ColumnEven if you can’t pay, you still deserve access to good food.

When you go to a museum and there’s a donation box, but no set entrance fee, how much do you put in? Don’t worry, I won’t force you to answer that question publicly – personally it depends on my mood – but the “pay what you can afford” model is an interesting one.

Built on human faith – one can hope that most people are good hearted enough not to totally take advantage of the system – the concept is now moving beyond cultural institutions. Enter, pay-what-you-can restaurants. With the same idea as donation only museums, pay-what-you-can restaurants are exactly that: order a meal and then decide how much you think it’s worth, or give what you can afford.

Earlier this month Jon Bon Jovi and his charity organization JBJ Soul Foundation opened Soul Kitchen, a pay-what-you-can restaurant in New Jersey. The focus is put on healthy and nutritious food, think beet salad and three bean veggie chili. Can’t throw down cash for a meal? You can volunteer in the kitchen. For Bon Jovi, it’s all about changing our perspective. In an interview with Grub Street New York, Bon Jovi said:

Let me change your mind, because you’re imagining a tray service type of soup kitchen and it’s the opposite. Picture the coolest brasserie in your hometown, that’s what this is. It’s the hottest-looking restaurant in this town. We have to get rid of a few stigmas attached to the word volunteering and making a difference.

Bon Jovi’s restaurant is not the first of its kind, and was in fact inspired by Denver’s So All May Eat (SAME). SAME sticks to a strict policy of no set menu and no set prices, and encourages diners who can’t pay to do an hour of service in exchange for their meal. Because they believe in the idea that everyone should have access to healthy food, the owners Brad and Libby Birky are committed to fresh and organic ingredients whenever possible. White Bean Soup with Kale and Chorizo and Apple & Sunflower Seed Salad are some of the items that currently grace the menu.

Cafe 180 in nearby Englewood, Colorado is built on the same ethos, and gets a lot of their produce donated by local Colorado farms. Make your way to the other side of the world and you’ll find MaD Eatery in Siam Reap, Cambodia, where you pay what you want and 100% of the proceeds go to supporting local NGO MaD Cambodia, who works on community development and children’s welfare issues. And Australia has Lentil As Anything, which not only has their pay-what-you-can restaurants, but also a coffee table book celebrating their community.

But do people pay? Over a year ago, chain operation Panera Bread Co. and its Panera Bread Foundation opened the first Panera Cares pay what you want restaurant, and since then they have found that about 80 percent of their clientele pay the suggested amount or more. Their first non-profit concept bakery in Clayton, Missouri was actually so successful that they have since opened community cafes in Dearborn, Michigan and Portland, Oregon.

“The vision for the Panera Cares cafe was to use Panera’s unique restaurant skills to address real societal needs and make a direct impact in communities,” said Ron Shaich, Panera Bread’s co-founder and Executive Chairman. “Thus, the Foundation developed these community cafes to make a difference by addressing the food insecurity issues that affect millions of Americans.”

Shaich makes a good point: everyone should have access to food, and restaurants have the potential to creatively deal with this pressing issue. In fact 15% of U.S. households are faced with food insecurity, and ultimately, this is what these efforts are all about. But beyond supporting local communities, these restaurants are also changing how we think about food as a whole.

The foodie movement has unfortunately been hung up on deluxe renditions of goat cheese, infusions of unheard of herbs and the magic behind molecular gastronomy, but in the path to food greatness, many of these efforts have left the rest of us on the sidelines.

Eating good food shouldn’t be a luxury. We all have the right to have access to local, fresh ingredients, and hopefully pay-what-you-can restaurants can pave the way to a more equitable food future.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Image: Soul Kitchen, e pants

Consumers have become more cautious and conscious about their purchases – and these traits are here to stay.

Our global economy has taken a beating and consumers everywhere are changing their buying habits to adjust to our new reality of insecure jobs, reduced real estate values, mistrust in business and government, and an uncertain economic future. Consumers are saving more, spending less, buying items when needed, and patronizing companies that care about more than just business.

Businesses wanting to survive this prolonged economic slump are paying attention to these new buying patterns and are adjusting accordingly. Will these new habits continue once the economy starts to recover? Studies predict that the longer these frugal economic conditions persist, the more ingrained the habits could become. Recovery has been much slower than many anticipated, but while things may not get worse, they might not get better anytime soon, either.

There are more important things than money

When the economy began its rapid downshift, one of the consequences was a spotlight on a society that had been chronically overspending on material goods and living precariously on credit. Eyes Wide Open, Wallet Half Shut, a 2010 study by Ogilvy and Mathers, found that three quarters of post-recession consumers surveyed were disenfranchised with the pursuit of money, responding that they no longer cared to climb the corporate ladder, would rather spend more time with family, and would choose job security over an insecure job with opportunities for raises.

Authors John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio told brands to bid goodbye to the inflated wealth and hyper-consumerism of years past and say hello to “a lifestyle more focused on community, connection, quality, and creativity,” in The Power of the Post-Recession Consumer. Consumers are moving from “mindless consumption” to “mindful consumption,” specifically purchasing goods and services from vendors who echo their values and live up to their standards.

“More recently, the BAV [Young & Rubicam’s BrandAsset Valuator] surveys show sharp increases in the number of consumers who want positive relationships with marketplace vendors and who focus more on corporate behavior. Between 2005 and 2009, a growing number of people rejected status-driven values such as snobbishness and exclusivity, and embraced attributes related to bringing people closer together or making the world a better place. Among the once-prized brand attributes that declined in this period were: “exclusive” (down 60 percent), “arrogant” (down 41 percent), “sensuous” (down 30 percent), and “daring” (down 20 percent). On the opposite side of the scale, the brand attributes Americans found more important as they began to sense the impending recession and then suffered through the crisis were: “kindness and empathy” (up 391 percent), “friendly” (up 148 percent), “high quality” (up 124 percent), and “socially responsible” (up 63 percent).”

Frugality is cool

When faced with an increasing climate of job insecurity and falling equity, many consumers were forced to examine their own economic situation and revise their spending habits. People began economizing everywhere and both price and quality became key drivers for many purchases.

A Booz & Co. study, Forever Frugal? found that since the recession consumers are becoming extremely conscious about what they buy. They are spending less on household items, embracing less expensive private brands and buying fewer, high-quality items. The Ogilvy and Mathers study shows that 92 percent surveyed are using coupons, 91 percent are shopping at less expensive and/or discount stores and 90 percent are buying more store brands.

Buy now, use now

Finally, a good reason to curb the creeping Christmas shopping season that has managed to weasel its way into October (Editor’s note: a few clueless companies might take note. This morning – August 31 – we received a Christmas pitch). Brands could count on consumers to buy early and buy a lot on credit, but along with buying less, consumers are waiting until they need something to buy. Savvy companies are readjusting their seasonal selling to accommodate this recent trend. CEO of Newell Rubbermaid, Mark Ketchum, told the  Wall Street Journal that his company changed its back-to-school selling season from its normal early July to mid-August range to late July through September to capitalize on the consumer’s desire to buy supplies later.

Consumers are also making their way through all the inventory they already own in their pantries, makeup cases, and bathroom cabinets, and restocking with smaller packages and less variety. Warehouse stores like Costco and BJ’s (based in MA), have noticed that shoppers bought less but shopped more frequently. Ahead of the curve, in 2008, BJ’s had already begun shrinking its package sizes to appeal to smaller households and people who wanted to stock up weekly, rather than monthly. These clairvoyant changes resulted in increased sales and memberships. As this economic climate persists, these changes might become the future standard.

Green is still good

Despite the sometimes higher price of green products, environmental consumerism is still going fairly strong. A 2011 UK study commissioned by Amex found that consumers place value on ethically sourced goods, and a Mintel study also reports that more than 35 percent of consumers surveyed said they would pay more for environmentally-friendly products. Green customers aren’t the majority, but it is a strong segment nevertheless.

As many consumers try to lead more conscious lifestyles, studies project that demand for ethical products will continue. Consumers want to buy from companies who implement internal environmental policies, work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and commit to environmental targets.

Consumers want companies who care about the community…

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained visibility and momentum in the last several years with no indication of slowing down any time soon, but more than ever before, companies need to be strategic about their CSR efforts so they are complimentary to both the community and business growth. CSR isn’t simply about a company donating money to a worthy cause. CSR, implemented effectively, attracts both customers and employees, helps retain talent, and benefits both the company and the community. More than ever before, consumers are doing more research into companies and products before buying, requiring brands to be more transparent, ethical and accountable to customers in order to gain their business.

Each company defines CSR for itself. Intel focuses on energy conservation, emerging as one of the largest purchasers of renewable energy credits in the past few years, committing to 2.5 billion in 2011.  The semiconductor manufacturer has also invested significant efforts toward creating clean energy solutions in several locations and employee education around their efforts. This helps the company save money on energy costs, reduces its impact, and engages its employees in energy saving initiatives.

ExxonMobil focuses on women’s education around the world. ExxonMobil Foundation’s Lorie Jackson explains that it’s good business because it broadens ExxonMobil’s pool of talent in the countries where it does business. This, in turn, helps ExxonMobil, and it helps communities worldwide. PepsiCo was looking to improve the nutritional value of its snacks. One solution, replacing palm oil with high-oleic sunflower oil (HOSO), will improve the economy of a Mexican region and the financial picture of 850 families, lessen its environmental impact and stabilize operating costs.

…and about customers, too 

Although customers are more discriminating about their purchases and want to pay less, they still expect to be treated well by the companies they choose to patronize. Many organizations have cut back on easy return policies, shipping policies and customer service, but that has proven to be a mistake. After reeling from the large-scale meltdown of the financial industry, the last thing customers want to hear from a company is that they want their business, but don’t have the staff, time or inclination to treat customers well.

Companies who put customers first, versus those who sacrificed customer satisfaction for short-term relief, actually performed best according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Third Annual Customer Service Champs list. Companies like Hertz, who had to cut back on services at some locations, angering travelers who already faced more aggravation in airports and more fees when flying, scrambled to find the right balance between making personnel cuts, and making sure those cuts weren’t so visible to customers that lack of service drove them away. Other companies like USAA found that cross-training call center reps, so that they had expertise in more than one area, helped them to keep their customer service level high, even when they had to cut back.

Although gaining new customers is important, companies have found that retaining already loyal customers is crucial. Zappos used to quietly upgrade both new and return customers with overnight shipping, but decided to shift those costs toward benefits for repeat customers. Dell has struggled with customer service woes for the last decade, and is still working to regain trust.

The Great Depression spawned a generation of savers. This recession is also affecting the buying habits of the next generation. Mindful consumerism may very well be here to stay.

image: Stevendepolo, the cleveland kid, martino!

ColumnMichael Pollan discusses our unhealthy obsession with singling out foods for their individual properties instead of taking a more holistic approach.

What relation do we have to the food we eat?

As a society, we talk a lot about what we put in our bodies – Is it processed? Is it organic? Where did it come from? – but we talk far less about food and food habits as an integral part of culture. Often, we eat because we need to; because we need sustenance. When we view food as a commodity instead of a cultural good, we head down an unhealthy path.

This weekend Michael Pollan, known for his best selling books like In Defense of Food, came to town for a lecture. Over the past few years he has become one of the figureheads of the food movement, and I certainly wasn’t going to miss out on seeing him speak in person.

I grew up in a Pollan-esque household. Although my mother never put a name to her culinary policy, looking back it very much aligned with Pollan’s branded recommendation: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” And yet even with a whole grain, leafy green background, Pollan has changed how I think about food.

For months after I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I was acutely aware of what I put in my basket at the grocery store. Where had that asparagus been shipped from? Did I really need mangoes that had traversed a continent? Even worse, I took it out on my parents. Home one weekend, I raised my eyebrows and said to my father, “Do you know how much corn is in this salami that you’re eating?” I started referring to high fructose corn syrup as an acronym. I was verging on obnoxious, but that book got me thinking.

Pollan doesn’t take himself too seriously, poking fun at not only his audience (“Are you all sure you’re in the right place? This is the lecture on food, after all…”), but at himself and the food industry. To kick off the keynote speech of University of Portland’s Food for Thought conference, Pollan laid out two grocery bags from a store run he had made earlier to Fred Meyer. It was an assortment of mostly processed, packaged foods, boasting a plethora of goodness in the form of antioxidants, low fat and Omega-3′s. Yet the items were things like fruit pizzas by Eggo and chocolate Cheerios.

He reminded the packed auditorium that while we Portlanders may be blessed with farmers markets and organic produce that comes from our rich and agriculturally diverse Willamette Valley, most of our population is stocking their shelves with these products.

But Pollan’s message wasn’t to point out our obsession with bad food. It was to point out our obsession with attempting to make bad food sound healthy. Our path has ventured far away from a holistic approach to one based on looking at food as simply a collection of nutrients and vitamins. We’re seduced by packaging instead of sticking to foods that we know are inherently good for us – the foods that don’t need a branded, flashy box boasting the amount of vitamins and minerals are contained within.

“Before we had food science, we had food culture,” Pollan said. In the time that we’ve managed to identify phytonutrients and beneficial elements like Omega-3′s, we’ve gone from taking a holistic approach to food and singled out the parts we think are going to do us well, something Pollan refers to as “nutritionism.”

Maybe it’s because of time constraints, maybe it’s because we want an easy fix, but somewhere along the line of veering away from the multi-course dinner with friends and instead choosing a smoothie with antioxidant boosters in the car, we became very unhealthy. The truth is that it’s not just what we eat, it’s how we eat it. Or how we don’t eat it.

In focusing on the individual components of food products, we have forgotten to take a look at the bigger picture. The French Paradox, for example, is really no paradox at all, it’s simply a culture with a food tradition. Mealtimes are honored and you’ll never find a Frenchman snacking on a low-fat, sugar-free granola bar between meals.

Which is why it’s inspiring to see local movements focused just as much on serving up organic, fresh meals as they are about building community; putting effort into the tradition and relationships that happen around the food. The annual Big Lunch in England is an example of just that, a grassroots project is aimed at getting the whole of the UK sitting down and having lunch with their neighbor.

If we’re going to talk about the food movement, we have to think about the bigger picture. We’re in the midst of a health crisis, with chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease skyrocketing. Opting for the green tea-infused ginger ale instead of Coca Cola isn’t helping. It’s time to start thinking about our relationship to food and stop being concerned with individual food properties.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. With other people. In a way that respects and honors the food in front of you.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, finding what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Images: Anna Brones, Elizabeth/Table4Five

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

These words, well known to most Australians, were penned over a century ago by poet Dorothea Mackellar at age 19. These days there is a scientific explanation for Australia’s infamous “droughts and flooding rains”.

It’s called the El Niño-La Niña effect – a weather phenomenon that affects other Pacific rim countries as well. El Niño brings the dry, hot weather and La Niña brings the rain – and plenty of it. It’s nothing new though scientists warn that climate change is likely to bring more extremes, making heat and droughts and floods more prevalent and more severe.

In December I moved back to Australia after nearly seven years living abroad, first in London and then San Francisco. For the past few weeks I’ve been glued to the 24-hour news channel watching the Queensland flood crisis unfold, and then further flooding in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. While I’m safe and dry in Sydney, like many Australians, I have family and friends in Queensland. Thankfully they are all fine but thousands of others were not as lucky. We are use to “flooding rains” every so often, but the flood crisis in Queensland has been truly epic.

Three-quarters of Queensland has been declared a flood disaster zone. That is no small area – Queensland has a land mass twice the size of Texas or five times the size of the United Kingdom. Throughout the state, entire townships have been wiped out as rivers burst their banks or torrential downpours brought flash floods. In the south-eastern corner, the central business district and many suburbs of Brisbane – home to two million people – were submerged last week in the city’s worst flood since the 1970s.

Queensland grows a lot of Australia’s food but much of the produce was washed away where it lay in the fields, or sat rotting on stranded trucks. The cleanup, described by Queensland Premier Anna Bligh as of “post-war proportions”, will cost billions and economists are saying the destruction of farms and mines and tourist facilities could wipe one full percentage point off the national GDP.

The environmental cost is also huge. Large numbers of wild animals lost their lives in the floods. The floods carried away precious top soil and mixed it up with human debris and toxic chemicals, which has been dumped into waterways flowing to the southern states or out to sea. Much of it has blanketed the delicate eco-system of Great Barrier Reef, threatening the health of the coral reefs and other marine life. To prevent future floods, the state government is considering building more levees and dams to protect townships in flood zones.

Yet as bad as it’s been, I’ve never felt more proud to be an Australian. The human response has been fantastic. As I watched footage of people huddling on the roofs of their houses or clustered in evacuation centers, I recalled scenes from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Queensland floods were collectively bigger but in contrast to the New Orleans experience, government has played its part perfectly.

The response of the emergency services was highly effective and citizens were kept informed with clear, up-to-date information. Bligh, the state premier, gave televised press conferences every two hours for days and was on top of her game. She didn’t give the fine-sounding motherhood statements so beloved by politicians, instead delivering hard details about what had happened, what was happening and what was likely to happen. She did so without notes and usually without referring questions to the State Emergency Service or the police because she knew what was going on. The federal government also stepped in early, contributing Australian defense personnel to the crisis management and clean-up effort, and Prime Minister Julia Gillard announcing emergency welfare payments to people and businesses affected by the floods.

What impressed me most was the community spirit. We didn’t see scenes of looting but instead footage of people helping one another. Strangers came together to help move property to higher ground before it was claimed by flood waters. They turned out in their hundreds to stack sandbags in front of homes and shops in an effort to stave off the floodwaters. Our former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, himself a Brisbane-ite, mucked in just like everyone else, wading through muddy flood waters with residents’ suitcases on his head.

It’s not all rosy, of course. The determination to rebuild towns on flood plains is misguided. We’re still clearing forest and mangroves. And the long history of flooding means that no one wants to look seriously about what climate scientists are telling us about our future. There were howls of outrage when Greens leader Bob Brown sensibly suggested some of the taxes on the super-profits of the mining industry be diverted to a fund to deal with future natural disasters. Despite all this, I feel that the Australian spirit rose to the occasion beautifully.

The outpouring of concern and offers of help from around the world has been moving. But the fact is that Australia is a first-world country with a well-prepared emergency response system and enough wealth to help our citizens cope with their losses and rebuild essential infrastructure. As terrible as the floods have been, it’s impressive that our death toll stands at just 20 people. (Of course my heart goes out to the families of those 20 people but it could have been so much worse). There’s no false pride when we say we can look after our own.

It’s Brazil that needs your help right now.

Image: Kingbob86, NASA Goddard Photo and Video

For those of you interested in food culture, EATLACMA, is not to be missed. This multi-faceted investigation of food, art, culture and politics presented by Fallen Fruit has been on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) all year with projects revolving around food as a common ground. These projects have manifested themselves as artists’ gardens planted and harvested on the museum campus, hands-on public events, and a concurrent exhibition, Fallen Fruit Presents The Fruit of LACMA.

The Fallen Fruit exhibition culminates November 7 in “Let Them Eat LACMA“ at the museum. This all day affair promises to be exciting with such novel experiences as a tomato fight, a watermelon eating contest, chewing carolers and digestion/belly-listening sessions, to name a few.

One project on view is the Food Pyramid by Didier Hess. This installation considers the diet suggestion of Big Food and the resultant mode of food production dominant in the late twentieth century. The structure is a compact model of an operational, low-impact food garden, operating with a solar-powered pump and recycling water from the top of the pyramid. The Food Pyramid naturally balances its ecology with native bog plants, vegetables, rocks and gravel. The waste generated from the tilapia in the pond nourish the tomatoes, onions, lettuce and cilantro growing in surrounding plant containers. At the final day of events on November 7, the Food Pyramid will be consumed in the form of fish tacos harvested from this amazing, sustainable mini-garden.

Now that’s an art installation that’s not hard to swallow.

After taking a look last week at how many people see foodies as elitists, I figured it was time to take it down a notch, highlight the fact that the underground foodie movement is often less about culinary complexities and more about keeping things simple. Growing your own food, buying local, eating seasonally, dining at food carts; these are all more about taking time to slow down and enjoy the essence of food than they are about tracking down the latest trendy sushi bar.

Maybe that’s why the latest hot topic that caught my foodie underground eye (thanks to – how else? – Twitter) is not just sharing food at markets, but actually getting together to trade homemade goods, in this case, soup. They’re called soup swaps, and in an age where people are more and more concerned with not only eating well, but also building community, the idea of sharing food is appealing.

It’s not the first time soup swaps have crossed my path – in fact, halfway through reading this article I remembered that I too had once been to a soup swap. I had a failed attempt at making a vegan potato leek soup, but that didn’t stop me from taking off with a backpack full of quarts of chili, chowder and other goodness that my friends who had actually mastered soup recipes, managed to concoct. But I certainly had no idea that I was taking part in a growing trend.

Nowadays there’s SoupSwap.com, a comprehensive website for swapping newbies that guides you through the logistics of hosting your own soup swap, an event that consists of making and bringing six individually packaged quarts of soup, joining in the “Telling in the Soup,” otherwise known as your-near-death-cooking-disaster-the-last-time-you-tried-to-make-this-soup, and of course, swapping the soup so that you go home with a variety of new things to try out instead of sticking to your winter basics. Given that the colder months are upon us, you’d be hard pressed to find an easier way to broaden your weekly menu.

Ultimately, soup swaps aren’t really about the product being served. They’re about connecting with people over one of our most time treasured traditions that brings people of all kinds together: eating. They offer the opportunity to put some time and love into a meal, share it with others, and spend a moment on focusing on real, human relations, something far from most of our everyday, busy, computer-driven lives. And what’s simpler than that?

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Image: Magic Madzik

Looking to connect and shape your community? Wondering how to create new social systems? Searching for like-minded, environmentally concerned citizens?

Look no further. I’ve found the place you’re looking for: The Hub.

The Hub is an international organization with a new platform for innovation and exchange. They aim to combine social and environmental concerns with economic viability. For the Hub, a thriving system produces thriving individuals. They seek exposure, connection and collaboration amongst their community members to create new value systems with an entrepreneurial spirit.

The platform provides ample opportunities for networking through physical spaces, events, workshops and an online community. The physical environment includes offices, communal workspaces, meeting rooms, and project spaces located in numerous cities across the globe. They also offer an online database for connecting individuals and organizations with a focus on social and environmental change.

I spent an afternoon working in their San Francisco communal office space, and the place was exactly that – a hub, humming with activity and innovative energy.

Expanding its efforts to promote idea exchange The Hub Bay Area leads by example, teaming up with non-profit and for-profits alike, including Intersection for the Arts, Tech Shop, and Forest City.

Looking for inspiration? Head to the Hub, pronto.

When a bike wheel builder friend of mine asked if I would like to attend an anniversary party for a local bike-related business, of course I said yes. In Portland, it’s never a good idea to turn down the opportunity to hang out with bike lovers and enjoy a few free drinks and hors d’oeuvres in the process.

But this was no regular bike throwdown; this was a full-on celebration of a commitment to better, more sustainable urban living. It was B-line’s one-year anniversary, and the people that came out to support this pedal powered delivery service were abuzz with positive energy.

B-line launched last year with the goal of partnering with businesses to take care of their urban delivery needs and, in turn, reduce the need for conventional trucks and vans. In the last 12 months, the company has certainly succeeded, pedaling over 6,000 miles to complete 3,000 deliveries. The results are pretty astonishing.

They’ve been able to reduce CO2 emissions by 11,000 pounds and they’ve helped delivered just about 191,000 pounds of organic produce; that’s on top of all the bread, coffee, tea and other things they pedal around town. As I listened to B-Line Founder and CEO Franklin Jones rattle off these statistics, I was impressed, not only because a pedal powered business is making it, but because they are making real change and influencing others to do the same.

It’s a common tendency to encourage people to “bike more, drive less,” but in cities without the necessary infrastructure to do so, making that choice is difficult. Granted, Portland is a city already known for its biking prowess, but with a company like B-line as a big local business player, the impetus for having better bike policies in grows even stronger. Case and point: Portland’s Mayor was invited to speak at this party.

Fewer trucks and vans on the road mean better streets for bikers and pedestrians, as well as less pollution. An increasing number of local businesses committed to using bike delivery shows their full-fledged support of cycling culture. That, in turn, equals less CO2 emissions and happier, healthier lifestyles, which benefits everyone in the urban community.

My lovely, celebrity-style dressing room is a spare bedroom I stole in the house, a spare that once housed a maple crib, green nursing glider and armoire of precious, spit-up stained Baby Gap dresses on mini-hangers.

Today, it’s my own little retail Mecca (organic, of course). But I do allow my daughters to visit and check out the blouses and shoe rack, and yes, even borrow on occasion. That sort of thing was taboo when I was growing up. Moms were moms.  Friends were the ones loaning stuff.

My own stylish mother (here with me and Grandma Zelda) towered over me at 5-foot-9 (not counting the beehive do) and always wore at least a size 14. She wasn’t a Laker like Julia Child and her sister, Dorothy, but when she got married, she wore flats so not to surpass 6-foot dad.

I hung out in Mom’s cavernous walk-in closet while she was away at luncheons. But no way could I actually borrow one of those gowns since they hung on me like a puddled curtain. I also was drawn to her off-limits, pointy, size-10 pumps, dyed to match her Jacky suits.

I was the fourth child and the runt of the litter – considerably shorter and smaller than the rest. (My theory is mother smoked a few more cigs and sipped a few more martinis when she was preggers with me.) But to be fair, I’m also considering the DNA link to my small, Polish ancestors.

Cut to my gorgeous teenage daughter with a great sense of style, who caught up with me in stature a few years back. I provide her with her own little Nordstrom Rack down the hall. I take full credit for cultivating her sense of entitlement since I have been most gracious about loaning her items, and have only kvetched a few times when they weren’t returned on time. She is very responsible and that counts.

Combined, Syd and I have a substantial inventory. I’m proud to say a chunk of it is the ski apparel we share for our annual Mommy-Sydney ski weekends in Lake Tahoe.

I was glad to squeeze into a pair of my daughter’s skinny jeans for my birthday outing with friends in August, and only felt a pinch after the second drink. You dirty martini, you!

How does the sharing work? Sometimes we fall for the same cardigan and it can make more sense during hard times to buy one to share and take turns – you know, like college co-eds on a strict budget. Call it the The Daughterhood of the Traveling Pants.

I also prefer to loan rather than buy her a dress for the countless B’Nei Mitzvah parties and other events she seems to attend. If she wears something of mine, it feels like new to her, even though I’ve worn it a dozen times.

This whole lending thing is why those smart couture rental shops, like Boutiqueville in Chicago, do so well. Why own something costly when you can rent for the occasion? When the high is over you send it back. Thank you, it was a great date, but onto other matches.

I should point out it isn’t just us girls sharing the wealth. My daughter also gets warm and fuzzy about wearing her dad’s old sweaters. I seriously think it brings her closer to him in a very sweet way.

Guess teens have been burrowing in oversize wool since Ann-Margret sang “How Lovely to be a Woman” in Bye Bye Birdie. He doesn’t mind her using the old sweaters, or at least, has never complained.

I got to wondering if other kids and parents are comfortable with community closeting or if most families are fiercely territorial about their closets. It certainly requires trust and respect, and the right kind of green deodorant.

I did a bit of research online and found little has been written on the subject. Hurray for me!

But I did stumble upon an interesting post on How to Share Clothes with a Cross-Dressing Husband.

Okay, the ground rules killed me: Killed me! They included keeping his paws out of your underwear drawer, making him replace anything stretched, torn or stained, and drawing the line when it comes to your most precious blouses or skirts (i.e. the ones with price tags still attached). The helpful primer also suggested shopping together to make sure you have the same taste. Oy!

None of this would work in my marriage. My husband is a large man who prefers high-wasted, baggy slacks to hip jeans. If he were a cross-dresser, he’d still be swishing around in those Dean Martin pants.

I do like some of his Oxford shirts and could see slipping into one after a post-sex shower and cocktail in bed, but since we don’t schedule those kind of Hollywood encounters (we don’t eat Chinese out of the box either), it’s all just another fantasy, like wearing my mother’s Yves Saint Laurent caftans.

I do have friends who are married to dainty men with little feet and excellent taste, and I could see trading with one of those fellows, swapping Indian tunics and Moroccan slides for a tux and velvet slippers when those Victor-Victoria mood strikes.

Of course, the well-dressed gay husband is top drawer when it comes to swapping, assuming he would cooperate. His rules might be too stringent for even me. I sort my closet by color but not by texture and season and don’t iron a thing. Crisp is not in my vocabulary.

No, I think I’ll stick with sharing with the girls, my wonderful girls, grabbing a wrap for Lauren when leaving for a party, pulling a dress for Sydney for a Bat Mitzvah. Selecting a hand bag that works. Maybe a trinket or earrings to tie it all together.

Does sharing benefit my daughters more than me? Well, naturally. It goes with the territory when you’re a consummate stylist and mother – who still misses dressing her dolls.

This is the sixth installment in Luanne’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Main Image: In Style

Image One: Luanne Bradley

The collapse of the economy has had a curious effect on our culture. Shuttered chain stores and denuded neighborhoods have made us realize how unstable and unsustainable a society predicated on constant growth and fueled by the twin demon drugs of easy credit and cheap consumer goods can be. When the Circuit Cities go away and the lesser Starbucks close, we realize we didn’t really need them anyway.

All over the country, people are reconnecting with their communities, saving money, working cooperatively, bartering and living a less consumption-dominated life. People are realizing the joy of self-sufficiency and the beauty of taking care of one another instead of just ourselves. There are so many payoffs to living this way. It’s cheaper, it’s more meaningful and it’s easier on the planet.

The evidence of this movement is everywhere:

There’s the Slow Money Movement, which promotes an economy based on preservation and restoration rather than extraction and consumption.

Community gardens are on the rise. A National Gardening Association study indicates about one million American households have community garden plots and an additional five million say they would like to acquire one. The rise in community gardens has sparked a move by US Representative Jay Inslee of Washington State to propose a community garden grant proposal from the USDA. August has just been named Community Gardening Awareness Month. There are free farmstands, foraging movements and community canning projects springing up all over the country.

And this movement isn’t just about food. There’s the Buy Handmade Pledge, Really Really Free Exchanges, online bartering groups, DIY Bike Kitchens in San Francisco, Bozeman, Sacramento and LA, community acupuncture networks all over the country and even events that simply aim to take back public space such as Park(ing) Days and San Francisco’s Sunday Streets program.

At the same time, corporations are doing their market research and finding out what people care about right now, and they’re trying to get in on the action.

According to a Hartman Group Survey from 2008, 52% of consumers polled said it was important for them to buy local goods whenever possible. The report also found that the desire for “local” products wasn’t just about freshness but also about a return to simplicity, handcrafted production and the ability to match a product with a place or face.

Another survey shows an alarming lack of trust in corporations. A survey this year by IBM found that fewer than 20% of adult grocery shoppers indicate that they trust food companies to develop and sell food products that are safe and healthy. It’s no wonder people are starting to take matters into their own hands.

I suppose you can’t blame the corporations for trying to muscle in on the action. They wouldn’t be very successful companies if they didn’t. But a look at some of the latest marketing campaigns leaves me scratching my head. Corporate efforts at co-opting this movement are often clumsy at best. I wonder if they’re as off-putting to others as they are to me.

1.  My “favorite” recent action was by Starbucks.

After putting its less well-capitalized and often more quirkily authentic brethren out of business, sucking the soul out of the neighborhood coffee house, and commoditizing coffee to the point where consumers couldn’t see the difference between a $4.00 latte at Starbucks and a $2.00 latte from McDonalds, Starbucks was hurting. The company’s latest strategy involves “Unbranding” a few select stores by taking away the Starbuck’s look and logo and instead naming the stores after the neighborhoods that surround them. They are also sending spotters into independently owned shops and copying the look and feel, as well as sourcing the décor items locally. If it works, they’ll roll it out all over the country. Oh Goody. This one makes me want to choke on my home-brewed, fair trade, organic blend.

2. Another good one that got a lot more media attention was Lay’s Chips local campaign.

According to the company website, the campaign is meant to put a spotlight on potato farmers from California, Florida, Maine, Michigan and Texas that grow potatoes used in Lay’s Potato Chips. The theme line is “Happiness is Simple,” designed to “uniquely celebrate the brand, its place in Americana and role in bringing people together for life’s simple pleasures.” The campaign highlighted the simplicity of Lay’s Classic Potato Chips in a day and age where consumers are looking to keep things less complex. I don’t know if this would fly if the campaign showed the complicated machinery that harvests, transports, processes, packages and distributes the potatoes that makes those chips. I’ve got a simple idea: buy some potatoes from your local farmers’ market and roast them in olive oil at 400 degrees until brown and crisp. Save a few, cut them, dry them and stick them in the ground. Mound the dirt up around them. A few months later, you can dig up your own potatoes. I can tell you from experience that this works.

3. Then there’s the Eat Real, Eat Local campaign Hellman’s mayonnaise rolled out in Canada.

The campaign touts the fact that the eggs and canola oil used in the mayonnaise come from Canada. That’s all well and good, but it’s a processed food made from commodity crops, in factories, in a very very large country called Canada by a multinational company that also owns Lipton, Knorr, and personal care products Dove, Lux, and let’s not forget everyone’s favorite petroleum-based moisturizer, Vaseline. Come on.

4. Barnes & Noble has put together a video blog featuring “local booksellers” from all over the country.

Barnes and Noble Booksellers. Because as the site says, “All Bookselling is Local.” Really? I don’t think so. I’m all for promoting reading, but it would be nice if communities had the choice to shop at bookstores owned by people who live in their communities, spend money in their communities, feature local authors from that community and stock books of local interest. Now that’s local bookselling.

5. Whole Foods, Interloper?

Whole Foods has long touted its sales of local produce and the chain does do more than most of its competitors to support local farms. But it does something else that I find too slick by half. When it opens a new store in a new community, the store designers add touches of local color through themed displays, historical photos of the town or area, and murals.  Though it’s nice if they do hire local artists to create materials and I’m sure they sometimes do, and it no doubt makes for a pleasant shopping experience for the locals, to me it feels like a disingenuous way of establishing itself as part of the community and as an entity that has a history in the town, when it really isn’t and doesn’t.

6. Shop the local…box store.

Speaking of national chains masquerading as local stores, here’s a great article that details how shopping centers all over the country are rolling out “shop local” campaigns even though the stores in the shopping center are anything but local. Think Lowe’s, Wal-Mart, Target and other big boxes.

7. Localwashing

While we’re on the subject of Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart and other chains are increasingly highlighting locally-grown produce with big, hit-you-over-the head signage. But as this article details, much of the produce the signs highlight is anything but local, prompting a new word to be coined this spring: local washing.

All of these examples, like the fashion industry’s co-option of hip hop style, and the record companies’ mass marketing and replication of any fresh voice that comes along, are just part of living in a capitalist society. It can feel crushing sometimes. Looked at positively, it keeps us nimble, creative and active, in an effort to stay one step ahead of the marketers. Because once people get a taste of what it’s like to have something conceived of, built and shared among individuals – once we start to feel like humans, not just consumers – there’s no going back. It’s what keeps us innovative and what may ultimately save us.

Images: Ben Cumming, ginnerobot, grilled cheese, That Other Paper, elliottcable, fab4chiky

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.