Researchers at New Mexico State University are trying to figure out whether simple modifications to shopping carts could translate into profound modifications to consumers’ diets. (NMSU photo by Darren Phillips)

Could better shopping carts help us make better decisions about what we eat? Researchers at New Mexico State University are studying whether simple tweaks to shopping carts could profoundly change the way we eat. In one trial, Collin Payne, an assistant professor in marketing at NMSU’s College of Business, and his research team placed a yellow line across the width of shopping carts with a sign designating one side of the cart for fruits and vegetables and the other for everything else.

“We showed a 102 percent increase in people buying fruits and vegetables, without showing a decrease in supermarket profitability,” he said. “Allowing retailers such as supermarkets to maintain their profits is important in achieving buy-in for these kinds of tools. Whether the profits of food manufacturers are affected remains to be seen.”

“It would be a sad day if companies ever stopped making candy bars, but consumers need better tools,” Payne said. “There’s been such a dramatic decrease in the consumption of fruits and vegetables over the past few decades, which corresponds to an increase in certain cancers, diabetes and other ailments.”

If we are what we eat, we’re also what we buy. Even within one broad event- such as ’shopping for food’- there are countless small decisions. Type of food? Brand of food? Organic from New Zealand vs. non-organic from just around the corner? Payne’s research may help us to make those decisions more thoughtfully. One degree…changes everything.

[Source: NMSU via Dan's Plan]

When we launched Love Tomorrow Today, the idea was to either create or find ‘things’ that would make it easier for people to live better. It’s true, life does come at you fast, and ’living well’ relies on a series of ‘good choices’ made quickly. What we eat, what we buy, how we get where we’re going…,these are decisions we make everyday, and, frankly, sometimes we choose the path of least resistance. Take, for instance, the choice to ride a bicycle. You don’t have to try hard to find a reason to drive instead of ride. Time- “I’d like to ride, but my car will get me there faster.” Weather- “it’s sunny now, but what if it rains later.” Business- “I probably should make a phone call or two.” Space- “where am I going to store the bike?” At least for that last excuse, Graham Hill has a simple solution- his flat-folding ThinBike that can fit into just about any slim space.

Let’s face it, whether you live in a studio apartment in Brooklyn or a house with a garage in suburban Vermont, finding a place to store your bike is a pain. As consumers, we tend to collect stuff, and however much space we have to fill, we do. The ThinBike was built with “the space dilemma” in mind. Working with Schindelauer, Graham- who is the founder of TreeHugger- created the custom bike that will fit into the tightest of spaces. With just a simple twist the handles lock to the side when not being used, and the bike’s pedals fold down to avoid any pant snags. In place of a greasy chain, Hill and co. went with a carbon belt drive. The ThinBike weighs 18 lbs, so “it’s just so heavy and unweildy” is no longer an excuse either.

Happy trails.

[Source: Treehugger via Inhabitat]

Colorado-based Green Garage specializes in “green-tuning” cars, finding ways to make cars run cleaner, cheaper and greener. Technicians at the full-service garage, nicknamed ‘carhuggers,’ offer a 53-Point Systems inspection that identifies ways to maximize engine efficiency, they use auto parts that help customers save money by improving MPG and recommend more than 60 sustainable car-related products, “chosen for their superior performance at solid waste reduction, CO2 emission, toxicity, water conservation, use of natural resources and social impact.”

Since converting your car to run on bio-diesel or turning it into a completely electric car (see our post on a 14 year old who turned his grandfather’s 1972 VW Beetle into an all-electric car) might be a few degrees of change more than you can afford right now, “green-tuning” might be your best option. In fact, experts tend to agree that anything you can do to make your used car more efficient is actually greener than throwing down for that new Prius. You’d need to drive that Prius more than 100,000 miles before the environmental impact of manufacturing a new (albeit greener) car is offset.

Green Garage, and places like it, are helping customers make those critical one degree changes. And, as they suggest, that should help increase your smiles per gallon.

Website: www.greengarage.com

We don’t often repost entire articles, but after we read Nature’s series ‘Can Science Feed The World,’ we’re doing just that. As the science mag explains, “more than one billion people go hungry today, and the vast majority of them are in low-income countries. Increasing yield sustainably — using less water, fertilizers and pesticides — is going to be a crucial part of the solution.” In the series- highly recommended reading- Nature asks what role science has to play in securing food for the future.

Thanks to Dan’s Plan for bringing this series of articles to our attention. And here’s an article entitled ‘Food: The Growing Problem.’

more…

In 1967’s The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin gets cornered by a family friend and told the future is all about one word. “Are you listening?” Mr McGuire asks again. “Yes, I am,” says Benjamin. “Plastics.” An awkward pause before Benjamin asks, puzzled,  ”Just how do you mean that, sir?” It’s one of the great random movie quotes. It’s not just an iconic scene from Mike Nichols’ classic, but it serves as a time capsule before the whole world did, in fact, become dominated by plastics. On LTT, we’ve covered the enormous issue of plastic waste, like the Texas-sized swirling mass of garbage in the Pacific Ocean. But scientists in Germany may have the 21st century answer to plastics. It’s called ‘Arboform.’

Arboform is a renewable plastic with wood-like qualities, yet can be formed into any shape. This “liquid wood,” as it’s called, is derived from wood pulp-based lignin and can be mixed with a number of other materials to create a strong, non-toxic alternative to petroleum-based plastics.. When combined with resins and flax, the “bio-plastic mass” looks and feels like wood and can be used to make several products “such as furniture, toys, loudspeakers and even car interiors.”

And, with all that plastic clogging up our oceans, Arboform looks like a compelling alternative. It is totally biodegradable and its raw material lignin is available in abundance, making it an environmentally friendly material that can potentially save significant natural resources.

[Sources: ISDA, PSFK]

“Why grow homes?” famed architect Mitchell Joachim asks in a recent TED presentation. “Because we can.” In the above clip, Joachim presents his vision for sustainable, organic architecture: eco-friendly homes and villages made from plants and, uh, well…meat. These “fab tree habs” literally fit in the environment- they ARE the environment, he says. An entire village could be grown in 7-10 years, entirely renewable and capable of even reducing CO2.

“Right now America is an unremitting state of trauma,” Joachim explains, “and there’s a cause for that. We have McPeople, McCars, McHouses. As an architect I have to confront something like this.”

In our last post, LTT looked at the Bendy Bike, Kevin Scott’s new bendable bicycle that doubles as a bike lock too. It’s an innovative idea that isn’t likely to take the biking world by storm, but it’s the type of clever product that can help make the culture of cycling more accessible. It’s that culture, especially in cities like London and Boston, that is benefiting from the newest trends- bike sharing programs, newly designated bike lanes and bike cafes. London now boasts hotspots such as Rapha Cycle Club and Lock 7, and more recently, Look Mum No Hands, a cafe-bar-bike workshop that offers bike enthusiasts and commuters a one stop shop for repairs, catching a live screening of Lance Armstrong’s latest crash, hopping on the free Wi-Fi and grabbing some food and drink to recharge their (sustainable) tanks.

What’s your city doing to make the case for you to leave your car at home?

[Sources: NY Times, PSFK]

Ahhh, July 4th weekend. If you’re lucky, you avoided traffic, ate an entire watermelon, didn’t blow a finger off lighting a bottle rocket and- if you’re really lucky- didn’t have to look at your watch once. For most people, having a vague sense of the time- as in, “I think it’s roughly 11-ish”- is directly linked to feeling relaxed. Here’s an interesting design, from Andreas Dober, that manages to capture that “approximate time,” while blending a mechanical art aesthetic with a spirit of sustainability.

The Catena Wall Clock is literally upcycling. A vertical bicycle chain, attached with brass numbers, rotates in a clockwise direction. At the top of every hour, the time appears at the zenith of the rotation. As the picture shows, you’ll know when it’s “roughly 11-ish.”

The only drawback to the Catena- which, incidentally, gets its name from the Latin word for “chain”- is the price tag. This clock can be yours for a cool $2300.

[Source: Spot Cool Stuff, Unica Home]

When OK Go was planning its most recent viral video (profiled on this blog back in March), the band enlisted the help of Adam Sadowsky, president of Syyn Labs which has a reputation for merging art and technology to create interactive projects. The band knew it wanted a Rube Goldberg machine as the video’s key element. As Sadowsky explains in his TED presentation, a Rube Goldberg machine is a deliberately over-engineered machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction. It’s a fascinating look behind the scenes of one of our favorite viral videos, and, in a way, it helps to explain our interest in it: as we all strive to lead more considered lives, we navigate this line between complex issues, chain reactions and simple tasks.

The truth is, LTT actually strives for the opposite of the Rube Goldberg machine- we look to address complexities through simple, one degree solutions. But what we really love is seeing where innovation, creativity and resourcefullness all meet up for a drink.

Odwalla is no BP. Just about everything about the two companies is different. But could the oil giant learn a thing or two from the makers of Mango Tango?

If you’re a consumer of a certain age, you may remember Odwalla’s meteoric rise in the mid-1990s. With annual sales rising 30% per year, the company had quickly established a strong brand with enormous customer loyalty. That all changed in October of 1996, when health officials in Washington state informed the company that they had discovered a link between several cases of E. coli and Odwalla fresh apple juice.

By the end of the crisis, one child had died, more than 60 people had become ill, sales plummetted by 90%, and Odwalla’s stock price fell 34%. With pending lawsuits and a tarnished brand, the company seemed doomed. But, thanks to a considered and rapid response to the crisis, the company survived.

Though it’s hard to compare a relatively isolated incident of E. coli with the devastating Deep Horizon oil spill, it’s not hard to draw a parallel between events that threatened to bring down two companies and compare the response to each. The re-emergence of Odwalla, which boasts initiatives like its current “Plant A Tree Program,” is succeeding in ways BP’s can’t possibly.

As Mallen Baker explains in his Corporate Social Responsibility case study of Odwalla’s crisis management, “Odwalla acted immediately. Although at the point where they were first notified the link was uncertain, Odwalla’s CEO Stephen Williamson ordered a complete recall of all products containing apple or carrot juice.” Williamson has said, ”We had no crisis-management procedure in place, so I followed our vision statement and our core values of honesty, integrity, and sustainability. Our number-one concern was for the safety and well-being of people who drink our juices.” Within hours of the ‘outbreak,’ the company had an explanatory web site (notably, its first) that received 20,000 hits in 48 hours. Baker writes,

The next step was to tackle the problem of contamination. The company’s entire approach had been founded on fresh unpasteurised juice because only juice which had been untampered with could have the best flavour. The company decided quickly that this had been wrong. The company moved quickly to introduce a process called “flash pasteurisation” which would guarantee that E-coli had been destroyed whilst leaving the best flavoured juice possible.

Experts described Odwalla’s response as “the most comprehensive quality control and safety system in the fresh juice industry.”

Despite having to pay the largest fine ever assessed in a food industry case by the US Food and Drug Administration ($1.5 million), Odwalla recovered quickly. The year after the crisis, Odwalla was voted “Best Brand Name in the Bay Area” by San Francisco Magazine, “the first indication amongst many,” says Baker, “that Odwalla’s reputation had survived.”

Its recent Plant a Tree program reflects the degree to which the brand’s identity- as a thoughtful brand, built on the core principles to which Williamson referred- and its corporate operations are in concert.

Visitors to Odwalla’s site are invited to select where the company will plant a tree on their behalf. 200,000 trees will be planted by the program, at Odwalla’s cost – the choice of which states/state parks will be based on vote tally, which visitors can influence by spreading the message via social media. A Facebook Microforest app helps friends join forces to plant a virtual Microforest. Posting your participation in tree-planting on Twitter encourages your followers to do the same. Odwalla’s stated goal is to allow fans and participants to “naturally protect the world from ordinary”.

[Sources: PSFK, Mallen Baker, Odwalla]

As we noted earlier this month, BP’s Deep Horizon oil spill appears to be the worst man-made environmental disaster of our lifetime. The damage to the Gulf Coast, the ecosystem, the economy, people’s lives, is difficult to fathom. But the disaster also provides an interesting case study in the do’s and don’ts of 21st century branding. The era of “Beyond Petroleum,” BP’s $200 million re-branding effort to convince consumers that environmental concerns were central to shaping business operations, is surely over. Jim Gregory suggests in TalentZoo, “BP provides a case in point of a brand that got way out front of its business process and culture to produce tremendous exposure to risk.” As the above video shows to brilliant effect, that glaring disconnect between how the company was branded and how it actually operated is now so easily ridiculed.

Thanks to the Upright Citizens Brigade for eviscerating BP’s response to the spill. Nothing makes a point quite as effectively as satire.

As Brian Wansink explains in his book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, it’s remarkable how little thought goes into what we eat, why we eat it and how we eat it. Now, diet plans and weight loss programs are a big industry, so clearly we must put some thought into it, right?But there are significant factors most plans don’t consider, says Wansink who is the John Dyson Endowed Chair in the Applied Economics and Management Department at Cornell University, where he directs the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. Wansink and his colleagues study the psychology behind food behavior and have found that a variety of subconscious factors influence our decisions in surprising ways. Environmental conditions, for example how well lit a room is or its temperature, can influence a person’s eating choices. One study, in particular, reveals why some have called Wansink the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Food,’ and demonstrates the influence visual cues have over our food behavior.

The “bottomless bowl” study observed 54 normal-to-obese participants eating soup. The subjects were told the study was to evaluate the taste of the soup. Instead, the study was evaluating how much soup the participants consumed based on visual cues, such as the emptiness of the soup bowl. To test this, Wansink and his colleagues designed the bowls to refill slowly from a tube at the base of each bowl. The bowls never reached the bottom (and the participants wouldn’t notice the refilling), so the researchers were able to observe which participants stopped eating based on how they “felt” and which participants continued to eat based on visual cues. Participants who were unknowingly eating from self-refilling bowls ate 73% more soup than those eating from normal soup bowls. Perhaps more telling, those participants didn’t believe they had consumed more or rate themselves as being more full than those eating from normal bowls.

Dan Pardi, MS CEO, Dan’s-Plan

According to Dan Pardi, Bay Area-based neuroscientist, wellness expert and founder of Dan’s Plan, the study’s findings are “consistent with the notion that the amount of food on a plate or bowl increases intake because it influences expectations of when it is normal to be full (i.e., I’ll be finished eating when the bowl is finished instead of listening to my body). When one depends on external visual cues, it lessens one’s reliance on self-monitoring. It seems that people use their eyes to count calories and not their stomachs.”

Wansink describes one study that asked French participants to explain when they knew they had eaten enough. A standard reply was “I know I’m done eating when I’m full or when the food no longer tastes good.” The study posed the same question to 150 Chicagoans, the majority of whom responded by saying “I know I’m done eating when everyone else is done or when my plate is empty.”

Pardi suggests that, “in our culture of food abundance, where you are likely to be served more food than you need each time you eat, it’s important to..become a better listener to fullness signals. Keep striving to implement quantity-monitoring strategies and do your best to be in tune with what your body is telling you!”

To take Pardi’s advice further, many of our daily decisions (from eating, to driving, to watering the lawn and more) can so easily become mindless. Studies show again and again that when we think multi-dimensionally about each decision (big and small), we make better ones.

[Sources: Mindless Eating, Dan's Plan]

Going green? There’s an app for that. Actually, as we’ve noted, there are a lot of apps out there that help us lead more considered lives- apps that will help save time, energy and money in just about every area of life: Gas, Driving and Car Maintenance, Traveling, Carpooling and Mass Transit, Home Energy Use, and finally, Greener Shopping.

The GoodGuide iPhone app is one such app, acting as the angel on your shoulder when you’re out and about. With a database of over 50,000 products, the GoodGuide provides detailed ratings for a product’s health, environmental and social credentials. If you’re standing in the supermarket aisle, wondering how your choices of toothpaste, for example, match up in those categories, just scan the barcodes to make an informed decision. Colgate scores 10 out of 10 for “health,” for instance, but just 6.5 on its environmental record. Not surprisingly, Tom’s of Maine fairs better, scoring an 8.8 overall.

For consumers that care about making a “better” purchasing decision, this app puts the power right in your hand. Happy downloading!

[Sources: GoodGuide, The Guardian]

Magnolia: Vermont’s first “certified green” restaurant from lovetomorrowtoday on Vimeo.

LTT’s One Degree TV visits Magnolia Bistro in Burlington, VT to see how Vermont’s first “certified green” restaurant is making it work. Co-owners July Sanders and Shannon Reilly talk about how they blend their own business interests with those of their community. “It’s not rocket science,” says Reilly, but “it’s really just a lot of thought behind little things” that makes the difference.

It’s hard to talk about the excesses of our technology addiction without sounding like an old fogey. We love technology, and we love the future possibilities it helps us envision. But, as this video reminds us, inspiring our children to consider the natural world requires actually getting them out in it. As Charles Jordan of The Conservation Fund suggests, “what they do not know, they will not protect, and what they do not protect, they will lose.”

At a time when children play more behind screens than outside, PLAY AGAIN, from Oregon-based Ground Productions, unplugs a group of media-savvy teens and takes them on their first wilderness adventure, documenting the wonder that comes from time spent in nature and inspiring action for a sustainable future. As the filmmakers explain,

One generation from now most people in the U.S. will have spent more time in the virtual world than in nature. New media technologies have improved our lives in countless ways. Information now appears with a click. Overseas friends are part of our daily lives. And even grandma loves Wii.

But what are we missing? And how will this impact our children, our society, and eventually, our planet?

American kids spent 90% of their time indoors, and 63% of their weekly activities are spent behind screens. Play Again investigates the consequences of a “childhood removed from nature.”

For more info, check their site and find them on Facebook.

As we’ve said before, we think composting will one day be as second nature as recycling. But if you live in the city, composting may seem like an impossibility. While some cities are addressing the challenges of urban composting- San Francisco is now requiring it, in fact- it remains out of reach for Joe City-dweller. Beginning this spring, Compost Cab is looking to change all that. For residents of Washington, D.C., who sign up, the company will provide customers with a bin which can then be filled with all kinds of compostables. Once a week, Compost Cab will pick up the organic material and compost it for you. For every 50 pounds of organic waste that Compost Cab collects from a customer, the customer is entitled to five pounds of fresh compost and one pound of worm castings in exchange. Don’t have a garden? No worries, Compost Cab will donate your share of compost to Engaged Community Offshoot, an urban farm that aims to provide people from all walks of life with sustainable, fresh produce.

For residents of Northampton, MA, composting services are offered by Pedal People. Live in Philadelphia? Call on Pedal Co-op to pick up your kitchen waste.

According to Compost Cab’s site, the company was “born of personal demand. We asked ourselves: “What would a composting solution have to look like for us to participate?” It needed to be leak-proof, rat-proof, and odor-free. It needed to be nearly effortless, as simple and intuitive as taking out the trash. It needed to be useful – we wanted the compost for our garden. And it needed to be reasonably priced, without a significant up-front cost. We went from there, and developed a service that makes it easy to be green.”

Is there one in your town?

[Sources: Compost Cab, EcoSalon]

Living well in the 21st century often means relying on new gadgets and technology to help you live more simply. It’s a strange contradiction, that sometimes living more sustainably, in greater harmony with nature, is made possible by the most modern and complex systems. For me, that’s my Garmin (ahhh, GPS technology, friend to directionally-challenged/stubborn men everywhere) and my iPhone. So, today we provide a spotlight on two iPhone apps that we think are pretty cool and do just that: Locavore- which helps you find foods that are in season locally, to help you eat fresh food that doesn’t come from across the world to your plate- and DirtyProduce- which helps you determine which foods you should buy organic.

Locavore

Denver’s B-Cycle bike sharing program is getting ready to launch, courtesy of Trek, Humana, and beloved marketers Crispin, Porter & Bogusky (this is a nice change from their Burger King work) The goal - “changing the way you get around.” Truthfully, rather than franchising this, brands (bike and beyond) communities and creatives should take note and get their own programs started up. That’s a lot of ‘goodness’ to go around…

Via Uncrate

We love to see brands encouraging consumers to recycle their products- see our post on Hewlett-Packard’s campaign to recycle old ink cartridges and electronics. Now Red Wing Shoes, the classic yet trendy boot-maker is offering money to do it. Until April 25, 2010, get $25.00 off a new pair of Red Wing Boots when you bring in any old pair of work boots. Marketing gimmick? Definitely. So what.

Steeped in history- the first Red Wing boots were made in 1905 in Red Wing, Minnesota and sold for $1.75- the bootmaker has come in and out of fashion a few times, but the company has always been known for long-lasting, quality boots. By 1915, Red Wing was producing 200,000 pairs a year and supplying troops in World War I. During World War II, Red Wings were making 239 different sizes and widths for the Army alone. In 1963, Red Wings became the subject of a series of Norman Rockwell paintings- what’s more quintissentially American than a Rockwell? These days, they can be found on the shelves at J Crew.

Long-lasting products? Encouraging consumers to recycle a used pair? Right up our alley.

[Source: Red Wing Shoes]

We’ve been pouring over the recently announced Webby Nominees, the leading international awards for excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web’s infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, made up of an intellectually diverse group of members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein.

On this blog, we focus on creativity, innovation and the type of inspiration that can be drawn from observing the community. In this case, the community is the web, and inspiration is all around. With nearly 70 categories, there’s a huge range of websites represented. Here are a few that caught our eye:

Renew The World [Manifest Communications]

Road Map To Harmony [GOOD]                            Waterlife [National Film Board of Canada]

[Source: Webby Nominees]

This is almost TED meets Monty Python- you can hear John Cleese saying, “and now for something completely different.” But here’s Derek Sivers, founder of the successful indie music retailer CD Baby, showing some unusual footage that reveals a few valuable lessons about what it takes to start a movement. Interestingly, while he acknowledges the importance of the founder/leader, it’s the courage of that first follower to stand up and join in that most impresses Sivers.

[Source: TED]

Another interesting presentation from the TED series, this time from Jane McGonigal, director of game R&D at the Institute for the Future, a nonprofit forecasting firm where she develops multiplayer games in which players organize society to solve for issues that will confront the world in 2019. McGonigal argues that in order to tackle the challenges of the next century, we all need to play more video games.

She begins by explaining that currently, as a planet, we spend 3 billion hours a week playing online games. To “survive the next century on this planet,” she contends, “we need to increase that total dramatically.” McGonigal has calculated the “total we need at 21 billion hours of game play a week.” She acknowledges it might be a “counter-intuitive idea,” and, as the TED audience laughs, she’s quick to say, “no, I’m serious!”

She argues that in order to solve problems like hunger, poverty, climate change, global conflict, obesity, “we need to aspire to play games online” and adopt in reality the heroic problem-solving of virutal reality. McGonigal shows a photo of a young gamer, who’s expression, mid-game, is one of urgency, concentration, deep focus in tackling a difficult set of problems- all attributes, she says, that are needed to face tomorrow’s challeneges. The gamer in the photograph reveals a sense of optimism, as he is on the verge of what gamers refer to as an ‘epic win,’ an “outcome that is so extraordinarily positive you had no idea it was even possible until you achieved it. It was,” she explains, “almost beyond the threshold of imagination.”

That expression, one that reveals a deep focus and urgency combined with a gamer’s sense of optimism, is needed everywhere in order to tackle this century’s problems.

Watch the full presentation from TED above. McGonigal is working on book called Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Happy and How They Can Change the World.

[Source: TED]

As a Vermont-based blog, we’re always happy to promote a good Vermont idea, and, thankfully, this state boasts a lot them. From Seventh Generation to Gardener’s Supply, Burton Snowboards to Orvis, Ben & Jerry’s to Green Mountain Coffee, there are plenty of examples of great consumer brands that were built upon a foundation of better products and a commitment to social responsibility. True Body Products, which makes all-natural, eco-friendly soaps, is a newer addition to this landscape of thoughtful Vermont brands. The company was started by three friends who shared what they call “a commitment to useful products, happy people, strong community and a thriving planet supports the pursuit of a healthy bottom line.”

As their site explains, “the origins of True Body Products go back to a series of water-cooler sessions with a group of friends and colleagues at Seventh Generation in Burlington, Vermont. We dreamed and schemed of ways we could put a personal stamp on Seventh Generation’s challenge to make the world a better place. Fast forward to a cold morning in December 2006, when, over coffee, everything came together around an opportunity to make a good-quality natural product that would be accessible to more people. We formed True Body Products (originally known as Orange Mountain) to make True Body Soap: a 100% natural, environmentally-conscious product that’s priced significantly lower than other natural soaps.”

True Body Soap is an all-natural, basic, everyday bar of soap, made from only five ingredients—Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Water, Vegetable Glycerine and Sodium Citrate. The minimal packaging is also eco-friendly.

We look forward to seeing True Body become another in the growing list of successful and responsible Vermont brands.

For all Boston’s great qualities- rich with historical treasures from Faneuil hall to Fenway- it has to be the worst city to drive in. Even my Garmin GPS moans as we drive east on the Mass turnpike. As the above video- courtesy of our friends at Inhabitat- explains, Boston also lays claim to the title of ‘worst city for bike-riding.’ Not just in the country, in the world! It boasts a sad 180 yards of bicycle lanes. The clip is an interview with Nicole Freedman, Boston’s Bike Czar, about her efforts to make Boston a more bike-friendly town. For the full interview and more information, visit www.inhabitat.com.

Let’s take a moment to recognize the Super Bowl champs. We at LTT, like 106.5 million others- the largest TV audience in U.S. history- enjoyed watching the Saints and Colts last Sunday. But before quarterback Drew Brees out-dueled Peyton Manning, he joined the crew of TV’s “Sport Science” to test the science behind his remarkable passing accuracy. At almost 71% completion average, Brees leads the NFL in quarterback accuracy, but how would he fare against, say, Olympic archers? And what makes his passes so dead on? And how can science provide those answers?

Check out the video above for the full demonstration.