Pure Organic Snack Bar

A MetaEfficient snack bar. Unlike other nutrient bars I’ve tasted, this one’s delicious. My topic pick is the Orange Cranberry Bar. It’s made by a company called PURE, based in Holland, Michigan.  The supplier of the dates uses a natural enzyme to separate the protein from the carbohydrate (no heat is used so the product retains its nutrients).

The Orange Cranberry Bar ingredients:

• Organic Dates
• Organic Cranberries (with Organic Apple Juice Concentrate and Organic Sunflower Oil)
• Organic Walnuts
• Organic Cashews
• Organic Brown Rice Protein
• Organic Almonds
• Organic Agave Nectar
• Organic Orange Peel
• Organic Orange Oil

The Chocolate Brownie Bar ingredients are:

• Organic Deglet Noor Dates)
• Organic Walnuts
• Organic Agave Nectar
• Organic Almonds
• Organic Cashews
• Organic Brown Rice Protein
• Organic Cocoa

Pure Organic Nutrition Bars

It’s available at Whole Foods and Amazon.

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Raw Pistachio Nuts

Enzymes are metaefficient. My top picks are raw pistachios and raw cacao. Both have optimal enzyme levels when unadulterated.

Raw Cacao Pod and Beans

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This summer I’ve been working on food-related optimization projects, here are some updates:

I now have subscriptions with two local farmers (through a CSA or Community Support Agriculture). One farmer provides me with raw milk, raw butter and eggs, the other farmer provides vegetables and fruit. They both happen to deliver to same street in my neighborhood, so I ride my bike about one kilometer and pick up both deliveries using a bike trailer. (more…)

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A couple of years ago, we wrote about a 1.3 megawatt solar-powered stadium in Switzerland. A new solar powered stadium has been built in Taiwan for the 2009 World Games in July. Designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito, the stadium incorporates 8,844 solar panels on the roof. The roof will generate enough energy to power the building’s 3,300 lights and two giant television screens.

On hot days, the stadium will generate more power than it needs, so the Taiwanese government plans to sell the excess capacity. A Taiwanese official said that the panels will generate 1.14 million KWh per year, preventing 660 tons of annual carbon dioxide.

The power system was tested in January. It took over six minutes to power up the lighting in the stadium, which illuminates the track and field with 3300 lux.

The stadium has a some other green features — permeable pavement is used throughout the complex, and all the raw materials used in the main stadium are reusable and made in Taiwan.

Huge photos of the stadium can be found on the Skyscraper Forum.

Link: Stadium Home Page

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HippoRoller Water Carrier (photo: HippoRoller.org)

Water is an immediate, fundamental need for human survival, but one in six people worldwide don’t have immediate access to water resources, particularly in arid regions of southern Africa. The HippoRoller is a deceptively efficient water carrier with the potential to offer huge health, economic, and social benefits to developing communities.

The HippoRoller is a heavy-duty plastic drum that can be filled upright, then sealed and rolled like a steamroller across rough terrain. The 24-gallon (90L) tank weighs 200 pounds when full, but the rolling drum has a functional weight of just 22 pounds, so virtually anyone can use it. The current design has been tweaked to ease shipping and transportation of the carriers, which are manufactured in Johannesburg, South Africa. They are distributed mainly by local NGOs to communities throughout southern Africa, along with training on water purification and sanitation.

HippoRoller In Action (photo: HippoRoller.org)

The projected lifespan of a HippoRoller is five to seven years, but some of the original models from over 10 years ago are still going strong. And a single HippoRoller can hold a day’s water for an entire family of five, which translates into an immense impact from just one carrier.

HippoRoller Water Carriers (photo: HippoRoller.org)

The product itself is an efficient and clever design solution to a unique problem, but the benefits are potentially much broader. The HippoRoller website states:

“The daily burden of water collection undermines productivity, limits educational opportunities and traps households in poverty. The Hippo Water Roller is one of the few strategies that focuses specifically on reducing the social, economic and health consequences of carrying heavy loads of water over long distances.”

First, by greatly reducing the amount of time needed to obtain water, the HippoRoller allows users the freedom for more productive activities like school and farming. And second, beyond fulfilling the direct survival need of water, there are other equally important advantages to help a population remain healthy, and thus more productive and self-sufficient.The HippoRoller helps users avoid disabling injuries from hauling heavy buckets over rough terrain, and the food-grade construction is far safer than common alternatives like converted fuel cans.

For more information, visit the HippoRoller website at  www.HippoRoller.org

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Do you eat rice at least 3 times a week? If not, quit reading — after this paragraph. The most efficient rice cooker decision you can make is to NOT buy a hefty gadget devoted almost entirely to cooking just rice. Instead, learn how to cook rice perfectly in a pot or, if you’re aiming for energy efficiency and don’t have picky tastebuds, how to microwave rice. (more…)

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In 2004, MetaEfficient.com pre-reviewed the AeroGrow aeroponics growing system. That was before the system was released. A couple of years ago, you couldn’t cut on your TV without seeing an ad for AeroGrow indoor gardening systems. It isn’t as ubiquitously advertised now, but it hasn’t disappeared from the market. In fact, five years after its initial release, there are several AeroGrow systems for consumers to choose from. Now that the AeroGrow system has been tried and tested, how has it fared?

The AeroGarden 6 with Gourmet Herb Seed Kit , available from Amazon.com in three spiffy colors (white, silver, and black) for $132.39, “lets you grow abundant herbs, greens, or vegetables for your family 365 days a year in the comfort of your kitchen. No gardening experience or even dirt is necessary,” according to the product description.

One of the big draws of the AeroGrow products is that they use a dirt-free means of growing herbs, vegetables like lettuce and tomatoes, and flowers. Aeroponics systems are like hydroponics systems, but the primary growing medium is air instead of water. Another advantage of the system is that it is compact and self-contained; it seems ideally suited for people with small yards, or no yard at all, who still want the advantages of a kitchen garden. Because the AeroGrow products are self-contained, including providing light for whatever the owner wishes to grow, the AeroGarden 6 and its sister products can be used anywhere, year-round, without access to windows that traditional indoor gardens require. AeroGrow lets you take windowsill gardening away from the windowsill, and thus offers a convenience and efficiency to would-be gardeners that traditional methods do not allow for.

Seeds and nutrients are provided in pre-packed pods, included when you buy the AeroGarden 6; plug the seed pods into the system and watch it grow. You provide the water for your pod-plants — made easier by an alarm system integrated into the AeroGrow system that alerts you if your plants need water or nutrients. AeroGrow has provided a foolproof means for indoor gardeners to grow vegetables, fruit, and herbs with minimal fuss and no muss at all.

The AeroGarden 6 differs from the original AeroGarden system in that it contains space for six plant pods instead of seven, which allows more room for your plants to spread out and get comfortable. Setting up the system is reasonably simple, and getting down to the business of growing is easy since everything you need to grow is provided. While the product is advertised as being quiet, its water pump actually makes quite a bit of noise, more even than a fish tank. The light is also quite bright. You will want to take these factors into consideration when you are setting up your AeroGarden. Perhaps the bedroom isn’t the best place to keep your AeroGarden 6. The noise and the light seem to be the only faults of the system, though. It works exactly as advertised, handily growing herbs (or whatever pods you’ve installed in the system) with no hassle and very little tending at all. The nutrients provided with the system seem to give the plants a little boost that results in surprisingly fast-growing herbs.

If you have limited space, you might try the AeroGarden Space-Saver 6 with Gourmet Herb Seed Kit, which provides six spaces for seed pods in a more compact form with a slightly smaller footprint than the AeroGarden 6. This system comes in white, black, silver, and black with stainless steel accents, and sells for $149.95. It, too, comes with all you need to start growing, including seed pods and nutrients, as well as light bulbs. Again, the growing system seems virtually foolproof, as plants sprout and thrive with little effort on the gardener’s part. This system, too, though, is quite noisy and bright. For people with an out-of-the-way place to put the system, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue, since it is so self-contained. But if your space is limited, and you have nowhere to put the system but in an area where you’re likely to spend a lot of time, the biggest across-the-board complaint about the system is how much noise the pump makes and how bright the light is. You can cut off the light, but there is no mechanism for turning off the pump.

The AeroGarden 2411-00B AeroGarden Deluxe with Master Gardener Deluxe Kit, available in black from Amazon.com for $216.68, has considerably more bells and whistles than the AeroGarden 6 and the AeroGarden Space-Saver 6. While you can buy other pod packs for various of the other AeroGrow systems, so that you’re not confined to growing the included herbs in your AeroGarden, the AeroGarden Deluxe comes with an upgraded light system, a trellis system for larger plants, an attachment that allows you to grow full-sized vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers, and a full year’s supply of Grow Pods and the nutrients. You should note that while this system will accommodate plants beyond herbs and flowers, the seeds are NOT included with this system.

The AeroGarden Deluxe is, like its smaller siblings, attractive and easy to set up. The pump again loses points for noisiness, and the three-bulb light system (the others have two bulbs) means the light on this model is brighter. But this system is as self-contained as the others, and performs as well; plants germinate and grow quickly, and there is a high success rate in the plants that grow with this system that isn’t present in traditional gardening. The fact that with the deluxe system, a gardener can grow fruiting vegetables, rather than just smaller plants like herbs, is a big bonus, and seems to make it worth the price.

For a slightly lower price point, you can get the AeroGarden Pro 200 with Master Gardener 1-Season Kit and Gourmet Herb Seed Kit . It has fewer bells and whistles than the AeroGarden Deluxe – no trellis, for example – but still has the upgraded light system and more advanced features than the less expensive, more basic AeroGarden models. This model, like the AeroGarden Deluxe, comes with the Master Gardener 1-Season Kit, which enables you to grow your own seeds rather than relying on the proprietary seed pods that the other systems use. And the AeroGarden Pro 200 comes with herb seeds. This model has space for seven pods, rather than the six in the other systems. There are fewer complaints about a loud pump with the AeroGarden Pro 200, but the lights are quite bright on this system, as well as the others. The growing results, however, are as unmistakably foolproof and efficient with the AeroGarden Pro 200 as with the other AeroGarden products.

Though the grow bulbs , nutrient tablets , and seed kits for the various AeroGarden systems are proprietary, they are relatively inexpensive and easily available. And because of the happiness of many of AeroGarden’s customers with the product’s ease and efficiency in providing an effective small garden even for those without the resources to grow a traditional garden, it seems unlikely that the company will evaporate any time soon – so if you buy an AeroGarden system, you will probably have no problem at all stocking up later on refills to keep your system growing. For people with smaller budgets or smaller spaces, smaller AeroGarden systems are available. If, on the other hand, you want to upgrade a larger system, upgrade kits are available to let you do just that.

The consensus on AeroGarden systems is that they work well, and that if you buy a system, you will be assured of low-maintenance garden goodies, in a small space and with a minimum of effort. While the systems are not flawless – the bright lights and the loud pump being the most consistent complaints – they do offer, for people who can overlook those faults, a means of growing kitchen herbs and vegetables (and flowers, too) year-round, indoors. The produce from the various systems is consistently as the manufacturer advertises, and the systems have received consistently positive reviews in the five years since AeroGarden came onto the market. That this high-performing gardening system comes in a range of prices and with options to suit the varying needs of indoor gardeners is an excellent bonus.

The range of AeroGarden products seems to be a cost-effective and highly efficient way for the would-be gardener to maintain a practical and productive kitchen garden indoors.

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Picking a morning caffeine pick-up’s gotten confusing, what with the proliferation of certifications: organic, fair trade, Rain Forest Alliance, Utz Kapeh — not to mention all the self-certification schemes companies like Starbucks are trying to sell. To help you cut through the clutter, here are five eco-ethical coffees you can feel good about drinking: (more…)

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I don’t think I would have ever discovered this winebar, had I not been led to it, through the labyrinthine streets of Arlington, by Chantrea, who is the originator of what I have to call a noetic zymurgy. I followed Chantrea through the avenues, and into a restaurant. I don’t recall which one, but I ducked inside, and we both decided to drink a flight of wine.

Outside was a waterfall. There was a small bench in front, where water was lightly crashing, and through its motion, performing some kind of distinct mesmerism around me, and meanwhile the sunlight seemed to vanish from the corners of plaza. I distinctly recall that the air seemed to be filled with a subtle violet in the semi-darkness. Strangers strolled around us.

It was a short walk down twisting boulevards, past plate glass windows to the winebar.

Outside the establishment was a iron table, which held our bottles well. A bottle of cabernet savingnon seemed highly apropos for this night — a welcome companion to Chantrea’s sparkling conversation wherein she elucidated her latest theories on viticulture. I now have no doubt as to the veracity of her convictions in this area.

So, overall, a good winebar with nice ambiance.

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