ColumnFor the love of local food.

There was a time when local food wasn’t fancy or special food, it was just food. People didn’t intentionally seek out food that came from nearby, it was simply all that they had.

But then came a globalized world with an abundance of choice, and dinners were no longer restricted to what came from the farm down the road. Our diets diversified and we had many more ingredients to experiment with. While this certainly made dinner more fun, it pushed the small, local farmer out and brought the large, industrial producer from across the country, or even the world, in. Because of our quest to expand what we had available to eat, we lost something in the process. We lost our relationship to local food, and instead of local food being a given, it became something that we had to intentionally seek out. We had to work harder to get something that was grown from down the road.

If you find it odd that apples from New Zealand can be cheaper than apples grown a few miles away, you are not alone.

I was thinking about this recently as I perused the wonderful space at Ploughboy, a market devoted to local foods in the small town of Salida, Colorado. Here, everything comes from nearby. Even the homemade granola and kombucha.

The entrance is inviting, signs boasting hand cut pasta and local grass-fed beef. Inside you’ll find locally made goat cheese and freshly baked spelt bread. If you wanted to transition to 100 percent locavore, this would be the place to start.

As I stood facing the market, behind me sat a Safeway, the parking lot a huge expanse of asphalt filled with four-wheeled monstrosities. In front of Ploughboy was a bike rack. If utopia could be found in a grocery store, this was certainly it. A place for the community to come and congregate, grab a deli item for lunch, and stock up on eggs from the nearby farm.

“I’m getting a restock of eggs from our three different farms tomorrow morning,” I overheard one of the Ploughboy staff tell a customer, listing off the names of the farms that the eggs would be coming from. I smiled.

There are certainly some foods that we have grown accustomed to that won’t be brought to us from local fields, but in a world where we’re trying to find ways to live more sustainably and more consciously, wouldn’t it be nice if our local food markets were just our regular food markets?

“But what about the people that can’t afford to eat like this?” you’ll say. You can blame that on agribusiness and an industry of food companies that have made food products cheaper than actual food, poisoning us in the process.

It’s not the slightly more expensive head of broccoli you should balk at. It’s the packaged potato chips made with partially hydrogenated oil. Sure the price tag may be less expensive in the food aisle, but that price tag isn’t taking into consideration more than $190 billion the U.S. spends on obesity-related healthcare costs every year.

For those of us who have the luxury to choose local, we have an obligation to, because it’s consumer demand and consumer demand alone that will change the system. Food products are created because there’s a market for them. Take that market away, and there’s nowhere for those food companies to sell to. Choose to eat better, not just because it’s better for you, but because it’s better for your community.

Do you dream of a world where the local food market is just the regular market? Then do everything in your power to get your food from close by. And maybe one day, more stores will feel a little more like Ploughboy.

Related on EcoSalon

Fast Food, Fast Fashion… It’s All About Choice: Foodie Underground

Why the Food World Could Do With a Little Restriction: Foodie Underground

It’s Time We Put Up a Food Fight: Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

The post What if All Markets Were Local Food Markets? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude show how hard it is to drape a river in fabric. 

Known for their controversial outdoor art installations, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were an artistic power duo. The husband-wife team made massive, site-specific installations like “The Gates” in Central Park, “Wrapped Coast” in Australia and “The Umbrellas” in Japan.

Jeanne-Claude passed away in 2009, but Christo has continued to work, currently involved in two ongoing projects. If he can manage to get through the legal obstacles, he will drape the Arkansas River in Colorado with fabric. His second project, which would be his first permanent installation, is called “The Mastaba,” a proposed structure in the United Arab Emirates made of 410,000 oil drums.

But it’s not easy to drape a river in fabric, and not just because of the logistics. Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Over the River project in Colorado is so controversial that a federal lawsuit has been brought against the Bureau of Land Management’s approval of it. The project would cover almost 6 miles of the river. As ROAR, the organization behind the lawsuit, explains, “the proposed Art Project will be constructed almost entirely within a critically sensitive area designated by the federal government as the Arkansas Canyonlands Area of Critical Environmental Concern.”

This isn’t the first time that Christo’s work has been criticized. In fact, the Christo and Jeanne-Claude website has an entire section that is intended as a response to critique from environmentalists, reminding naysayers that, “Christo and Jeanne-Claude are the cleanest artists in the world, all is removed, their large scale works of art are temporary.”

But while temporary, and potentially classified as “environmental art,” the projects are costly, both in terms of money and time. In an interview with the New York Times,  Christo outlined what he has gone through for “Over the River.”

All of our pieces are meant to be interacted with. For example, one of the reasons we chose the Arkansas River for “Over the River” is because it’s very accessible. So, before we even began, we had to go present to the chamber of commerce in the towns of Salida and Cañon City. They gathered citizens, and we presented the project and our past work. Almost all the land along the river for the project is owned by the Bureau of Land Management. We prepared a 2,000-page application and report, which ended up costing over a million dollars. The federal government looks at that study and says, “Okay, now we’re going to hire a group of engineers to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement and you will pay for that study.” So that study ended up costing $2.5 million dollars. Then we were summoned to present in an auditorium in Washington, to give a lecture to 700 employees of the B.L.M., so that their experts could ask questions about the project.

The ultimate cost of such an endeavor?

For the “Over the River” project, I still can’t tell you when it will be installed. But I can tell you we’ve already spent $14 million on it. We are probably the only artists in the world who have a 2,000-page book on a work of art that doesn’t exist.

Christo is no newbie when it comes to opposition. In fact, it seems that most of his and Jeanne-Claude’s projects were not without controversy. According to the Denver Post, “He and Jeanne Claude spent 26 years fighting to erect 7,503 fabric gates in New York City’s Central Park in 2005. They negotiated for 32 years before wrapping 178 trees in a Swiss park in 1998.”

But the opposition in Colorado has been intense. “I’m not a masochist! I did not choose to have the process be so complicated. And sometimes it’s very nasty. In Colorado, we needed to have the sheriff at the meetings because people would come with guns,” Christo told “The New York Times.” That’s not to say that all of Colorado is against him; the project has been just as unifying as it has been divisive. 

Will the river be draped in fabric? Ultimately, only time will tell whether Christo or his opposition will win.

Related on EcoSalon

Environment as Art: 15 Beautiful Pictures of Nature

20 Unforgettable Works of Environmental Art

20 Conscious Artists Who Go Beyond the Canvas

Image: cisc1970

The post Controversial Art: Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s ‘Over the River’ Project appeared first on EcoSalon.

Boulder-based Zeal Optics offers the world’s first and only plant-based lens for superior clarity and minimal environmental impact.

We tend to think of sunglasses as a fashion accessory, something to be coordinated with outfits, but they’re actually quite important for maintaining healthy eyes. Long hours of unprotected exposure increases eye stress (and squinting), which can lead to headaches. A lifetime of unprotected exposure to the sun’s harsh rays can even contribute to cataracts and growths on the eye, including cancer.

In the past, my clumsiness has prevented me from investing in high-quality sunglasses. What’s the use if I’m just going to forget, sit on, or scratch them within the first 3 days of ownership? A recent chance to test drive some fancy shades from Colorado’s own Zeal Optics changed my mind, however.

Located in Boulder, this boutique eyewear company recently debuted the world’s first and only plant-based, bioplastic lens, called e-llume. Combined with their with Z-resin frames, made from a castor oil-based material, Zeal hopes to lead the way towards completely removing crude oil from sunglass production.

To see how well all that fancy technology compared to my $60 conventional sunglasses, Zeal sent over two of their most popular styles: the Kennedy and the Felicity. After a few weeks of swapping back and forth between them and my usual pair, here are my thoughts:

The Kennedy – This is one of Zeal Optics’ many unisex styles, and the pair I tested came in Reflection Blue/Dark Grey (see above). The fit was a little wide, but not so loose that I felt they were in danger of falling off. I found the lens size and shape to be a little smaller than what I was used to, and upon trying them on, my boyfriend agreed. He also noted that the bright blue of the frame was a little distracting when seen out of the corner of the eye, but I found it kind of fun to get that flash of occasional color! The e-llume bioplastic lenses of the Kennedy style were a dark grey color that I absolutely loved. They also featured Hyperion polarization, a feature that protects your eyes from UVA, B, and C while also blocking a negative light range called High Energy Visible (HEV) light. According to Zeal Optics, it’s HEV that’s been cited as a possible cause of cataracts and macular degeneration.

The Felicity – This is one of Zeal Optics’ many women’s styles, and the pair I tested came in Demi Tortoise/Copper (above); they came in a medium fit that was perfect for my head and face. I loved the tight, hidden action of the frame hinges, something that’s normally missing from my (gas-station!) sunglasses. The e-llume lenses of the Felicity style were a copper color, something I didn’t like as well as the dark grey lenses of the Kennedys. Still, they too offered Hyperion polarization, which rendered a crystal clear perception of the world and almost no color distortion.

A favorite feature of both pairs of Zeal Optics glasses was the hypoallergenic ProFlex Rubber placed on the nosepad and stem areas. My previous sunglasses were always sliding down my face when I exercised outdoors. I wore the Zeal Optics glasses while running, on a long road trip, and at a 4th of July concert, and the rubber pads kept them in place–not a single sweaty slip!

Zeal Optics are available from $79, and can be found in their Boulder retail store, online, and at authorized dealers around the world.

Images: Zeal Optics
Main Image Photo Credit: susy ♥

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Life on two wheels. 

Who says you can’t pair a Surly with heels? Even in small town Colorado you have to spice up your ride.

On the Move documents our life on two wheels. Have your own On the Move worthy photo? Send it our way! Email pictures tocontact@ecosalon.com.

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ColumnWhat fuels our desire to combine food and business.

It was only a matter of time before a small-town Airstream food truck opportunity that involved tacos crossed my path. No, really.

Over a sunny, Saturday morning coffee in Salida, Colorado this weekend, the conversation was going a little something like this:

“We need someone to get the Airstream taco truck going. We already have the Airstream and the space. You ladies in?” Annie, a go-getter, mountain biking bad ass asked us hopefully, in the kind of voice that you know someone is trying to insist on something really hard.

My friend Megan and I looked at each other. We both have jobs, and love our urban friends and living spaces, but I could see the wheels turning in her head thinking about all it would take to make this a possibility. How often are you propositioned with opening a food venture in a small town that several of your friends live in? Not every day.

Let me back up a little.

Food is a constant theme between a close group of friends of mine. New Years was devoted to the overconsumption of tacos in Baja, Mexico, the following winter months sharing recipes and the warmer spring days catching up over outdoor weekend brunches.

We’re spread out, two of us in Portland and others in Colorado. The geographic distance between us has lead to plenty of emails, group texts (often with food photos) and Skype chats, the former being exactly how I first found out about the Airstream.

“I have an idea to run by you,” my friend Beda kicked off one weekend call.

“Yes…” I responded, knowing fully well that anytime Beda has an idea it’s going to be a good one.

“So we’re thinking of starting a taco truck in Salida, because there’s no good place to get a burrito! And it would be in an Airstream,” she continued.

At this point we launched into the logistics of running a food establishment – logistics that neither of us have any experience in – and whether or not it was possible.

“And then you could move down here and run it!” she said.

I laughed and we left things at that.

Flash forward to five months later when myself and my fellow Portland foodie urbanite – yes, we eat sea salt with everything – Megan were drinking coffee with the Salida crew that we had come to visit.

“So, that food truck… we need someone to run it. We already have the wine tasting room and the distillery on board, and the space is right next to the new bike shop. You could serve locally roasted coffee, and breakfast burritos to all the skiers in the winter. You ladies want to move down here and take on the project?” Annie was all over this.

Wine, bikes and tacos? My heart skipped a beat.

These are all things that have become ubiquitous with urban food hot spots, you can barely walk five blocks in Portland, San Francisco or Brooklyn without coming across an off-the-cuff food operation, be it a food truck, a waffle window or a refurbished storage container that sells local food. But rural Colorado where there’s a good mix of mountain bikers, cowboys, river guides and four wheel truck drivers, is something different. On the other hand, isn’t this where free range local beef and real artisan goat cheese is just down the road? Good food abounds even if it’s not drizzled in truffle oil (although if you’re ever in Salida, be sure to try the truffle oil fries at The Fritz).

Can’t you envision an Airstream parked here serving up homemade tacos and burritos?

What is it about a food venture that is so appealing?

“You should open a restaurant!” is a common phrase heard at dinner parties when someone cooks a delicious meal, and who hasn’t had romantic visions of starting a brewery where you can serve local food and craft beer? Grab coffee at a quaint cafe with art on the walls and local bands playing at night while you’re on vacation and you’ll soon find yourself thinking, “we should have something like that here,” as soon as you return home.

Food is primal, and providing our communities with a chance to enjoy it is appealing. Seductive even.

There is of course the reality, and at the back of my mind I always hear my mother saying, “you don’t want to run a restaurant, you need balance.” Mothers like to give that kind of advice, especially if they know you well. There is no denying that a job in the food industry is a stressful and time consuming one. But it’s also rewarding.

Making food is making sustenance, and turning it into an art in the process. It’s about providing people with a place to eat, but also a place to appreciate good food and the community around them, all things that even those of us sitting around drinking coffee and discussing the potential business venture, without any restaurant or food truck management experience under our belts, are passionate about.

I am by no means trying to over-romanticize the everyday logistics that go into such a project, or even say that I would be willing to commit to it.

Run a restaurant and you need to put food on the table. Every. Single. Day. Or at least every single day you commit to being open. You also have to do fun jobs like inventory, permitting and clean-up. But at the end of the day, you’re still running a business that’s all about food. Shouldn’t everything we do in life be a labor of love? And what requires more love than good food?

We may not all launch a restaurant, but plenty of people out there are passionate about what they eat and drink and pursuing successful business ventures, from baking to support nonprofits, to hosting local farm-to-table tours, to roasting specialty coffee and delivering it on a bike. There is a reward in giving back to a community that you can’t put a dollar value to, and what better way to do so than through food and drink?

It might be a stretch to say “change the world one food truck at a time” but if in doing so we are creating a better conversation around food, what’s to say that this isn’t the tipping point? We all need to eat, and if we can have affordable and equitable access to a healthy product, the faster we can influence a path to positive change in the realm of food politics.

Airstream taco truck in Salida, Colorado? Who knows. But the seed has been planted, and at the very least, it’s fun to dream.

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.

Images: Anna Brones

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Fashion writer Johanna Björk continues her drive from New York City to Ojai, California, eating good food the entire way.

During the first part of my six day roadtrip across America, I made it through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and about half of Nebraska, all without eating any junk food — which is harder than it sounds when you’re on the road. Over the course of the three days that lay ahead, the plan was to make it all the way to California, a mere 1,626 miles.

Day Four – Nebraska, Colorado
We woke up on the late side, which was probably due to several glasses of good wine we had at The Drover in Omaha the night before. The plan was to make it to Denver where we had friends to stay with. After a while of driving we saw a roadside sign advertising a “Museum of the Prairie Pioneer” and just had to go check it out. The Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer turned out to be a living history museum with a mix of indoor exhibits and outdoor built environments.

The Stuhr Building, designed by Edward Durell Stone

Yes, indeed, I am

The main building, designed by renowned architect Edward Durell Stone, is surprisingly modern. There, you will find exhibits featuring everything from old farm equipment to period-specific clothing. Across the way, the Gus Fonner Memorial Rotunda houses beautiful collections of Native American and Old West memorabilia reflecting the contrasting cultures of the Plains Indians and the early western settlers. After this, we took a walk through Railroad Town, which is a replica of an old frontier town, complete with storefronts, wagons and trains. Since it was a weekday, none of the buildings were open, and the only other visitors to the museum at the time was a class of school children. It was actually quite nice to feel like we had the place to ourselves.

The Log Cabin Settlement

Hanging out by the teepee

The Log Cabin Settlement is an interpretation of the 1850s-60s “road ranches” that were built (using Cottonwood logs) along the pioneer trails and served travelers heading west. The Pawnee Earth Lodge is a 38-foot wide replica of an 1830s lodge that would have been home to about thirty to fifty people. The Pawnee were once the most influential and populous of the native peoples of Nebraska, and their towns ranged in size from forty to two hundred of these earth lodges. Before leaving, I just had to go lay down inside the teepee for a while to stretch before the long ride ahead.

The Pawnee Earth Lodge

Thirty to fifty people would have lived inside one of these Earth Lodges

After a minor WordPress incident (I accidentally deleted most of a post on my blog trying to fix a spelling error using the WordPress iPhone app), a desperate search for wifi took us to the Coffee Cottage. Located right off the highway, in the midst of gas stations, fast food drive-ins and chain motels, is an independently run coffee shop (with free wifi), where the owner herself will make your cup of ice coffee for the road. That’s what I call a happy accident.

The Coffee Cottage

Original Pony Express Station in Gothenburg, Nebraska

We stopped in Gothenburg, Nebraska to check out the original Pony Express station, a small log cabin that once was a stop along the Pony Express route that ran from Missouri to California. During the period of about eighteen months when the Pony Express was delivering mail, a total of 183 riders did the route. They had to be “young, skinny wiry fellows not over 18” and “expert riders willing to risk death daily.” Orphans were preferred and the wages were $25 per week. The average weight of a rider was 120 pounds, and most of them were around 20 years old, but the youngest of them was merely eleven and the oldest in his mid-40s.

The Sod House Museum

An authentic replica of the sod houses built by early settlers in the region

On our way back to the highway, we made one last stop, at the Sod House Museum — an authentic replica of the sod houses built by early settlers in the region. Apparently, the museum is also home to one of the world’s largest plows (we managed to miss that one, somehow). Had we not already had our coffee, we would have definitely visited Lasso Espresso next door.

Lasso Espresso

After being on the road again for a while I got my very first close look (and smell) at a CAFO, a sad sign that all is not always as picturesque as it seems. We arrived in Denver a little before 9 pm. The friend that we were supposed to stay with for the night had suddenly become sick and we found ourselves using the Kayak and Priceline apps, looking for hotels for the night.

Driving past a CAFO

Gorgeous skies on the approach to Denver

Apparently, bed bugs are sort of an issue in Denver, and after finding several of the hotels we were looking at on bedbugregistry.com we freaked out and decided that instead of risking waking up with itchy skin we should spend a bit more on a hotel without bed bugs. So, we used a great app called Hotel Tonight, which lets you find deals on nice hotels in major cities for that same night. We ended up at a Hilton Garden Inn, so much for no mainstream motels. Oh well, sometimes you have to make tradeoffs.

Day Five – Colorado, Utah
Before leaving Denver in the morning, we stopped in at a Whole Foods to stock up on healthy stuff to eat during the day. I had been craving a green juice since we left New York, but to my great dismay, this location did not have a juice bar and I had to settle for an organic tea.

Snow-capped mountains

After four days of driving through the plains, the snow-capped Rocky Mountains in the distance was quite an impressive sight, and driving up through them was amazing. We were finally entering the Wild West. Going through the winding roads and tunnels carved through the mountains makes you realize just how amazing it is that people managed to build all this.

A gold mine

Gorgeous lakes

Red cliffs

The outskirts of Vail

We passed an actual gold mine, red cliffs, lakes and small skiing towns. When stopping for a bathroom break we lucked out and found what has to be the most spectacular rest stop in Colorado. There were stairs that led down to a small beach, where the Colorado River rapidly flowed by. I wanted to put my toe in the water but decided that it was probably not the best idea. Instead, I sat on one of the rocks for a while, admiring the splendor of nature’s beauty.

Watching the Colorado River flow by at the most beautiful rest stop in Colorado

Mountain pass

As we drove further through Colorado, the formerly green and red landscape turned all different shades of beige as the trees disappeared. When we entered Utah, a vast landscape of nothing but majestic mountains and canyons was spread out in front of us. It looked like a big storm was stirring up ahead and we decided to stop at the next town and find a hotel for the night.

Entering Utah

Dark clouds looming above the mountains

The nearest town, Salina, turned out to be about three hours away. It was kind of scary to drive through the winding mountain roads in the dark, with rain pounding the windshield. When we finally made it there, we looked up the cheapest thing on Kayak and found a small, fairly new motel. The people in the reception had never heard of Kayak, but were very sweet and honored the rate for us. For dinner, we had a big salad that we had picked up at Whole Foods in Denver that morning. I fell asleep watching a Storage Wars marathon on TV.

Day Six – Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California

It’s amazing how much stuff one can fit in a MINI

On the road again

Hitting the road again in the morning, we were once again mesmerized by the beauty of the landscape. Every time I put my camera down after taking a photo something new turned up. It was kind of ridiculous, in a good way.

Majestic mountains in the distance

…every way you looked.

One of the most spectacular parts was the drive through the Virgin River Gorge, which follows I-15 for 20 miles across the corner of northwestern Arizona and slices right through a scenic desert canyon.

The drive through the Virgin River Gorge is quite spectacular

Majestic canyons — just like a scene from an old Western movie

Entering Nevada, there was no sign to formally welcome us to this new state. There was, however, casinos, lots of casinos. The landscape became more desert-like and the temperature started rising — at one point it showed as 101 degrees Fahrenheit. As we approached Las Vegas, we saw more and more power lines converging in the distance. I guess it takes a lot of power to run all those lights in Sin City.

You pick: Sin or Salvation. Elvis or Jesus

As we approached Las Vegas, the power lines got larger and more plentiful

The strip was enveloped in a big storm cloud, so we decided, since we had both already been to Vegas, that we would find a raw food place to have lunch. I used Yelp to find a place, on the west side of town, called Go Raw Café. Located in a strip mall adjacent to a man-made lake in an upscale residential neighborhood, it was a bit hard to find, but the food was definitely worth it. The house salad was divine (and huge) and came with dehydrated crackers. We also tried the chips, salsa and guacamole (house salsa and guacamole served with flax chips) and half a Portabello Mushroom Wrap (marinated portabella mushrooms, veggies, kale, and “almond cheese” wrapped in collard greens served with house slaw). Such a treat. I also (finally) got a green juice for the road.

Big delicious raw salad

Raw Portabello Mushroom Wrap

Sipping a green juice outside Go Raw Café in Las Vegas

Entering California, you have to pass through an agriculture checkpoint, where they make sure that you are not bringing in any invasive plants or pests. I was worried that they would take my goji berries, but we were just waved through. Finally, we had reached California! It was getting dark and pretty soon we were stuck in LA-traffic on a five-lane freeway. How classic.

Traffic congestion outside of LA

Almost there — Ojai, California, my new home

Rolling into our new home in Ojai, it was pitch black outside. It felt great to have arrived, but I was also sad that the journey was over — 2,872 miles. Maybe some day I will do it again.

The post Roadtripping Across America: Nebraska to California appeared first on EcoSalon.

EcoSalon and The Yoga Beauty Bar pair up at the Yoga Journal Conference this weekend in Estes Park, Colorado.

Ever wonder what a thousand oms and stretches under a Colorado sun looks like? We’re going to find out this week as EcoSalon travels to Estes Park, Colorado, to co-host the Yoga Beauty Bar with organic beauty brand Buddha Nose. From September 22nd to 24th, we’ll be celebrating all that is good in beauty and well-being at the Yoga Marketplace, part of the 16^th Annual Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park, Colorado, a seven-day event of 35-plus master teachers sharing their knowledge in the mountains. A gathering for both teachers and beginners, the event seeks to showcase the best and brightest the yoga world has to offer.

Nestled within all this is the EcoSalon sponsored Yoga Beauty Bar, an interactive collective featuring the best in indie organic beauty and wellness brands.

The Yoga Beauty Bar is the brainchild of Buddha Nose founder Amy Galper, whose New York City-based shiatsu practice inspired her to create a line of products to encourage its user to “be still and breathe.” Buddha Nose is certified organic body care to inspire a “mind-body-beauty” connection.

Each day the Yoga Beauty Bar booth will feature a special beauty and wellness treatment, so make sure to stop by and make an appointment to receive chakra balancing, hand shiatsu or mini scalp treatments or simply to chat and sip some organic tea. The Yoga Marketplace at the conference is free and open to the public so if we are all you’re looking for (though we hope you’ll stop and peruse the vendors outside our oasis), beeline it straight to us and we will pamper and educate you on how everything you put on and in your body has a direct effect on your well-being.

On hand for green beauty advice is yours truly, ready to dish out my seasoned knowledge on organic and all-natural beauty products. Meet me at the conference or Friday evening for cocktails with all the participating brands at our cabin in the woods.

After you’ve enjoyed sampling products at The Yoga Beauty Bar, you might want to purchase some award-winning products from their featured brands. God knows we will:

Buddha Nose body care

Dr. Alkaitis Skincare

Wei of Chocolate

Lotus Wei Flower Essences

Pravassa Wellness Retreats

Priti Organic Nails

Runa Tea

Trance Essence Perfumes and Candles

Yarok Organic Hair Care Products

Revolution Organic Color Cosmetics

We look forward to seeing you there!

Questions? Contact Yoga Beauty Bar organizer Amy Galper at info@buddhanose.com or Amy DuFault at amy@ecosalon.com

Additional contributions to this post by Amy DuFault

The post Join EcoSalon at the Estes Park Yoga Journal Conference This Weekend! appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnFoodie Underground checks out what’s hot in Telluride, Colorado.

Welcome to a new feature of Foodie Undergound: Foodie Underground on Tour. Being a Portland resident, I’m constantly in the organic/raw/food truck bubble. But writing about home gets old quickly, and if you’re a food lover, you know that one of the best parts about getting out of town is getting to check out the local food scene.

So we are bringing you a taste of some of the food trends in the cities we visit. Don’t expect extensive guides with Top Ten lists of restaurants; we want to give you an undiscovered, underground, what-the-locals-know look into what’s happening with food in certain places, in the hopes that it fuels your own wanderlust and search for good food wherever you are.

We’re kicking off the new Foodie Underground on Tour with a special town tucked away in the San Juan Mountains: Telluride. While in Telluride for a few weeks surrounding the town’s first festival of the season, Mountainfilm, I got to take advantage of the “off season.” For non-locals, “off season” could also be interpreted as “dead time,” with tourists at a bare minimum. That time between when the ski lifts close and before a jam packed Memorial Day weekend, Telluride is sleepy.

For a small town that’s teeming with people in winter and summer, a break from the crowds is welcomed, and as a visitor that meant a quiet scene with plenty of time to explore the food options, without waiting in line and getting to know the local community in the process.

A small resort town isn’t necessarily where you’d expect to find the latest in underground food trends, but surprisingly enough, Telluride has a few culinary gems that are worth exploring, off season or not.

Start your day with a stop at the Steaming Bean, Telluride’s caffeinated hotspot – which may just be because the coffee is strong, the wifi is quick and the staff is super friendly. But there’s also a killer mate latte made with coconut milk as well as granola with acai. (And if you stick around long enough as is easy to do here – there’s a specialty cocktail list.)

After a morning of French press, you’ll need a refreshing lunch, and you don’t have to look any farther than right down the street. You wouldn’t expect to find gluten-free sandwiches and seaweed salad in cowboy country, but at The Butcher and the Baker it can be done. Small, clean and cozy, it’s the kind of neighborhood bakery you always wished you had just around the corner.

If you’re in need of a quick bite to go before you bomb up one of the local hikes, a burrito from Telluride’s only food cart, La Tapatia Taqueria, might be in order. It’s unpretentious yet just quirky enough, coming complete with a bench made out of used skis perched out front.

At the end of the day, class it up for the evening at La Marmotte, a French-inspired restaurant tucked into a rustic looking building just off the river trail. The menu changes according to what’s in season, so you can expect fresh ingredients.

Top it all off with a night at There…, a newer bar that feels like a fresh taste of trendy cosmopolitan watering holes. In fact, who knew it would take going to Telluride to discover the latest in the cocktail trend: jam drinks. There’s bartender extraordinaire – Andrew Tyler – brings some New York flair to this neighborhood bar and serves up a mean rye whiskey with pumpkin jam. And with tree trunks and vintage maps as decor, the ability to choose your own playlist on the bar’s fleet of iPads, and a menu that includes soy paper wraps, you can’t go wrong.

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: Anna Brones, The Butcher and the Baker, Anna Brones

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The EMU music festival announces the winning design of their concert shelter contest.

EMU is an eco music festival launching July 4th in Snowmass, Colorado. More than just a festival, EMU is packaged to be a summer destination event that’s fueled by a whole different form of alternative energy. In addition to a growing roster of music, founders Timothy Wooster, Michelin Hall and Alyse Pask have set the stage for people to mingle in a natural setting where they can explore the environment through mountain biking and hiking, dance to bands framed by the Rockies, as well as explore cutting-edge technology and ideas through a variety of event vendors.

Wooster, one of the three founders of the event, says the idea of utilizing sustainable shelters for the vendors was a natural progression when plotting out the event. As the trio discussed how they could leverage their collective talents, they took a look at the kind of events that were speaking to the sustainability community and most were typical: expos, exhibitions and conferences.

“It wasn’t that these were bad things, just not necessarily the way we would want to spend a fun weekend,” says Wooster. “We found that most of our friends had never met any of their closest business partners or friends by talking to one another across an expo table. So, in brainstorming, we set out to create a festival experience (fusing together a music festival and an eco exhibition), where people of all ages and interests could connect in a chic, casual, super-fun atmosphere.”

One part of the festival that beckoned for consideration was the shelters for the event. From the stage to the vendors, plastic tarps would be everywhere and a virtual scourge on their optimistic greening philosophy. So with the combined energy of EMU and The Neenan Company, a Fort Collins, Colorado based design firm that prides itself on the way buildings are built through what they like to call “Archistruction,” the team devised a contest.

On March 15th, the EMU Tent Contest was launched at The Neenan Company with lots of ideas coming back from architects, landscape architects, interior designers, structural engineers and construction personnel. The rules were simple: design a sustainable alternative for the 10×10 metal and plastic vendor tents you see at so many festivals around the country. All applicants had to identify was how their tent was sustainable, what materials it would be made of, and how the tent could be transported and assembled.

Ben Shepard, a 3-D animator at Neenan won the contest with his easily expandable shelter which uses the least amount of material and is the easiest to assemble. Shepard says he thinks it also helps that the fabrication is simple, that the cost of materials is far less than the proposed budget, and that the simplicity of the design makes it extremely mobile.

“I love design in all forms and my position as a 3D Animator at Neenan puts me in a really great spot where I get to be involved with almost everything that we do.  From the front end conceptual design, to the photo realistic architectural renderings and animations that help with sales and marketing. This challenge was great because it was a different take on design and it really made me think outside the box,” says Shepard.

Tent Concept: Adaptive Reuse

MATERIALS: Military surplus MC-4 parachutes and recycled tarps.

STRUCTURE: Reclaimed wood beams, (fire mitigated), or Pine Beetle kill wood.

SHELTER POLES: Recycled Scaffolding in metal or bamboo.

CABLES: Sustainable biodegradable Hemp Rope, recyclable steel cable.

EXPANDABILITY: Constructed tents can be linked to another to create a double wide tent facing each other or side by side without adding any extra timber or poles as the illustrations show. The larger expandable option uses 15 foot beams for the canopy expanse, and if needed, added rope or cable to help support the beam expanse for structural integrity (also shown in top illustration). This would allow for a space for vendors on both sides with 15 feet between the expanse, a large covered seating area, or a mix of both.

Wooster says concerts like these are a growing trend towards how we can demonstrate treading lightly on the planet when it comes to large events.

“As producers of clothing or festivals, it is vital that we integrate a green mindset into the very DNA from which all policy flows. If it’s not green, or already produced, why use it?” says Wooster. “When we first started this process, I never dreamed of some of the things we would be able to change through discovery of new products. Water bottles that turn into dirt within 160 days of being opened, festival tents that use all sustainable products instead of the traditional white plastic structures, organic wines with grapes grown from solar power, trees planted for every ticket sold, and the list goes on and on.”

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