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Winter squash is actually grown from late summer through December and has a satisfying flavor, luscious texture and extensive shelf life. For locavores, who support sustainable agriculture by eating seasonal foods grown within a 100-mile radius, this versatile vegetable has a lot to offer.

Acorn squash is prized for its sweet golden flesh and unique ribbed shell, which makes attractive scalloped bowls when halved and a handy case for savory stuffing.

Acorn squash is a very good source of fiber, vitamin C, vitamin B6, as well as manganese, thiamin and potassium. One cup of cooked acorn squash has 115 calories 9 grams of fiber and 895 mg of potassium.

Potassium is an essential mineral that is integral to the functioning of all living cells. Important to maintaining electrolyte balance and the proper function of the muscles, brain and nervous system, adequate intake of potassium also helps to reduce the risk of hypertension and stroke. ¹

A medium banana or a cup of cubed melon contains about 500 mg of potassium and with almost 900 mg of this all-important mineral this nut-shaped squash is a veritable ‘rock star.’

Acorn squash is also an excellent source of vitamin A, in the form of beta-carotene, an antioxidant with many health benefits.  Studies have shown that the anti-inflammatory properties associated with beta-carotene may help reduce the severity of conditions such as osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and asthma, all of which involve inflammation. ^{2 3}

Acorn squash is a good source of folate, a water-soluble B vitamin that occurs naturally in food, (folic acid is the synthetic form found in supplements.) Folate may help prevent certain birth defects⁴ and has been shown to help protect colon cells from the effects of cancer-causing chemicals. Diets high in folate are associated with a significantly reduced risk of colon cancer.^{5 6}

Acorn Squash is nutrient dense and certainly full of health benefits but its also really delicious.

Choose firm, smooth-skinned dark green acorn squash with some yellow-orange coloring that feels heavy for its size. Acorn squash is easy to prepare.  Simply cut in half, scoop out the seeds bake for an hour face down in a shallow baking pan in an inch of water.

Acorn squash with cranberry stuffing is a delightful dish with an elegant presentation. The moist and flavorful cranberry-studded filling comes together quickly while the squash bakes and offers complimentary texture and color to a dish lovely enough for a dinner party.

Marie Oser is a best-selling author, writer/producer and host of VegTV. Follow Marie on Twitter: http://twitter.com/vegtv.

Acorn squash with cranberry stuffing

From More Soy Cooking, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., © Marie Oser 2000

Makes 4 servings

• 2 medium acorn squash
• 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup sliced scallions
• 1 cup coarsely chopped carrots
• 1 8-ounce package soy ground beef alternative
• 1 medium Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced
• 3 tablespoons lime juice
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup Mirin (Japanese rice wine or you can use sherry)
• Paprika for garnish

Preheat oven to 375°. Cut squash in half crosswise. Scoop out seeds and place cut-side down in 9" by 13" baking pan in one" of water. Bake for one hour. Discard water and place squash in pan, cut-side up, and set aside.

In a 10" frying pan, heat oil and crushed pepper over medium-high heat. Add garlic, scallions, and carrots. Cook for 3 minutes, add soy alternative, and cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Drizzle diced apple with lime juice and add to the pan with cranberries and Mirin. Lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Divide the filing among the four squash halves. Sprinkle with paprika. Cover with foil and bake 15 minutes or until heated through.

Serve with whole-berry cranberry sauce.

Acorn squash with cranberry stuffing:
Nutrition analysis per serving - One half squash with stuffing
Calories 302, protein 15g, carbohyrates 57g, fiber 10g, fat 2g, cholesterol 0.0mg, calcium 102mg, sodium 32mg.

Sources:

1. A. Ascherio, E. B. Rimm, M. A. Hernán, E. L. Giovannucci, I. Kawachi, M. J. Stampfer, and W. C. Willett Intake of Potassium, Magnesium, Calcium, and Fiber and Risk of Stroke Among US Men Circulation 98: 1198-1204
2. Knekt P, Heliövaara M, Aho K, Alfthan G, Marniemi J, Aromaa A. Serum selenium, serum alpha-tocopherol, and the risk of rheumatoid arthritis. Epidemiology. 2000 Jul;11(4):402-5.
3. Patel S, Murray CS, Woodcock A, Simpson A, Custovic A
   Dietary antioxidant intake, allergic sensitization and allergic diseases in young children. Journal of Asthma; Allergy 2009 Oct 1.
4. Bower C, Stanley FJ, Nicol DJ. Maternal folate status and the risk for neural tube defects. The role of dietary folate. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1993;678:146-55 1993.
5. Terry P, Jain M, Miller AB et al. Dietary intake of folic acid and colorectal cancer risk in a cohort of women. Int J Cancer 2002 Feb 20;97(6):864-7 2002.
6. Mason JB, Levesque T. Folate: effects on carcinogenesis and the potential for cancer chemoprevention. Oncology (Huntingt) 1996;10(11): 1727-1743 1996.

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A new washing machine design uses 90 percent less water and reduces utility bills by 30 percent by cleaning clothes with tiny plastic beads.

The machine by UK company Xeros Ltd uses 3mm-long nylon beads that can get into all crevices and folds of clothing and absorb stains and dirt.  Stephen Burkinshaw, a polymer chemist at Leeds University, discovered that nylon beads at 100 percent humidity could attract stains away from clothing and into the center of the beads, preventing deposition back onto the clothes.

The machine uses a small amount of water to dampen the clothes and to reach the right humidity level, then the drum is flooded with the beads.  When the cycle is complete the beads drain away with the water to be reused hundreds of times.

I'm sure you've already started questioning what happens to these plastic beads once they're done scrubbing clothes.  The company wants to eventually create a closed loop where the saturated beads can be refreshed and reused in the machines, but for the time being they will be collected and recycled.

Xeros says that if all of the U.S. used these machines instead of regular washing machines, it would save 1.2 billion tonnes of water per year and the CO2 emissions saved would equal taking 5 million cars off the road.  The machine would also eliminate the need to dry clean many delicates, another environmental benefit.  The Xeros machine is expected to be available by the end of next year.

via Guardian

 

Usually when you read about concentrated solar power, it's referring to some large project destined for the Mojave Desert, but Syracuse's Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems (SyracuseCoE) has set out to prove that this technology can be used in smaller, colder settings.

SyracuseCoE in Syracuse, NY is itself a LEED-platinum-certified, 55,000 square-foot building that serves as a testing ground for renewable energy and efficiency technologies.  The south wall of the building is home to a concentrated solar facade that, at first glance, resembles the frosted cube walls found in doctors' office waiting rooms.

This 8-foot by 8-foot facade houses several clear pyramid lenses that track the sun and concentrate the rays onto high-efficiency PV cells.  Extra energy not converted to electricity is used for heating water and radiant heat in the building.  And because it's made up of clear panels, it also adds natural lighting indoors.  You can watch a video of the system at work here.

Using a concentrated solar power system in an architectural application is a new concept, so the center will be monitoring and reporting on its performance.

The facade was designed by the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology and the company HeliOptix is licensed to market it.

via Jetson Green

Conventional gasoline engines are terribly inefficient things. Only 13% of the energy of the fuel actually moves the car. 62% is lost in the engine as waste heat, and driveline losses, accessories, and idling also reduce the efficiency.

Transonic Combustion is planning to build automobile engines with improved efficiency obtained through heating and pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion chamber. "This puts it into a super-critical state that allows for very fast and clean combustion, which in turn decreases the amount of fuel needed to propel a vehicle," according to MIT Technology Review. A transonic test vehicle achieved 64 MPG in highway driving, compared to a 48 MPG hybrid Prius, and running at a steady cruising speed of 50 mph, the test vehicle achieved 98 MPG.

Like diesel and HCCI, the Transonic Combustion technology operates without needing a spark plug. Timing software also further enhances the operating efficiency of the system. Transonic injection is being developed for use with gasoline engines at present, but will also be compatible with advanced low carbon footprint bio-fuels in the future. Transonic expects its system will be comparable in cost to other current high-end fuel injection systems.

Because of the higher operating pressure, the longevity and durability of the engine will be important considerations the company will need to address. The company plans to build its production facility in 2013 and expects to be building engines for production vehicles in 2014.

via: Inhabitat

Beginning today, Google has begun providing bicycle directions for its Google Maps service with directions for cyclists in 150 cities in the United States. Google already incorporates public-transit and walking directions in addition to automobile driving directions, and the bicycling community has been calling for Google to add bike routes for some time.

The routing suggested for cyclists is designed to avoid freeways and high-traffic areas, and to select gentler terrain by routing around hills. To make it even more useful for riders on the go, Google expects to have a mobile version available in the near future, as well.

Photo via Andrew Evans of the National Geographic.

King Penguins are notorious for their prim, tuxedoed appearance - but a recently discovered all-black penguin seems unafraid to defy convention. In what has been described as a "one in a zillion kind of mutation," biologists say that the animal has lost control of its pigmentation, an occurrence that is extremely rare. Other than the penguin's monochromatic outfit, the animal appears to be perfectly healthy - and then some. "Look at the size of those legs," said one scientist, "It's an absolute monster."

The under-dressed penguin was photographed by Andrew Evans of National Geographic on the island of South Georgia near Antarctica. As the picture circulated, some biologists were taken aback - including Dr. Allan Baker of the University of Toronto. His first response was disbelief:

Wow. That looks so bizarre I can't even believe it. Wow.

While multicolored birds will often show some variation, Dr. Baker explains that what makes this all-black King Penguin so rare is that the bird's melanin deposits have occurred where they are typically not present - enough so that no light feathers even checker the bird's normally white chest.

Andrew Evans:

Melanism is merely the dark pigmentation of skin, fur - or in this case, feathers. The unique trait derives from increased melanin in the body. Genes may play a role, but so might other factors. While melanism is common in many different animal species (e.g., Washington D.C. is famous for its melanistic squirrels), the trait is extremely rare in penguins. All-black penguins are so rare there is practically no research on the subject - biologists guess that perhaps one in every quarter million of penguins shows evidence of at least partial melanism, whereas the penguin we saw appears to be almost entirely (if not entirely) melanistic.

Whether or not the all-black look catches on in the penguin fashion world, it's nice to see someone dressing-down for once.

Stephen Messenger is a correspondent at TreeHugger, where this post originally appeared.

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Fourteen years ago, I was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).  Doctors told me that there was nothing they could do to help ease my discomfort and pain, except that I should watch my diet, reduce stress, and get lots of exercise.

I attempted numerous alternative therapies and cut out meats, fermented foods, hot and spicy foods, and dairy products.  However, it took three years ago before someone recommended that I eliminate wheat from my diet.  Until this time, it had never occurred to me that wheat, or gluten, could be the source of my ailments.

I have been wheat-free for over ten years now and gluten-free for about seven.  My “IBS” is all but gone, and I lead a very healthy and normal life.  My story isn’t uncommon; in fact, it has become increasingly common for people who suffer from a broad range of symptoms from lethargy to liver disease.

The over-consumption of wheat and gluten in our modern-day North American diet is seen to be a thread in many illnesses.  Fortunately for us, as Celiac disease and gluten intolerance become more common, so does the availability of gluten-free products.

I know how difficult it can be to commit to a gluten-free lifestyle change. Our relationship with food changes and so do our social interactions.  It can be more difficult to dine out or eat with friends and it takes more conscious menu planning.  However, the positive impacts of going gluten-free on our health and on the planet can be astounding.

By going gluten-free, you are inherently eliminating many processed foods from your diet and introducing a variety of whole foods.  By switching from wheat flour to flour made from almonds, quinoa, or buckwheat (among others) you enhance your intake of nutrients and minerals while reducing your carbon footprint. A win-win situation if I do say so myself!

So for those of you who are new to being gluten-free, fear not!  The following resources will help you get the information and support you need, as well as show you a few of my favourite products that I am sure you’ll be happy with.

Resources:
www.celiac.com
www.glutenfreemall.com
www.americanceliac.org
www.celiac.ca
http://glutenfreenetwork.com

Recipes:
http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/
http://www.julesglutenfree.com/
http://www.elanaspantry.com/

Gluten-free products I love:
Kinnikinnick
Gluten-Free Pantry/Glutino
El Peto

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The Daily Green recently had the chance to interview Sue Cischke by phone from her office in Dearborn, Mich. The 54-year-old Vice President for Sustainability, Environment, and Safety Engineering is, according to her employer, Ford, the highest ranking woman in the automotive industry.

You are Ford's VP for Sustainability, Environment, and Safety Engineering, and you've been leading the company's environmental efforts since 2001.

In that position, you are the top female boss in the automobile industry - why do you think there aren't more women in your position?

It's a bigger question about women in the auto industry in general. I've been in the industry for 34 years. It's kind of scary to say that but in May it will be 34 years, so I've been through a lot of different ups and downs with the industry in general, but I've had a chance to see the broad industry.

In this position you need people with technical skills and there are not usually a lot of women with engineering backgrounds, and that's probably one reason. Which is not to say you can't do this without that kind of emphasis, but my problem solving in engineering and other things has helped...

Are there any lessons you have for young women starting out in business?

That really makes me feel old. I think it's as true in automotive as anywhere else, you see more women involved in all aspects of all companies. For us in the automotive industry, 84% of the buying decisions on automobiles are influenced by women, so it makes sense to have women involved in all aspects of designing the car.

Things are a lot different from when I entered the workforce. It's still not a huge percent of women selecting engineering as a profession, and specifically automotive. That's just the way things are and we're continuing to have an open culture to encourage everybody to participate at all levels.

You'd encourage men as well as women to take on technical jobs and technical training and background... We have a professional women's network here at Ford that I'm a champion for and it gives us a chance to network...

Normally, I'd be most interested in talking to you about sustainability and the environment first, but I'm most curious right now about what everyone is most curious about: Can we trust our hybrid cars? Specifically can we trust the brakes and the accelerators, given that we've seen problems with the industry leader in the category, the Prius?

I saw at least one complaint in the NHTSA database about braking problems with the 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid. And I've heard of reports about unintended acceleration in the Ford F150 pickup. Is Ford concerned about any of its models?

No, not at all. We have a very robust process within Ford that we do monitor and investigate issues that come to us. The issue on the Fusion was only one complaint... In our system on the Hybrid (Fusion, pictured; photo by Ford), on some rare situations where there's a brake fail situation, there would be a brake light and chime... The chime and light will indicate that there's a change in the brake feel. If the regenerative braking, there's software in the vehicle that says if there's any doubt on how effectively the regenerative braking system - default to hydraulic braking system. It should be seamless, but the pedal travel feels a little different.

The programming we did when you should look to this and when you should not, it was way too sensitive. We went back and tuned that up so that it would be very rare that it would ever have to do that. When you would do that and you have different pedal feel, you would get a chime and a light to alert the driver that it feels differently... We did a customer satisfaction campaign... For all intents and purposes they all get a letter mailed to their home as if there's a safety recall, but there aren't recall consequences with it.

In this case we describe to the customer that this is available to them, no charge. That's why we use that method. The customer will get the notification in the mail just like any other campaign.

Do you think the problems at Toyota coupled with the bailouts of GM and Chrysler, where you started your career, have given Ford a new opening in the marketplace?

Ford has got a good plan that we have in place, and it helps for us to have a successful year last year and we have a lot of optimism this year if the economy continues to improve. We didn't have to take the government money, and we're very proud of the fact that we've been able to do this on our own. We do have a different balance sheet to contend with. They have more debt to wipe out but we didn't go through the bankruptcy...

You've got several cars and SUVs that get better than 30 mpg, but many that do not. What are we going to see happening to your fleet as the higher CAFE standards kick-in, requiring a fleetwide average of 35.5 mpg by 2016?

We do have a plan about how we are going to approach that. We've been saying all along that it will be some segmentation shifting. We will have the Fiesta. We had the Focus. This year will be the first launch of the new Focus. (Pictured; photo by Jim Motavalli.) That will be a popular vehicle with high fuel efficiency.

All the vehicles we're introducing will be at the top of their category for fuel efficiency. Ninety percent of our offerings by 2013 will have EcoBoost engines as an option. That is one area where we direct injection and turbocharge so we boost for power and downsize for fuel efficiency so we're getting up to 20% improvement on the small engine for the large engine that people would have been buying.

(Other improvements, she said, would be more electric power-assistance systems, improved aerodynamics, and a "weight loss reduction" of between 250 and 750 pounds on a typical vehicle.)

You don't just do one big thing, but you do a lot of little things. We do have a plan that will get us to the numbers in 2016 and beyond.

We expect a new electric car from Ford, based on the Focus. When we will see this, how many, and what will it cost?

We already announced that Transit Connect is a battery electric vehicle to be produced this year. Next year, the 2011 battery electric Focus - an all-electric vehicle off the Focus platform. The following year we'll have a brand new hybrid and a plug-in hybrid and a C-sized Focus-sized platform. We have four new electric vehicles, 2 battery electric and one plug-in on the Focus C-sized platform.

Do you believe global warming requires federal legislation to address?

We've been very strong saying we need an energy policy for the company. We're supporting a cap-and-trade system that would be economy wide. We recognize there are a lot of challenges to bring that together... We're already the most carbon-constrained industry... We have fuel economy tied to carbon emissions. EPA and NHTSA will finalize rule in March. I can say we're probably further ahead than any other sector. We need the others to step up.

We are probably the most expensive sector when it comes to controlling carbon. Three hundred to five hundred dollars per ton of CO₂ is the cost of putting an electric vehicle on the road. Improvements on electric generation and other sectors is five to ten dollars a ton. At some point in time, someone has to want these vehicles and with the price of fuel so low it's hard to justify someone paying extra for these vehicles. There's still a mismatch. The environment doesn't care where the CO₂ reductions come from. The economy does.

What's the single most important thing that you think needs to happen to address global warming?

I think we need an energy policy. We need to understand where our energy's coming from long-term... When I look at Brazil, they made a conscious effort to reduce their dependency on oil with sugarcane-based ethanol. It took them years to stick with the course. They established the right subsidies and gradually got to a point where people are consciously making a choice about whether to use gasoline or ethanol...

We tend to get in and get out, and no one really knows where to put their investments. Where do venture capitalists put their money? Today we're subsidizing oil companies based on blending gasoline to 10% ethanol. Where is that money really going? We have to have policies that encourage conservation and a long-range plan about where we are going to get our energy from. (Photo: Don Farrall / Getty Images.)

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Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

From a public relations point of view, this one is for the record books. Just after Toyota staged a lavish webcast to try and put sudden acceleration behind it, a Prius ran wild to 90 mph on a California highway, resulting in sensational coverage on every website, TV station and newspaper in America.

But the real story was a bit more subtle: The 2008 Prius driven by hapless motorist James Sikes had not been "fixed" by Toyota (he claims he was turned away from his dealership) but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) "defects and recalls" database has recorded more than 60 sudden acceleration incidents in cars that were fixed.

Here are a few, just involving 2010 Camrys:

"I own a 2010 Camry. I just had the recall done last week. Since the work has been done, I have had nothing but problems with the idle and the engine. Before the recall was done, I never had a problem. Something needs to be done before more people are killed."

"My vehicle has been recalled and 'repaired' - gas pedal, floor mat, brake override system. Prior to the recall, the gas pedal was sluggish and I would experience mini, sudden accelerations. There has been no improvement since the repairs (done March 2). In fact, it appears to have become more frequent. The sudden accelerations are not dramatic and braking does take care of the problem."

"While parking my 2010 Camry at the grocery store, I slowly turned into the parking space and my car suddenly accelerated, jumping the curb and hitting a cement surrounded light pole ... I was not noticeably injured. The car had just had the replacement pedal installed on March 2, 2010 as ordered by the recall."

And here are a few involving the 2010 Prius, which has a separate acceleration problem connected with braking over broken pavement:

"Since I purchased the car in September of 2009, the brakes fail when I am braking and hit a bump, pothole or uneven road surface. The brakes fail for a second or two, and sometimes the car lurches forward ... On March 6, 2010 I had the recall software for the 2010 Prius done in the service department at the Mike Calvert Toyota dealership in Houston, Texas. On the way home, I experienced the brake failure again when I was braking and drove over a small pothole."

"I visited my local dealership for repair of the brake recall of the 2010 Prius in early February. I do not believe that this repair has fixed the problem. A few days after the fix, my car seemed to accelerate as I was braking and happened to be going over a pothole."

I'm aware there is such a thing as the power of suggestion, and the fact that runaway Toyotas are blanketing the news may make some people see problems where they don't necessarily exist. After Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast in the 1930s, many people reported seeing his Martians or Venusians or whatever they were.

John Hanson, a Toyota spokesman, said to me, "It makes no difference if the car has been repaired or not: If there has been an incident reported, we have to investigate and see what caused it. Out of more than a million cars repaired in the recall, there have been a very small number of complaints, which we are investigating. The number is not necessarily significant."

Hanson told me, as did another spokesman, Mike Michels, during the Toyota webcast yesterday, "We have a couple of cases of errors being made in the installation of the remedy. It's a handful of cases."

Toyota, with its recalls, apologies and reassuring commercials, keeps trying to put sudden acceleration behind it, but the genie refuses to stay in the bottle. The Christian Science Monitor got to the heart of the issue when it said, "[I]n playing defense, Toyota is not addressing owners' and buyers' core concern: Is my car safe?"

ABC-TV investigative reporter Brian Ross, whose reporting sparked the Toyota webcast, told me via email today, "I'm on vacation this week but it seems there are still many open [questions] about Toyota and its insistence of no electrical or computer problems."

David Gilbert, the Southern Illinois University professor who ignited the most recent round of bad publicity by testifying before Congress that he had found an electronic glitch in Toyota's pedal systems, informed me via email that he will meet next week with Toyota's hired consulting company, Exponent. "I am committed to working with industry, government and other interested[ed] parties and hope to provide more conclusive opinions and input as more research and analysis is completed," he said.

Here's Bloomberg News in a video report on the latest events:

 

But Gilbert's work - the subject of Toyota's webcast - is something of a diversion at this point. Toyota demonstrated fairly definitively that a wiring fault similar to the one he used to make cars run away is very unlikely to occur in the real world. But Gilbert was trying to prove something else entirely. As Eric Evarts noted on the Consumer Reports blog, "In his Congressional testimony, Gilbert says this shows Toyota's system is not infallible. His primary conclusion is that his test should have triggered an error code. In his report, he does not claim his procedure explains how unintended acceleration occurs in the real world."

The real question now: Is there a "ghost in the machine" - a software problem - that is causing this intractable problem? "There isn't a ghost issue out there," Toyota's Kristen Tabar said during the webcast yesterday, and the company continues to express confidence in its electronic systems.

Hanson also says there's no electronic gremlin, or at least Toyota hasn't found one. "We have investigated this many times, and it is also gone over in the R&D process," he said. "We have yet to find any evidence of a software issue, or the 'ghost in the machine' that people are trying to find. If there was one, it would have occurred many, many times. Our computers compare notes with each other in milliseconds, and there are layers of fail-safe that would make it pretty darn tough for anything like that to happen." But Hanson also said that engineers "never say never," and that both Toyota and Exponent are continuing their probes.

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Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc