EarthTalk: Alternatives to dairy products a big business

Dear EarthTalk:

My body doesn't tolerate cheese well. Are there dairy-free cheeses that will be easier on my constitution and better for the environment, too?

Steve Sullivan

With some 30 to 50 million Americans suffering from various degrees of lactose intolerance, and an estimated three million of us now eating animal-free (vegan) diets for humane, environmental and/or health reasons, the production of alternatives to dairy products has started to become big business.

But while substitutes for milks and ice creams abound, mostly soy- or rice-based blends that have come a long way since they first appeared on grocery shelves, finding satisfactory alternatives to the many varieties of cheese can be a challenge. But the choices are expanding rapidly.

The first place to look might just be your regular supermarket's produce section - that's often where you'll find Galaxy Foods' Veggie line of non-dairy cheeses. After all, they are made from soy, a crop. Galaxy's offerings come shredded, grated, in slices and in hunks. Fans swear they taste just like the real thing. And they are all excellent sources of calcium without cholesterol, saturated/trans-fats or lactose.

Galaxy also offers cheeses made from rice. And while some of both the Rice Brand and Veggie line contain small amounts of cultured milk salt, dried skim milk protein and trace amounts of lactose, Galaxy also make two purely vegan varieties, usually found in the dairy sections of grocery or health food stores.

A few other popular brands made with rice include Rice Slices and Lifetime Low Fat Jalapeno Jack Rice Cheese. Check the shelves of your local organic or natural food market to find one or more to sample.

Another leading producer of dairy-free cheeses is Scotland's Bute Island Foods. The company began making its own vegan hard cheese alternatives (sold under the Sheese brand name) in 1988, and has since expanded into cream cheese alternatives (Creamy Sheese) as well. From pizzas to sauces to sandwiches to spreads, Bute Island has vegan and lactose-intolerant cheese lovers covered.

Some other soy-based choices that get good reviews include Good Slice Cheddar Style Cheese Alternative (great for sandwiches), vegan-friendly Tofutti Soy Cheese Slices, Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet (pizza, anyone?), and Teese (it melts with the best of them), among others.

Do-it-yourselfers might want to experiment with making their own non-dairy cheese using ingredients such as tofu and yeast. A quick Web search will yield many recipes for making cheese and for using non-dairy cheeses in favorite dishes. Many of the best are collected in Joanne Stepaniak's The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, available in some bookstores as well as from Amazon.com and other online vendors.

With so many good choices, not to mention recipes for home-cooked varieties, many a vegetarian may just make the leap into full-fledged vegan eating. And existing vegans can rejoice: French Onion Soup (dairy-free, of course) is back on the menu.

Contacts: Galaxy Foods, www.galaxyfoods.com; Bute Island Foods, www.buteisland.com; Follow Your Heart, www.followyourheart.com.

Dear EarthTalk:

Can those energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs that are popular now cause headaches because of the flickering they do?

I converted my whole house over last fall and both my kids were complaining of headaches on and off.

Sandy

With a switch to energy-efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs already in full swing in the U.S. and elsewhere - Australia has banned incandescents, Britain will soon, and the U.S. begins a phase-out of incandescents in 2012 - more and more complaints have arisen about the new bulbs causing headaches.

Many experts say that the issue is being overblown, however, that there is no scientific evidence that the bulbs cause headaches and that a kind of hysteria has grown out of a small number of anecdotal reports.

Industry experts acknowledge that day-to-day exposure to older, magnetically ballasted long tube fluorescent bulbs found mostly in industrial and institutional settings could cause headaches due to their noticeable flicker rate. The human brain can detect the 60 cycles per second such older bulbs need to refresh themselves to keep putting out light.

However, modern, electronically ballasted CFLs refresh themselves at between 10,000 and 40,000 cycles per second, rates too fast for the human eye or brain to detect. "As far as I'm aware there is no association between headaches and the use of compact fluorescent lamps," says Phil Scarbro of Energy Federation Incorporated (EFI), a leading distributor of energy efficiency-related products - including many CFLs.

But Dr. Magda Havas, with environmental and resource studies at Canada's Trent University, says that some CFLs emit radio frequency radiation that can cause fatigue, dizziness, ringing in the ears, eyestrain, even migraines. You can test to see if CFLs in your home give off such radiation, she says, by putting a portable AM radio near one that's on and listening for extra static the closer you get. She says that such electromagnetic interference should also be of concern to people using cell phones and wireless computers.

Sometimes headaches are due to eyestrain from inadequate lighting. When replacing an incandescent bulb with a CFL, pay attention to the lumens, which indicate the amount of light a bulb gives out (watts measure the energy use of a bulb, not the light generated). A 40-watt incandescent bulb can be replaced by an 11-14 watt CFL because the lumen ouput is approximately the same (490); a 100-watt incandescent can be replaced by a 26 or 29 watt CFL, both providing about 1,750 lumens. If you're still skeptical, replace a 40-watt incandescent with a 60-watt equivalent 15-19 watt CFL, which will boost lumens to 900.

Another consideration is color temperature (measured in degrees "Kelvin"). CFLs rated at 2,700 Kelvin give off light in the more pleasing red/yellow end of the color spectrum, closer to that of most incandescents. Bulbs rated at 5,000 Kelvin and above (usually older ones) give off a less pleasing white/blue light.

The Environmental Defense Web site provides a handy chart comparing the watts and lumens of incandescents versus CFLs, along with further discussion about color temperature.

Contacts: EFI, www.efi.org; Environmental Defense, www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagid=630.

Dear EarthTalk:

What's going on in the music industry with all the CDs and plastic CD holders undoubtedly generating a lot of plastic waste?

John S.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, CDs and DVDs are typically manufactured by combining various mined metals (aluminum, gold, silver and nickel) with petroleum-derived plastics, lacquers and dyes. Given what complicated beasts CDs and DVDs are - products with thin layers of different materials mixed together are nearly impossible to recycle - most municipal recycling program won't accept them, leaving consumers to fend for themselves in figuring out how to dispose of them. As a result, most discarded discs end up in the trash.

These difficult-to-recycle materials can pollute groundwater and, in turn, contribute to a whole host of human health problems. But the low cost of producing such top-selling consumer items means that replacing them with something greener is not likely anytime soon.

Research has shown that polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable plastic-substitute derived from corn and other agricultural wastes, could replace plastic polycarbonate as a disc's main substrate, but the present high cost of using such a material makes it unlikely to catch on any time soon with those paying to produce mass volumes of CDs and DVDs.

As for jewel cases, most are made out of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), an inexpensive petrochemical-based plastic that is notoriously difficult to recycle and has been linked to elevated cancer rates among workers and neighbors where it's manufactured. Furthermore, when PVC is thrown in with regular recyclables it can contaminate entire batches, ruin equipment and cause human health problems. While cardboard and paper jewel cases may be all the rage among a few record labels - Warner Music Group's U.S. division, for example, has been using 30 percent post-recycled paper for the packaging in all of its CDs and DVDs since 2005 - the high cost and low durability of such alternatives have kept them largely out of the mainstream.

So what's a conscientious consumer to do? Those willing to pay a small processing fee can send old CDs and DVDs to one of a handful of private companies (such as Washington-based GreenDisk) set up to recycle them into high-quality plastics used in auto parts, office equipment, alarm panels, street lights, electrical cable insulation, jewel cases and other specialized items.

A shift in consumer preferences already under way may be just the thing that will make everyone's personal collections of music and movies greener. Consumers are already able to download some six million individual digital songs via the 500 or so legal online music services now up and running on the Internet. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, digital sales now account for some 30 percent of all U.S. music sales and 15 percent globally. And most consumer analysts expect these percentages to grow steadily in the coming years, which is good news for the environment.

Contacts: EPA's "Lifecycle of a CD or DVD," www.epa.gov/osw/students/finalposter.pdf; GreenDisk, www.greendisk.com; International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, www.ifpi.org.

Dear EarthTalk:

What are the major environmental issues that our next president, be it Obama or McCain, will have to confront?

Melinda Barnes

Global warming is unquestionably the most pressing environmental issue facing whomever ends up in the White House in January 2009. Not only does climate change impact - and in most cases exacerbate - other environmental problems, it has even wider implications for the economy and society at large. Luckily for all of us, both Barack Obama and John McCain are committed to tackling climate change, although their proposed approaches differ in significant ways.

The non-profit League of Conservation Voters (LCV), America's leading voice for environmental advocacy within electoral politics, would prefer to see Obama elected president given his environmental track record and plans for the future. While both candidates favor instituting a mandatory "cap-and-trade" program (whereby the federal government allows polluters to trade for the right to emit a reduced overall amount of greenhouse gases), Obama is for more strident cuts. He would like to see the U.S. reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by some 80 percent by 2050, while McCain supports only cutting back by 65 percent. Both candidates have authored legislation in the Senate designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, although no such bills have come close to passing.

Even though McCain is by far the most forward-thinking of the original Republican presidential contenders on global warming and the need to take action, LCV still gives him poor marks, only a 24 rating (out of 100) lifetime and zero for 2007. LCV says that McCain missed all 15 critical environmental votes last year and that he "repeatedly clings to outdated policies and flip-flops on core environmental issues." By comparison, Obama earned a score of 67 in 2007, because he missed four votes due to campaigning (his 2006 score was 100) and has a lifetime LCV rating of 86.

One area where environmentalists take issue with McCain is his support for expanding the role of nuclear power in cutting fossil fuel use. Obama would rather bolster alternative energy sources like wind and solar power that do not have the nasty side effect of radioactive waste in need of storage and disposal. (McCain also supports developing renewables, but not to the extent that Obama is willing to commit).

Some of the other hot button environmental issues sure to occupy the next president's time include: how to best protect the nation's water resources and wetlands; whether to allow more drilling for oil and natural gas both offshore and within Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; whether to reinstate the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, a Clinton-era law (subsequently overturned by the Bush administration) calling for protection of some 58 million acres of public land from logging; how to meet U.S. commitments on existing environmental laws in international trade agreements and whether to bring back the so-called "polluter pays" part of the government's "Superfund" toxic waste clean-up program.

While Obama is clearly the greener candidate on most of these issues, the fact that McCain even takes them seriously - and is committed to any greenhouse gas reductions whatsoever - is a plus for environmental advocates exasperated by eight years of green naysaying by the Bush administration.

Contacts: Obama '08, www.barackobama.com; McCain for President, www.johnmccain.com; League of Conservation Voters, www.lcv.org.

Got an environmental question? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it to www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek,  or e-mail earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.