DIG IN
The latest articles from Chelsea Green and our authors: offering tips and techniques about how you can bring our books to life in your kitchen, backyard, or community.
Mass Rebellion: When Common Sense Turns Into Rebellion
“Is Common Sense for the 21st Century the best hope we’ve got to prevent human extinction? Yes, I think it is.”— Dr. Alexandra Jellicoe Roger Hallam—leading environmental activist and co-founder of Extinction Rebellion—believes real change comes from ordinary people breaking the law. When he was jailed in September for flying a drone at Heathrow in…
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The Importance of Carbon Farming
To get a sense of how carbon farming could positively affect global warming, imagine ten ranches, approximately three-hundred acres each, implementing carbon farming and achieving a conservative per acreage carbon sequestration rate. At this scale, the net gains of CO2 removed from the atmosphere (over 20 years) is equal to the emissions that 25,532 passenger…
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Why Raw Milk Cheese is Not Raw
Have you ever wanted to try out exotic and rare types of cheeses, made non-traditionally? Well you might not be able to if the FDA has anything to say about it! Non-traditional cheesemaking using raw milk is under attack for all the wrong reasons, and it has sparked a revolution of cheese-lovers to stand up…
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Putting the Health Back in Health Care
The United States is the sickest nation in the Western world. Despite modern innovations in science, our health care system is broken. In Curable, science journalist and health care advocate Travis Christofferson asks an important question: What if the roots of the health care crisis are systemic and psychological, perpetuated not only by corporate influence,…
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Plant and Mushroom Medicines for Cancer
Chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery are the main cancer treatments people turn to when diagnosed. These high-risk and chemical-heavy options aren’t the only ones—plants and mushrooms are on the rise as cancer treatments. They have great healing properties that combat cancer similar to how the plants and mushrooms grow. The following is an excerpt from Cancer…
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Getting Wild: Take A Walk on the Wild Side
John and Nancy Hayden have spent the last quarter century transforming their organic vegetable and livestock operation into an agroecological, regenerative fruit farm, nursery, and pollinator sanctuary. They call it The Farm Between, and as we walk among the diverse medley of wildly burgeoning shrubs and trees, it becomes clear that the name is much…
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The Cost of Our Clothes
Clothes cost more than the number on the price tag. Some clothes contain toxic ingredients that are harmful to manufacturers, consumers, and the environment. The textile industry produces billions of products annually which are often worn few times then discarded improperly, resulting in massive amounts of resource wasting. The following is an excerpt from Fibershed…
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All In the Question: What If We Started Asking Better Questions?
Sometimes, a roadblock or bump in the road can seem like the end of a good idea. The best way to overcome these obstacles is to change the way we view them and ask the question; asking “how can this help?” as opposed to “is this the end?” can make all the difference in the…
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Veteran Activist and Organizer Lisa Fithian Visits Chelsea Green
Chelsea Green Publishing celebrated Employee Ownership Month with a visit from veteran activist, organizer, and author, Lisa Fithian! Invited to be the inaugural speaker in our “Lunch and Learn” program sponsored by the Employee-Ownership Committee, Lisa inspired us all with countless stories of her adventures on the frontlines of change. Lisa’s new book, Shut It…
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The Future of Sustainable Fashion: A “Farm-to-Closet” Vision
Rebecca Burgess has coined a new term for sustainable fashion that represents a not so new idea: fibershed. Centuries before the advent of fast fashion and the multimillion-dollar fashion industry, functional fibersheds were everywhere. As a means of protection, spiritual identity, gender, adornment, societal rank, personal style, and modesty, people sourced their fibers from the…
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Choosing the Best Heat Source for Your Greenhouse
When it comes to heating your greenhouse, the options may seem endless and expensive. Fear not! Growing your own food in the cold weather doesn’t have to break the bank. The best solution differs from farm to farm; it depends on the climate, crops grown, and the greenhouse structure itself. Harness the advancements in greenhouse…
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The Importance of Imagination
From What Is to What If author Rob Hopkins is a co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network. He is also the author of The Power of Just Doing Stuff, The Transition Handbook, and The Transition Companion. He earned a spot on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals and was…
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Happy National Cookbook Month!
From foraging to fermenting, a good cookbook can be the guiding force that elevates your culinary skills. Draw a little inspiration from our expert chefs, foragers, and brewers and get ready to kickstart your own creativity in the kitchen! With recipes for gumbos and stews, plus okra pickles, tofu, marshmallow, paper, and more The Whole…
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A Search for Rural Justice
Charles D. Thompson, Jr., is the Professor of the Practice of Cultural Anthropology and Documentary Studies at Duke University. His numerous books and documentaries have helped bring underrepresented rural issues in the United States and Latin America to the forefront. When Chelsea Green sat down with him to discuss his latest book, Going Over Home:…
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Building Strength by Mastering Hunger
“How can we expect to feel our best unless we live in harmony with the way our bodies work?” —Denis Wilson, MD In the United States, more than 35 percent of adults and nearly 17 percent of children are obese. This is true in spite of our cultural obsession with diets, exercise fads, and health…
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Speaking for the Bees
“Having a relationship with the rest of nature is knowing that we can, if we wish, rekindle our lost connections, because somewhere deep inside us all, there lives a little spark of ‘wild’ just waiting to be ignited.” —Brigit Strawbridge Howard Our planet is home to at least 20,000 species of bees—a statistic most of…
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What is Water?
Since his bout with throat cancer, ForeWord Editor-in-Chief Matt Sutherland has been hot to discover the most reputable integrative health and wellness books that address alternative approaches to cancer prevention and treatment. Cancer and the New Biology of Water is one of these books. The following is an excerpt from Sutherland’s interview with Thomas Cowan…
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The Terrifying Diagnosis: Where Do We Go from Here?
Cancer is a terrifying diagnosis for many people and their loved ones. While the medical community has made immense progress in treating it, there are still a lot of uncertainties. The biggest being that even after years of research, there is still no cure. Each question we answer only leads to a new one, adding…
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Back-to-the-Land Dreams
These days, becoming a farmer isn’t considered a “typical” career path. But for some folks, the allure of cultivating your food and owning your land seems too good to resist. These people were born to return to nature, where they can experience true freedom in the open air. The following is an excerpt from Going…
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Adding Our Voices to the Global Climate Strike
By Jill Kiedaisch, Content and Brand Manager “If I have to face up to the reality of climate change as an 11-year-old, then so do you.” The words of one of the countless youth speakers who shouted into microphones at “5,800 events in 163 countries” around the world last Friday, September 20, 2019. Millions of…
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A Nest of One’s Own
Bees are commonly thought to live together by the thousands. Many people picture a buzzing hive filled with bees, all working together to take care of the young, collect pollen, and promote the overall health of the colony. However, there are thousands of species of bees that aren’t part of a colony. These solitary bees…
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The Story and Legacy of a Radical Industrialist and his Quest for Authentic Change
Ray C. Anderson’s Mid-Course Correction, originally published 20 years ago, became the definitive case study for sustainable business. Now fully updated and expanded for the twenty-first century, Mid-Course Correction Revisited includes new chapters penned by Anderson’s grandson, John A. Lanier. The following is an excerpt from Mid-Course Correction Revisited by Ray Anderson & John Lanier.…
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A New Culture in Health Care
In the face of the American healthcare crisis, some companies have acknowledged the system’s effect on employee productivity and made healthcare reformation a priority. Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway built a joint health care venture to re-examine insurance benefits, access to primary care, and pharmaceutical costs. Finding the right person to take the lead…
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Vegan Apple Honey Cake
Oy Vey Vegan explores the plant-based food world with a concentration in Mediterranean and Jewish Eastern European flavor influences. Estee Raviv creates a variety of options from breakfast to dinner to snacks and desserts that disprove the common thought of vegan food being bland. This cookbook is for everyone—from beginners to master chefs to curious…
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Happy Pigs Really Do Taste Better
For ten years Alice Percy operated a commercial hog operation on her farm in Whitefield, Maine, becoming the largest certified hog producer in the state. Percy has mentored hog farming startups through the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), and helped to develop the association’s Raising Organic Pigs fact sheet. She has presented workshops…
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