By Karen R. Kobayashi Noodle Company, Ltd. is manufacturing the industry’s first gluten-free 100% brown rice “fettuccine” style noodles.  Other varieties include white rice “fettuccine” style noodles, and both brown and white rice “angel-hair” pasta.  They are all natural, gluten and chemical free. Packed fresh, simply drop in boiling water and they are ready to eat in just three minutes!  The pastas are steamed and sterilized after packaging, giving them a twelve month shelf life.  I spent some time in Manhattan with Satoru Inukai, the Assistant Manager of Kobayashi Noodle Company.  He enjoys working with this Japanese product that he believes in, and has the confidence to represent.  Toshio Kobayashi owns the company, which is more than 70 years old.  Their main products are Ramen noodles and fresh wheat pasta.  Grown in Gifu Prefecture, about 2 ½ hours from Tokyo, this farming region is known for excellent rice production.  In 2006, Toshio Kobayashi, inspired by a friend who is a Celiac, decided to create a gluten-free, more health conscious line [...]

By Andrea Goldman Recently, the UNFCCC concluded its convention in Cancun and what was determined, among other things, was that a fund needs to be set up by the developed nations of the world to provide money to developing nations to bring alternative energy technology to these nations and to help them deal with the after affects of deforestation and other things that affect climate change.   The developing nations agreed to provide for a $100 million superfund. However, it was not determined where the money actually was going to come from to fund the initiatives that are sorely needed around the world. On the heels of the close of this convention, bringing alternative energy to rural areas of Kenya was written about in the New York Times by Elisabeth Rosenthal. This well written article portrays  a vivid example of what bringing alternative energy to developing nations would look like. In her article, Ms. Rosenthal follows Sara Ruto, a woman from Kiptusuri, Kenya and her quest to find electricity to [...]

Just in case you haven’t had time to keep up with your CSI episodes (“Fracked”, 11/11/2010), fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, is a process used by oil and gas companies to create fractures in rocks to increase the output of natural gas from a well that has already been drilled.  Millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary (and unregulated) chemicals are injected under high pressure into the well.  The pressure fractures the shale, propping open fissures that allow natural gas to flow more freely (see Gasland The Movie for fracking faq’s). You might be wondering why the fracking lesson?  This weekend, New York’s outgoing Governor David Paterson has vetoed the Hydrofracking Moratorium bill.  The Governor stated that while the complete moratorium on all natural gas drilling was well-intentioned, passage of the bill would have resulted in putting too many people out of work – work that is permitted by the Department of Environmental Conservation.  He went on to say that hydrofracking causes no “demonstrated environmental harm” and referred to [...]