1472155530000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fmark-stoll%2Fremembering-john-muir-on_b_11703990.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Remembering John Muir on the centennial of the National Park Service

"2016-08-25-1472150109-8661767-Yosemite2.jpg"

This year, Americans celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service. On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act. The bill culminated decades of effort by a remarkable generation of dedicated men and women who fought to protect the nation's natural wonders for the democratic enjoyment of the people.

The greatest of these passionate parks advocates was John Muir, "Father of the National Parks." Muir was a naturalist and activist who wrote over 300 articles and a dozen books. In these works, he sang the praises of parks and other special natural places and called for their protection from commercial exploitation. His words still speak to us as the National Parks system enters its second century and remind us of his spirit and his principles.

Earlier this summer, my son and I backpacked for five days in Yosemite National Park. No place is more closely linked to Muir than Yosemite Valley. Overwhelmed by its beauty on his first visit in 1868, he lived in the valley for 11 years, beginning in 1869. In these years, he gained national recognition as a naturalist and nature writer. In 1880, he married, became a fruit-grower in Martinez, raised a family--and stopped writing.

"John Muir Cane" by Francis M. Fritz. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

At this point in his life, Muir had done little to earn the title "Father of the National Parks." In 1864, four years before he ever saw it, Yosemite Valley was given by Congress to California as a park. Yellowstone, the world's first national park, was established in far-off Wyoming in 1872, when Muir was still relatively unknown.

Muir's career took a dramatic turn in 1889, when Robert Underwood Johnson arrived in California. Johnson was the crusading editor of Century magazine and he was looking for West Coast authors. In particular, he wanted to get Muir writing again. The two men went camping in the Sierra. Disturbed by overgrazed mountain meadows and abused forests, they planned a campaign for an enlarged federal park in Yosemite. Muir wrote the articles describing the proposed park that Johnson published in Century, while Johnson pulled strings in Washington. Simultaneously, other advocates were promoting a park to protect the Sierra's ancient sequoia trees. In 1890, the two campaigns achieved the first major expansions of the parks with the creation of Sequoia National Park and Yosemite National Park.

"John Muir, Washington Column" by Francois Matthes. Public domain via Yosemite Online.

Johnson urged Muir to form an association to protect the new parks from destructive commercial interests. Muir co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892, which remains one of the nation's oldest and most influential environmental organizations. Johnson further encouraged Muir to write books to swell public appreciation for the parks. Muir set to work writing The Mountains of California (1894), Our National Parks (1901), and The Yosemite (1912). They did not simply extol the nation's parks. More importantly, these books called for better parks management and for protection for the nation's other natural wonders.

Muir's work ignited demand for further extension of the national park system. His 1901 Our National Parks only had three parks to cover. By 1916, when the National Park Service was established, there were 14. Sadly, Muir had died two years earlier, but he had already secured his title as "Father of the National Parks." His friend and mentor Johnson remarked, "Muir's writings and enthusiasm were the chief forces that inspired the movement. All other torches were lighted from his."

Now, one hundred years later, the commercialism that Muir fought so hard against is pushing harder than ever into the National Parks. Underfunded by Congress, the National Park Service courts corporate sponsors. A private concessionaire quietly trademarked iconic national park names and is demanding millions of dollars for the use of "Yosemite National Park," "Ahwahnee Hotel," and other names it had no role in creating. Anti-government ideologues and robber barons push to privatize the National Parks or devolve them to the states.

Nowadays, you sometimes hear that Muir is no longer relevant in the twenty-first century. Yet, as long as we continue to respect and protect the national parks he loved, his legacy will live on. Let us also endeavor to light our torches from Muir's and keep the light bright for future generations to enjoy.

Reposted from OUP Blog.
Yosemite image credit: "YOSEMITE" by TVZ Design. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

gaia

1472155527000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Falain-vidal%2Fif-food-was-the-largest-climate_b_11650568.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
If Food Was The Largest Climate Impact Of The 2016 Rio Olympics

"2016-08-22-1471871300-6489100-10000mrace20016olympics.jpg"

Staying strong: It takes a lot of food to fuel Olympic athletes. Photo: U.S. Army/Flickr Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

If you see comments in the news and on social media about the environmental impact of the 2016 Rio Olympics, chances are it will be about transportation or the levels of pollution. All of the athletes, spectators and officials arriving in Rio via fossil fuel burning airplanes, spewing tons of carbon into the atmosphere. It's positively sinful.

While the opening ceremony sent a clear message about protecting the environment, there has been sharp criticism over the levels of pollution across the city and in Guanabara Bay.

With 480,000 tourists predicted to travel to Rio and more than 11,000 athletes participating, what about the food all of these people will eat? One could argue that these people would be eating anyway, however it is more challenging to eat in a sustainable way when travelling in a foreign country as you can only eat what's available.

The Rio organizing committee aims to provide food from traceable, sustainable and safe sources, favoring smallholder farmers and providing them with logistical support to transport their produce. In fact, the Rio Sustainable Food Vision Initiative was created in 2013 by a group of 20 institutions to maintain the sustainability of food for the country and the Olympics.

An estimated 14 million meals will be served throughout the games, producing 180,000 tonnes of CO2eq in Rio. While Rio is doing some token things for sustainable food, it's missed the opportunity to bring sufficient attention to this global issue that affects us all. Is this not something that should attract international attention and headlines around the world?

In some ways they are, it's just not widely talked about. In the Carbon Footprint Management Report Rio2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, there is a brief section on reducing emissions from catering.

Transport represents 17% and energy 37% of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Our global food production system--which includes crop farming, raising livestock and deforesting lands to grow livestock feed and other crops, is responsible for about 25% of the greenhouse gases produced by human activity warming our planet. As human populations and incomes continue to grow, so does demand for meat, milk and eggs.

Across the world, scientists estimate that if agriculture were to conduct business as usual while other sectors reduced their emissions, agriculture's share of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions could double to 50% by 2050.

The biggest challenge however is that greenhouse gas emissions from our food production systems are probably the most difficult to estimate compared to other sectors.

You will often read that emissions from agriculture and forestry range from 21% to 31%. Deforestation, livestock and agricultural production are usually estimated to be 21% of global emissions. Add the share of emissions from transportation of products in the global food supply chain, packaging, and food waste, for example, and the global food system accounts for roughly 31% of global emissions.

There's incredible uncertainty on these estimates, especially for the most impacting food productions like rice and ruminant livestock, which both release methane and nitrous oxide, and have a far greater climate impact than carbon dioxide.

In its latest report, the IPCC has indeed been using emission values stemming from a single scientific publication for rice paddies and for livestock, the latter only considering ruminant species from temperate regions. Research shows that uncertainty on global rice emissions is of an order of magnitude of emissions themselves, and that in developing countries, especially Africa, emissions from livestock could have been overestimated by a factor of ten.

Somehow, someone has been cheating the figures about food, which the general public and media care much less about than their cars' emissions. Let's see why.

As reported a few years ago, fewer than half of young UK adults know butter comes from a dairy cow and a third do not know that eggs come from hens. Our education system is less to blame than our increasingly urbanized world where we have lost the connection with the agricultural landscapes that provide our food. We have too often let our kids believe that this all comes from the supermarket next door through some sort of industrial process, which is devoid of an animal or plant - let alone a farmer with a family.

It is now common for people to consider the climate impact of the mode of transportation they use, to the point that some pay to offset their CO2 emissions when purchasing an airplane ticket or booking a cab.

However, compensating for the climate impact of what we eat is much, much further away. Being able to realize this would assume an understanding that producing what we eat has required not only a transformation and transport process, but that food production has impacted the climate more, because it involves plants, soils and animals that all emit greenhouse gases.

Fortunately, many countries have started taking emissions from our food system seriously. Of the countries that included mitigation in their Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions at COP21 in Paris, 103 included targets related to agriculture, shown in a study conducted by the CGIAR Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.

As shown on the map below, mitigation is not a privilege of industrialized countries.

"2016-08-22-1471871377-1301040-CountrieswithagmitigationinINDCs.jpg"

Clearly, massive investment would be needed in agricultural research to improve our understanding and provide a better estimate of agricultural emissions. At the UN Climate Summit in 2014, CGIAR announced it would need to dedicate 600 mUS$ per year to work on climate-smart agriculture, combining mitigation of agricultural emissions with helping 500 million farmers adapt to more stressful growing conditions.

What would it be compared to the 14.7bUS$ Volkswagen announced it would pay to settle emissions-cheating claims with US consumers and regulators?

Isn't it simply that taxpayers and car buyers are eager to pay for less polluting cars than for less polluting food? Therefore, isn't there time to change the way we consider what we eat and the impact it has on the environment, especially on climate?

Wouldn't the 2016 Rio Olympics be an opportunity for that?

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

gaia

1472153145000

science

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fcincinnati-zoo-botanical-garden%2Fcincinnati-zoo--wildlife_b_11697092.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Cincinnati Zoo & Wildlife Safari Team Up to Ensure Survival of the Most Genetically-Valuable Cheetah Cub in North America
Cheetah mom at Cincinnati Zoo's breeding facility adopts cub

"2016-08-25-1472147443-4715898-cheetah5.jpg"

Six-year-old cheetah, Kathleen, has adopted the most genetically-valuable cheetah cub in the North American zoo population, born at Wildlife Safari in Oregon on May 15, and is raising her alongside the four cubs she gave birth to on May 10 at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden's off-site cheetah breeding facility.

When the only litter mate of the cub born at Wildlife Safari died shortly after birth, staff at the Oregon breeding facility, knowing that cheetah moms do not raise single cubs, had to make a quick decision. The lone cub would have to be raised by hand or cross-fostered (a term used to describe the transfer of an animal from one dam to another). Because of the animal's unique genetic value, cross-fostering was the best option.

"2016-08-25-1472147527-8568140-cubs4lo.jpg"

It was important to try to keep this cub in the breeding population" said Christina Gorsuch, Curator of Mammals at the Cincinnati Zoo. "Cheetahs raised by humans generally become ambassadors for their species, an important contribution, but do not breed. The best chance for future breeding success was to put the cub with another mom and litter mates."

Between the nine facilities in the cheetah Breeding Center Coalition (BCC), due dates frequently coincide. So, if there are single births, or litter mates die, there is usually a good chance that another facility will already have a litter or be expecting one. Cross-fostering should occur within two weeks of birth, so Kathleen was the perfect surrogate mom candidate for Sara Roy, the name given to the cub from Oregon.

"2016-08-25-1472148518-1379615-cubs5.jpg"

The situation was ideal, but there was no guarantee that Kathleen would accept the cub. "Several things can go wrong when trying to introduce a cub to a litter. Cheetah moms can be very nervous," said Tom Tenhundfeld, head keeper at the breeding facility. "She might ignore the cub or remove it from the litter. She could move the whole litter. She could injure or kill the cub or not allow it to nurse."

"2016-08-25-1472148590-5420963-cubs3.jpg"

Fortunately, none of those things happened to Sara Roy. The ten-day-old cub arrived at Cincinnati Zoo's breeding facility on May 20 and was placed with the other cubs while Tenhundfeld distracted Kathleen with food. "Before leaving her in the nest box, Christina rubbed bedding and the original cubs on her to transfer the scent. I let mom back outside as if nothing had just occurred. She patrolled around the nest enclosure for several minutes then went in to shelter, looked and sniffed around and lay down to allow the cubs to nurse. The cub went right towards belly and did some nursing as if she'd been there all along, mom didn't mind and didn't seem to notice she had an extra mouth to feed! It was awesome," said Tenhundfeld.

Physical exams earlier this week confirmed that all five cubs are in good health. They are boisterous, energetic and starting to eat meat. "You can't tell them apart by looking at them at this point, but each has had a transponder chip, about the size of a grain of rice, implanted for ID purposes," said Gorsuch.

Earlier this year, a male cub from Wildlife Safari came to the Cincinnati Zoo under similar circumstances. At that time there were no nursing moms at the Zoo's breeding facility, but there was a litter of cubs being hand raised in the Zoo's nursery. The BCC determined that this was the best place for Donni, the name his Cincinnati keepers gave him, and he is now thriving as a Cat Ambassador Program rookie.

"2016-08-25-1472149800-1863499-donnimoose.png"

Donni with puppy companion Moose at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Since 1990 the Cincinnati Zoo's Angel Fund, named after our first cheetah ambassador, "Angel," has directly supported cheetah conservation in Africa. From South Africa and Namibia in the south, up through Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa, The Angel Fund has contributed more than $1 million in support for cheetahs in the wild.

Cheetahs are endangered, and their population worldwide has shrunk from about 100,000 in 1900 to an estimated 9,000 to 12,000 cheetahs today.

The Cincinnati Zoo is one of nine institutions accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) that participate in the BCC. Working closely with the AZA's Cheetah Species Survival Plan (SSP), the BCC's goal is to create a sustainable cheetah population that will prevent extinction of the world's fastest land animal.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

science

1472146838000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Ftheresa-pierno%2Fan-uncertain-future-for-o_b_11700824.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
An Uncertain Future for Our National Parks? Not On Our Watch

Today, the nation will celebrate one of our country's crowning achievements, the centennial of the National Park Service, and a model of conservation and preservation now used all over the world.

For myself and some of my colleagues, that celebration will take place at the Roosevelt Arch at the North Gate of Yellowstone National Park, our nation's first national park. Inscribed across the arch that greets visitors to Yellowstone is a quote from the law that created the park, stating the purpose of protecting this remarkable landscape was "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People."

Those words are the guiding principle of our National Park Service's mission, to protect the natural, historical and cultural sites that together help tell the American story. But even as record-breaking crowds visit American icons like Yosemite, the Great Smokies, and Gettysburg, our parks and the agency entrusted with their care have never been more challenged.

Many of these challenges may not occur to the average visitor who see these places as pinnacles of natural grandeur and windows into our past.

When visitors walk the wooded trails of Shenandoah or the stone steps of the Lincoln Memorial, they may not notice that there are far fewer rangers than in years past, meaning fewer rangers to protect wildlife, maintain our trails, and teach us about our history.

When visitors climb the peaks of Rocky Mountain or walk the Freedom Trail in Boston, they may not realize that shuttered building or closed trail is actually just one part of our park system's $12 billion repair backlog, a backlog that the Congress normally gives just half of the money the Park Service needs to keep that number growing every year.

When visitors step into our nation's beginnings at Jamestown or take in the majestic mountains of the Grand Tetons, they don't realize that destructive development may soon occur just outside those parks' borders that, if allowed to move forward, would forever mar these treasured places.

And when visitors are quick to snap a picture of a distant Grizzly bear in Glacier or dive into the sparkling blue waters of Biscayne, they may not think of the repeated attempts by many in Congress to weaken or remove the protections our parks' wildlife, water, and other resources depend on.

These are just some of the challenges our national parks face as they head into their second century, but it is also not the first time parks have faced these challenges. The difference is that when we have faced these challenges in the past, those across the political spectrum came together to overcome them.

When visitor centers and other park facilities were at the verge of collapse in the 1950s, we came together to pursue Mission 66, a 10-year infrastructure effort to modernize the visitor experience. When we saw the threats our country's air, water, and wildlife face both in and outside our parks, we passed protections such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. And for more than a century, presidents of both parties have used tools such as the Antiquities Act to protect important pieces of our shared heritage like the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty.

Faced with the challenges before us today, the decisions we make now will have profound effects on our parks for decades to come. Now cannot be the time we decide to turn our backs on our parks. Not on our watch.

We need a renewed commitment as a country to our parks, a commitment that goes beyond a supportive tweet and a selfie. It must be a Congress that will preserve those protections our parks rely on and gets our Park Service the resources and funding it needs to tackle parks' challenges.

It must be a president who understands the vital role of parks in our society, and is committed to working with members of all parties to support our parks and ensure more pieces of the American story are added to our Park System.

And it must be members of the public who will not only continue visiting national parks, but the day after they visit commit to helping that park by volunteering, writing a letter to the editor, or calling their member of Congress demanding we do more for our parks.

Our parks face many challenges, but overcoming challenges is part of the American story, a story told through our national parks. In this, their centennial year, let's recommend to ensuring a brighter future for America's favorite places. They deserve no less.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

gaia

1472142315000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fgeorgianne-nienaber%2Fbarack-you-held-my-grands_b_11698182.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Barack You Held My Grandson In Your Arms
"Barack you held my grandson in your arms and felt the comfort and warmth of the baby. Let us feel the same from your kind act and words. Remember you promised to help us all." ~~M. Jay Cook Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe

Standing Rock Indian Reservation, Cannonball South Dakota--August clouds are stacked in three-dimensional layers over the Great Plains. Gentle slopes west of the Missouri River are interrupted by low ridges, buttes and a stray boulder here and there --all gifts left by the glaciers eons ago. A few miles south of Bismarck on the road to Cannonball, local authorities have erected another kind of stone, one not indigenous to this sacred area. Concrete barricades, capable of stopping an ISIS attack, block direct access to reservation land and more importantly, the peaceful gathering of up to 2000 (at one time) Native Americans and supporters trying to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Sacred Stones Camp.

It seems that if you are a writer you can talk your way through. A polite warning was issued to be careful of "Indians all over the roads."

Within a few miles there were indeed people and flags; hundreds and hundred of flags representing Indian Nations from all over the continent. Pockets of people gathered along a fence with more flags, and prayers bundles were tied to the wire.

A man waved me over with great purpose in his demeanor. His name is M. Jay Cook of the Cheyenne River Sioux. A child was near, her name is Precious, and she is his granddaughter. Her mother died when she was 8 months old and Jay has been raising her ever since. He told me she "is the motivation of his life." Precious had been breast-feeding when her mother passed, and literally clung to her Grandfather for life itself.

Jay Cook and his Daughter Precious with a message for the Obama's

M. Jay Cook was eager to show me signs he had made. On two poster boards, there were photos of Michelle and Barack Obama, each holding his grandson, Wakiyan Topa, for a photo-op. In June of 2014 the President and his wife visited Standing Rock with promises of support and aid. 40 percent of the residents live in poverty and two-thirds are unemployed.

"My administration is determined to partner with tribes," Obama said in 2014. "It takes place every day on just about every issue that touches your lives."

In the space of two years, Standing Rock has gone from the promise of Presidential empathy to faded pictures of an Indian child used as a Presidential prop pasted to cardboard that threatened to rip in the stiff headwinds.

Make sure you write, "Lala (grandfather) Barack promised to help us, M. Jay said. "Kiksuye Wokiksuye (Remember we remember). "

"Barack you held my grandson in your arms and felt the comfort and warmth of the baby. Let us feel the same from your kind act and words. Remember you promised to help us all."

Barack, hear this man's words.

(DAPL) was literally foisted on tribal authorities shortly after activists led by Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth and others forced Enbridge to seemingly abandon plans for the Sandpiper Pipeline. Everyone's guard was down. Coincidence? Sandpiper would have run Bakken crude in and around treaty lands and wild rice beds in Minnesota, but the Canadian company wants to wring every spare drop of oil out of what is left of the Bakken boom. With the current price of crude seeking bottom on world markets, production is low, wells are shut down, and there are significantly fewer "bomb trains" plying the tracks of the heartland. The Dakota Access Pipeline would effectively replace the Keystone XL, which was shut down by the Obama administration. Was there a quid pro quo? Who knows, but there seems to be quite a few quids and pros littering the American political landscape these days.

"Mni Wiconi" is Dakota/Lakota for "water is life." Water is the ultimate gift for the Creator for Native People. The proposed DAPL would move 570,000 barrels of crude across four states and crisscross the Missouri River on its way to southern Illinois. Safe? In 2012-2013 there were 300 spills in North Dakota and none were reported to the public.

The DAPL would cross treaty lands and ancestral burial grounds. Within site of the reservation boundary, the proposed route crosses the Missouri River and threatens water supplies for the reservation and local farming and ranching operations.

In an impassioned op-ed for the New York Times, tribal Chairman David Archambault addresses treaties and many broken promises; calling out the Army Corps of Engineers for lack of coordination and communication. Given the recent failures of the Corps in Louisiana and epic mismanagement and subterfuge during the great flood of Katrina, it is about time the Corps is removed from its responsibilities.

Our tribe has opposed the Dakota Access pipeline since we first learned about it in 2014. Although federal law requires the Corps of Engineers to consult with the tribe about its sovereign interests, permits for the project were approved and construction began without meaningful consultation. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior and the National Advisory Council on Historic Preservation supported more protection of the tribe's cultural heritage, but the Corps of Engineers and Energy Transfer Partners turned a blind eye to our rights. The first draft of the company's assessment of the planned route through our treaty and ancestral lands did not even mention our tribe.

On that note, no decision was made yesterday in federal court regarding the fate of the DAPL. Judge James E. Boarsberg will make a decision by September 9, while considering the lack of consultation between Tribes and the Army Corps of Engineers. An appeal is already set for September 14 if the Tribes or Corps of Engineers is unhappy with the decision.

M. Jay Cook sent me a text this morning. He is still holding his signs and thinks he might have to drive up to Bismarck to get some laminate for the vulnerable poster board. His message was for Barack and Michelle Obama.

Wakiyan Today

"Hihanni wasteyelo--good morning. Watch the sun come over the horizon and be thankful for a new day lala-grandpa and unci-grandma."

Let's hope that the Obama's get the message and guarantee that their poster child, Wakiyan Topa, who offered them the warmth of his body and the purity of his soul, gets to live a long life blessed with the spirit of clean water and air.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

gaia

1472142312000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fgay-browne%2Fthe-night-i-discovered-aq_b_11697644.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
The Night I Discovered Aquafaba

On the way back from my volunteer trip to The Orkeewska School in Africa, someone had abandoned a copy of the New York Times and left it on my seat on the airplane. If you've been a reader of my blog, you already know that I prefer a plant-based diet and am always on the search for gourmet vegetarian food when I travel. My life is all about looking for the next green treasure. I simply look for the signs to lead me to where I need to go. In this case, it turned out to be in the Wednesday dining section restaurant reviews.

That particular issue featured Nix, a vegetarian restaurant that had opened in the West Village this past February with an unusual name derived from an 1893 Supreme Court decision declaring tomatoes to be a vegetable and not a fruit. It also just happened to be within walking distance of where I often stay when in town. The review had my mouth watering and ready to try these innovative vegetable dishes the reviewer had described the next time I was in New York.

A few weeks later when I was back in the city, I called up some good friends and suggested we all go and give Nix a try. They agreed. As often happens with hot New York restaurants the only reservation I could get for the night I wanted was at 9:45 PM. I took it with a request to move it up if anything were to open earlier. Miraculously I got a call later that they could move it up to 8:15 PM. When we arrived and checked in we were fortunate to run into one of the owners, James Truman, the former editorial director of Condé Nast.

It's very rare that one can find a vegetarian restaurant that is not only innovative and creative in its approach to the food served but also offered in a stylish setting. But as soon as we were escorted to a cozy corner table I was transfixed by the decor. The walls had been painted a careful clean white with simple but elegantly carved stone booths, covered with comfortable neutral cushions. This allowed the focus to be on the beautiful Joshua tree wooden lamps, which were strategically placed at regular intervals on a narrow ledge that runs behind the wall booths. That gave the whole restaurant the feeling of a being in the middle of an organic art installation from the 70s, chicly curated from a 21st-century culture master. I already felt I had been transported and had yet to taste John Frazier's food.

John Frazier is not only a partner in the restaurant and the genius behind Dovetail and Narcisse, but he is also a Michelin-starred chef with a personal passion for cooking with vegetables. He is doing at Nix what I long for more chefs to do - taking vegetables seriously and making even the carnivores in the room feel sated and happy.

With a delicious glass of biodynamic chilled white wine in hand, we started our feast with a yummy warm tandoor bread with two dips: house hummus and spiced eggplant with pine nuts followed by the ribbons of jicama with Fresno chili and blood oranges and baby carrots en papillote, cracked bulgar, almonds, spices. The carrots were my favorite - so far.

Even though we each ordered our own entree, it was hard not to want to share so we enjoyed the whole meal family style. Cauliflower tempura with steamed buns and house pickles, artichoke and broccoli rabe sauté with preserved tomatoes as well as the brown rice stir-fry, ramps, chanterelles and farm eggs.

For someone who doesn't eat sugar, the dénouement was the dessert. We ordered the cantaloupe sorbet with mezcal and lime and the tandoor roasted pineapple with tamarind glaze. They were a delicious duo, but it was the roasted macadamia nuts and toasted coconut flakes with whipped aquafaba, seared with vinegar that will keep me coming back to Nix every time I am in New York. I had never experienced aquafaba before, but one mouthful and I was hooked!

"2016-08-25-1472138171-6711817-FullSizeRender7.jpg"

If you have not heard of this delight, it's become a new wonder ingredient in vegan cooking for creating meringues and creams without any eggs. The liquid from legumes such as chickpeas can be reduced, thickened and whipped into a froth. The result at Nix was more delicious and more decadent than any meringue or whipped cream I have ever had!

For me personal environmental health is more than simply ridding my body of toxins, it's about nourishing my soul. It's about attention and artistry in my surroundings, savoring creatively prepared healthy foods and experiencing that with the people that are important to me. What James Truman and John Frazier have done with Nix is a miracle in Manhattan. With great friends and great food, the stars aligned for a most memorable evening.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

gaia

Son by Maren Klemp

www.marenklemp.com