Fashion Fabulousness

Chrome-free sustainable Hess Natur Fur Vest

Organic cotton Hess Natur trench waterproofed with Beeswax

What happens when a hot designer creates a celebrated but semi-controversial collection for a traditional fashion audience, becomes disillusioned with the lack of “political or social awareness in connection with attractive apparel”, moves back home to Majorca, runs a bar and hibernates for 3 years, and then meets the CEO of a powerhouse German organic clothing company?

This is precisely how Miguel Adrover, whose designs can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Hess Natur CEO Wolf Luedge met, more than a year ago. Over drinks at Adrover’s Majorcan bar, the two discussed Hess’ 30 year history of eco and ethical style, the company’s work with Founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel Prize Winner Dr Muhammed Yunus, and the elegance of organic linen, organic silk, and fair labor standard. Hess Natur is well known throughout Europe for wearable separates for women including sweaters, dresses, and jeans. For men, they have these separates and also quality organic suits.


Flash-forward to the summer of 2008 and Adrover is now the Creative Director for Hess Natur and has designed a capsule collection, became available in the US July 2008. Adrover’s collection, as seen in the two photos, is a bit more edgy and fashion forward. The organic cotton trench (waterproofed with beeswax) is a hard to find fashion staple, in the realm of eco fashion. The sheep skin vest, at first glance, seems to be a non-conventional green fashion find. But it is responsibly sourced from a meat-packing facility in Turkey, is also an non-conventional green fashion find.

GSpotter Margaret and Miguel Adrover

I Am Not A Paper Cup

Shout out to this sweet James Burgess ceramic mug, which looks like a disposable cup, but isn't.

Y-3 Yohji Yammamato for Sigg

It's all about unexpected beverage containers today with us GSpotters; don't know why.

Check these Sigg for Y-3 Yohji Yammamato reusable water bottles, which kick serious A**. In the past, Y-3 has collaborated with other active companies like Adidas, and created supremely designed products for about 3 times the price. Such is the case with these sweet, limited edition Y3 Sigg water bottles which go for $90 each (a regular Sigg is about $20). We stopped by the Y-3 store in the West Village, NYC yesterday, and the shop dude swore the price hadn't deterred a single buyer and they had only 4 left in stock. High end luxury, meet functional eco- products.

Personal Sustainability, Old Running Shoes, and Green Olympic Gear

It's all about sustainability: for our earth, our communities, and our own bodies. This GSpotting TV segment delves into donating shoes to be ground up into a running track through Nike's Reuse a Shoe program, Olympic commemorative tshirts from Coca Cola made from recycled Coke bottles, and revisits a previous post about Canadian Olympians wearing sustainable uniforms.

Lower East Side Fashion Show

This past Sunday afternoon found Lower East Side shops boasting their coolest vintage, eco, and even s&m fashion wares in the form of a slammin fashion show, Flipside. This video is of fantastic GSpotting friends Dion and Joe (our homegirl Parisa came too) watching and commenting with Margaret on intricate details of the show. We especially loved Hairy Mary's Vintage, The Dressing Room, and Kaight shop.

Live Green Rewards: Shop Online and Donate to Charity

Donate money to the National Audubon Society, World Wildlife Fund, and other great non-profits just by shopping online? Yes, please. All you do is go to LiveGreenRewards.com and click on one of the shop links and select your favorite eco-charity from the list. Then, just start shopping by clicking on any of the store banners and you will be taken directly to that retailer's website. Retailers we Gspotters will be using include but are not limited to (hehe): Apple, the Gap, Orbitz, match.com, and Vans.

ObamaIsTheMan.com

What happens when two brothers ages 18 and 26, decide to engage other young voters their age in order to get them hyped for the upcoming presidential election?

Answer: ObamaIsTheMan.com

Millennials ages 18-29 encompass about 47 million people and experts say the Millennial vote will most likely decide the Presidential winner. Using 21st Century media tools - blogs, Facebook, and video messaging, ObamaIsTheMan.com offers free downloads of stylized Obama images to be used for Facebook pages, as well as posters and flyers which are they encourage are passed out around neighborhood coffee shops, pizza joints, and music stores.

To cover costs and raise money for the campaign, brothers Aron and Sam Kressner offer kick-ass Obama t-shirts made from organic cotton and printed with water-based inks made here in the U.S.A. One dollar is donated to the Obama campaign for every shirt sold.

Fly jetBlue and Carbon Offset, too

We can all most likely agree that flying has become more hassle-heavy and headache inducing than ever before. Between the liquids/gels tango we must dance with airport security, new checked-bag fees, and no in-flight snacks, air travelers have a lot to biotch about.

Thanks to jetBlue's Jetting to Green program, we now have something to be impressed by as well. As you book your jetBlue flight online, you can give a few extra dollars to offset the emissions through the credible offsetting company, The Carbon Fund.

To Make Your JetBlue Flight Carbon Neutral:

1. Enter the first few letters of your departure and arrival cities, or the 3-digit airport codes.
2. Click Calculate.
3. For multiple trips, enter and click Calculate.
4. When you're done, click Offset Your Footprint Now!

Endangered Species Act Change That Would SUCK

Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne

Most of the GSpotting entries and ideas stem from badass companies moving in a green, conscious direction for the sake of their consumers and our planet. That's our beat. And when friends, family, and lovers argue that politicians in office dictate most of the change that occurs in this country, we just quietly disagree and point to beacons of change vis a vis capitalism like Burts Bees and Terra Cycle and Patagonia, who are hella successful, powerful entities whose global impact goes way beyond their $$ success.

But every once and a while we've got to agree that certain basic regulations are needed from our government. Mainly, that they just act within the law. The latest proposed change to the Endangered Species Act by the Bush Administration's Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, is super short sided. The former University of Idaho Student Body President, is proposing we allow the highway, dam, and mine companies decide if their intended projects will be harmful to endangered species and plants, instead of a more objective government regulatory body.

Secretary Kempthorne went on to say, "It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse-gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species.” Coming from a politician who received $80,000 in campaign contributions between January 1989 and June 1995 from American Petroleum Institute political action committee members, Kempthorne's inability to see a correlation between emissions and wildlife destruction seems quite expected.

Let's hope the Polar Bears that Kempthorne removed from the Endangered Species list get really pissed off and vote for Obama.

P Diddy, Donnie Klang, and a Prius

Diddy and Donnie

Diddy done done it again rocketing Donnie Klang (previously part of "The Band" from MTV's Making the Band) into the spotlight with a new hit, Take You There. Like most Diddy videos, this 4 minute music video features champagne, half nudey women, the protege in question (Donnie Klang) and a phat ride. The jump-off that makes this video so fresh is that the hot chick who picks up Diddy/Donnie from the liquor store to take them to the hot-n-wild house party, drives a sexy black Toyota Prius!

Now, usually the rapper/singer drives a big Escalade or Mercedes to the hot-n-wild house party, but the fact that the boyz carpool to the spot with the ladies in the Prius shows vision on the part of Diddy, Donnie, and director Ray Kay.

And so, major shout out to "Take You There", Donnie Klang, and Diddy.

An Eco Evening Bag Carrie Would Carry

Carrie woul carry the sh*t out of this precious recycled license plate clutch by Littlearth

Carrie carried the sh*t out of this Judith Lieber Cupcake miniaudiere in Sex and the City

Remember the 1999 episode from Sex and the City, The Caste System, in which Big gives Carrie a Judith Leiber miniaudiere in the shape of a duck, and she questions the relationship based on said gift, "Does he even know me at all?"

If the answer is yes, you probably also remember the Leiber Cupcake evening clutch "miniaudiere" that Carrie carries in the S and the C movie released in May. PS, that little thing goes for $4,295.

Ok, stay with us because here is where the GSpotting team feels like we actually might know Carrie's taste (or Sex and the City stylist Patricia Field) better than Big did.

Carrie, if she was a real person, would most likely shreak with joy over Littlearth's SuperFlair Evening Bag. Littlearth makes these bags out of recycled license plates, and for less than $200, they are pretty sweet when tricked out with Swarovski crystals, right?

Creative Pants, Pragmatic Energy Solutions

We are pleased to finally bring you the first of many GSpotting video blog entries. "Creative Pants, Pragmatic Energy Solutions" touches on the fact that in certain ways, our country is being more innovative than ever and the example of this is the unprecedented brightly colored jeans now available to men. On the flip side, the most innovative presidential candidate to date has just come out in favor of offshore drilling, one of the least innovative energy ideas one could think of.

It is the disconnect between the innovation the masses are demanding in certain aspects of their lives, and the status quo they are receiving in other areas, that has this GSpotter Margaret twisted up and hyped to video blog "vlog" it out.

A Pedicure Fish: Weird Spa Treatments... Cruel?

A friend of GSpotting and the editor of Sprig, Jeanie Pyun, just wrote this piece for Huffington Post about a new pedicure treatment involving fish that eat away the dead skin on your feet.

WTF?!

Apparently this fishy pedi is offered in a spa in Alexandria, Virginia and the Turkish Doctor Fish, or Garra rufa, which do all the work, are gaining notoriety. Clearly, PETA is all over that sh*t regarding the obvious animal rights abuses (wait, soapy lotion water isn't a healthy marine habitat?) but the spa insists that no fish have died yet and that the water temperature and environment are quite agreeable.

To be fair, I bet those fish get nice and close on pesky toe cuticles that are so hard to trim with scissors...

**Shout out to B Kargs for the reminder to post a new entry as we are steady trying to study for the GMAT. A little motivation keeps the GSpotting team on the prowl.

Natural Beauty + Natural Beauties: Jurlique Gets Celeb Love

Salma Hayek getting JurliqueJurlique Director's Cut: Oliver Stone, Brett Ratner, Francis Ford Coppola, James Toback

Sanaa Lathan at Jurlique Party (just because Love & Basketball is one of my fave movies!)

Brett Ratner hosted a big party for Jurlique at his home in Benedict Canyon this past Saturday. Along with Jurlique CEO, Eli Halliwell, the director invited his celeb friends over for a much needed spa day. Folks like Francis Ford Coppola, James Toback, Oliver Stone, Stevie Wonder, Salma Hayek, and even Paris Hilton were pampered to natural beauty.

Jurlique is a fabulous high-end organic beauty company, whose Rose Hand Cream has restored my own appendages to their normal texture and sheen.

Check out the photos from the party courtesy of Style.com.

What Eco-Conscious Consumers and French Women Have in Common

Last year a book came out by Cliquot Inc President and CEO, Mireille Guiliano, espousing the virtues of enjoying food, as a diet. Her bestseller, “French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure,” rocked American readers who always wondered how cheese, chocolates, mousse, bread, and wine yielded a thinner French physique (the obesity rate in France is 11% as compared to our 30%, which is 30 pounds over a healthy weight.)

Anecdotally, this makes sense; slow down and engage each bite with consciousness. The only problem with that is the food has to be good, but really good. Produce hauled for days in refrigerated boats and trucks, dairy heavily processed for longevity, and meats packed in ice for shipping as is the case with most chain grocery goods don’t stimulate the palette to entice anything but wolfing food down.

This is where sustainable eating comes in. Local produce plucked within days of consumption really tastes better. Seasonal dishes dictated by the weather outside and in-tune with what your body craves, yields foodgasmic results. Eating fish caught within 24 hours tastes how a great sentence reads, and demands a full stop. Not just a comma or pause in which to shovel more food into your mouth.

In 1988 Susan Sommers wrote, “French Chic: How to Dress Like a Frenchwoman,” which addresses the question, why do French women have such polished, elegant style? Sommers answers, unlike American women who purchase cheap trendy pieces frequently, French women use common clothing items in uncommon way, combine high-end designer with thrift-shop, and tend to buy durable clothes that work for many seasons, if not decades.

“Cute dress, Kathryn!” I recently told my roommate. “Yeah, it was only $14.95 but I can’t wash it because it will fall apart.”

If purchasing a cheap dress means one time use, the conscious consumer must ask the question, shouldn’t I save up and spend a bit more for a quality garment, that is healthier for me and the earth, and that I can wear and wash for years to come?