Author Archives: paoloabrera

Bike Commuting Revisited

Leaving the car at home and rolling to work on pedal-power is something we can all try. In my experience its only 10-15 minutes additional travel time and there are so many other benefits, not the least of which is savings on gas and the fitness you gain. It’s win-win all the way. So for those of us that can occasionally choose to travel on two wheels, here’s a few tips and reminders.

-Always wear your helmet!
-Make sure your bicycle is in good condition. Pay close attention particularly to the state of your tires and brakes.
-invest in a few commute-friendly accesories like a good set of LED blinkers/headlights for when you’re caught out on the road after the sun goes down. And every bike commuter needs a high-quality bicycle lock.

-If a shower is not an available option at your destination, carry some baby-wipes along with your change of clothes to freshen up for the day ahead.

Lastly always plan a safe route to and from your destination. Go through it in your head, visualize the trouble spots and keep alert while you ride. While bike riders are entitled to use the same roads as motor-vehicles, it pays to ride defensively.

Practice makes perfect, folks. So the more you get out there, the easier and more pleasurable it becomes. Enjoy the ride!


Where’s the beef?!

A balance of proteins, carbs and yes, some fats, is the key to a healthy diet. When we think of proteins, we usually think of meats. Meats, in moderation, are indeed an excellent source of protein, but they also require a lot more resources and processing to get from the farm to your plate and consequently have a very large carbon footprint attached to them. The good news: We can get our nutritional requirements from alternatives like dairy and vegetables. They’re healthy, filling and have a much smaller carbon footprint than meat.

Here’s an easy meatless snack that we recently featured, A Zuchinni Melt.

Ingredients:

-1 piece of whole wheat focaccia (or any other bread of your choice)
-1 medium zucchini (grated)
-2 cloves garlic (minced)
-handful of mozzarella cheese
-2 tablespoons of quesong puti
-salt/pepper
-olive oil

Grate the zucchini, peel and all, into a bowl. Squeeze out the liquid and drain. Combine the grated zucchini, mozzarella, quesong puti, minced garlic in a mixing bowl and blend well. Split the focaccia and top with the zuchinni mix, drizzle with olive oil and grill in an oven set at 180 degrees for 10-15 mins.

Tip: It’s extra good when garnished with some fresh basil!


Pedal On

A couple of weeks ago I joined a PEDALA courier Choy Calunsod on one of his deliveries. I ride my bike a lot for recreation and fitness but it’s a different experience riding point A to point B knowing that you have a specific purpose, which was to deliver a package. It was simple, dispatch send the pick-up and drop-off details to the courier, he shows up at point A and pedals the package to point B. Simple, no muss, no fuss, job done. It was such a slap-your-forehead moment to see that a old-school pedal-courier system that has worked for ages in developed cities like New York and London has gone largely unexploited here in a country where simple solutions to big problems are really needed. Here was a same-day courier service that didn’t add to the pollution and traffic problem we already have, costs less than the petrol you’d need  if you were to do it yourself and required little more than the cost of a decent bike for someone who might wanna get into the business and make some sort of a living. Sometimes to move forward, we gotta look backwards. Point A is where we are now, lotsa pollution, lots of road congestion, and suffering from the high cost of petrol. Point B is the less polluted and less congested future that we wanna be in…keep on pedaling folks, we’ll get there eventually.


Save our resources

We had a lotta people ask about the web resources we featured in episode 2. Here are some of our faves:

inhabitat.com

eco-chick.com

treehugger.com

pinoygreenacademy.com

ecorazzi.com

nationalgeographic.com

We all know we have to save our precious “resources”…start with these. Command-S, people.


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