What is hexane? It is a neurotoxin,  listed as a “hazardous air pollutant” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This report is full of disturbing information, including the lack of oversight by the FDA and EPA in these foods products.The long term effects of hexane have not yet been documented. According to the Cornucopia report, in conventional food processing, soybeans are immersed in what the industry calls a “hexane bath” before they are further processed into ingredients such as oil, soy protein isolate, or texturized soy protein (TVP). The soy protein ingredients in most nonorganic foods such as vegetarian burgers and nutrition bars are processed with the use of hexane. It is not used in organic food processing.

How do you know which products are hexane free? In general, organic tofu products do not have hexane. However, there are a few exceptions of organic soy products that do have hexane. Here is a comprehensive scorecard, and a short summary of conventional veggie burgers and soy meat like products:

Avoid these hexane-laced veggie burgers and soy products:

• Amy’s Kitchen
• Boca Burger, conventional
• Franklin Farms
• Garden Burger
• It’s All Good Lightlife
• Morningstar Farms
• President’s Choice
• Taste Above
• Trader Joe’s
• Yves Veggie Cuisine

Products that are hexane-free:

• Boca Burgers “Made with organic soy”
• Helen’s Kitchen
• Morningstar “Made with organic”
• Superburgers by Turtle Island
• Tofurky
• Wildwood

In a future blog post, we’ll evaluate energy bars and infant formula (unfortunately, infant food has hexane too). Ironically, the way I found out about this hexane problem was researching the best organic infant formula for my baby. Stay tuned.

 Update: Winner has been announced. Thank you for participating.

A nice and quaint women’s clothing store called Clary Sage Organics has recently popped up in Pacific Heights. I walked in and the clothes actualy looked good being made out of organic clothes. Most clothing I have seen so far in boutique stores haven’t really caught my eye that are made out of organic fabrics, but Clary Sage is an exception. Check them out on Fillmore Street.

This is my favorite salad. Beets with avocado and grapefruit. Recently its recipe was featured in this month’s Sunset Magazine.

Zen like, relaxing atmosphere. Upstairs is a yoga studio.

Above is their signature dish, a rich cauliflower dish in a cast iron pot. Very creative and rich. However it was a little too creamy for my taste.

Although this doesn’t look the prettiest, this fresh farm egg was to die for. Similar to the type of egg yolk described by Michael Pollan’s Omnivore Dilemma, this yolk was a bright orange yellow and very rich.

All in all, this is an excellent find in downtown Napa. Creative vegetarian food, with great service and a relaxing feel. I’m definitely coming again.

Ubuntu is located on 1140 Main Street in downtown Napa.

In the midst of my own wedding planning, I checked out some interesting organic and green wedding ideas in the Bay Area. One place that I really liked was a restaurant called Barndiva in the beautiful town of Healdsburg.

The owner, Lukka Feldman, gave us a nice tour of the city and offered to host an all inclusive wedding with organic, local food and drinks. The restaurant is a beautiful restored barn with an outdoor garden. It is one of the few restaurants featured in Michelin from the Bay Area. Don’t miss this place for drinks at night if you are in Sonoma wine country.

Recently Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed closing 1 out of 5 California state parks due to a looming deficit. Unfortunately, many of these parks are true gems, nine of them in the San Francisco Bay Area including Henry Coe State Park, Tomales Bay State Park and Portola Redwoods. Under his proposal, the cutting of parks would only save 1% of his deficit, but would close 43 state parks.

 Save the California state parks by joining the California State Parks Foundation, the only nonprofit dedicated to protecting California state parks. I decided to sign up today and become part of the the California States Parks Foundation. Please fight the Governor’s proposal to shut down the parks.

I’ve really enjoyed receiving your many emails and comments. (I also apologize that I have not written back to many of you–I recently got engaged, took a new position as the first product manager at Navigenics, an early stage startup.)

After attending the BlogExpo (one of the largest blogging conferences of the year), I’ve decided to remove all advertising and not accept any form of sponsorship. This insures that none of my content will be influenced by anyway through sponsors to give you the most unbiased information. Of course, everything on this blog will remain free.

All the best,
Christine