Thanks to our Brooklyn partner, St John’s Bread and Life, for sharing.

St. John’s Bread and Life, Brooklyn’s largest emergency food service provider, revolutionizes the way those in need “shop” for food, by creating a Digital Choice Food Pantry that guests access using an electronic card and point system. Designed to offer the dignity of choice, something overlooked at most food pantries, guests use touch-screen technology to fill their basket, using more points for non-healthy food than for healthy items, to encourage nutritious selections. Bread and Life’s use of computer terminals is at the forefront of providing dignified options for the poor and recently took the model one step further by allowing users to key in special health needs, (diabetes, hypertension, obesity, or HIV) that restricts certain choices and presents food that adheres to their diets.

This commitment to improve overall client health by presenting the best food choices based on nutritious needs is a trail blazing idea that even high-end restaurants have yet to tap. All this in addition to providing over 1300 daily hot meals and services, impacts over 25,000 guests annually.

If you’re in New York, check out their upcoming benefit Rush Hour for Hunger

Wednesday, May 19th  5 — 8:00 PM
Metrazur Restaurant
Grand Central Terminal
New York City
(cocktails, snacks and a silent auction)

1. I cook. Locally grown food simply tastes better.
2. I support my community, including farmers.
3. I want to eat healthier and locally grown food has more nutrients.
4. I’m scared about the overuse of pesticides on conventionally grown produce. I feel more comfortable buying from a farmer I know.

The interesting thing is that I used to think of the buyers profiled above as distinct groups: health conscious buyers distinct from foodies distinct from people advocating food justice.

Give Me a Reason to Buy Locally

But the reality is that you can start at any one point above, and within a short period of time—sometimes days, sometimes months—slide right into another. Care about taste most? Great! But then it’s harder to spray pesticides on the berries you grow in your garden or spray that toxic cleanser you use on your kitchen counter.

Like to support local farmers? Hurray! And you know what? It turns out their food tastes amazing. Funny how food tastes so much better when it was dug out of the ground that morning. With something like a tomato it’s not even a fair fight when you try local vs. a tomato that is picked “dead green” and shipped 1,500 miles.

Big CPG (that’s consumer packaged goods to you and me) companies didn’t focus on green for the longest time. Not big enough they said. Not enough scale. A niche market.  Now everyone is jumping on the green bandwagon.

But before that word “ green” gets completely mangled beyond recognition, there is real cause for hope. Imagine that Hellman’s is coming out with a mayonnaise using cage-free eggs. Okay, that’s not local, but it will have an impact on growing practices. Next McDonalds will be featuring organic beef. Actually there was a rumor that was going to happen last year.

Survey Says There’s Green in Green

Research featured in a recent marketing post by David Almy talked up the Shelton Group’s Eco Pulse 2009 Report, in which researchers asked: “In which product categories are you searching for greener products?”

• Home cleaning products: 75%
• Food and beverages: 65%
• Personal care products (shampoo, lotion, etc.) 55%
• Appliances: 47%
• Home improvement products (windows, insulation, etc.): 46%
• Automobiles: 32%

Now you don’t buy a car or an appliance every day but you do buy food every day if you want to survive and cleaning products on a regular basis, too, if you prefer a tidy home.

I felt pretty smart noting in a recent Friend of the Farmer post on organics:

“If every US citizen ate just one meal a week that was composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by 1.1 million barrels every week. Small changes in buying habits make big differences.”

But that statement assumes that people actually care about the big picture.  What they really care about is “me”—well, ourselves. Here are the products that will benefit from true green:

“Products That Are Good For Me: Home cleaning, food and beverages, and personal care. People are increasingly concerned with the safety of the products they use in their homes and put in and on their bodies.”

In my recent interview with sustainable Chef Peter Hoffman, he was incredulous that people could brag about a fancy watch or car and then a minute later crow about how little they spent on a slice of ham—something they put in their bodies. (click here for more on this interview.)

“Products That Are Good For My Budget: Appliances, home improvement, automobiles. Selling a big-ticket item like a dishwasher or car in a tough economy is hard enough; focusing exclusively on environmental benefits makes it even harder. Saving the planet takes a back seat to personal finances, unless a connection is clearly made between the product and potential future savings. When asked why it’s important to reduce energy consumption, 73 % of respondents chose ‘to reduce my bills’; 26 % chose ‘to lessen my impact on the environment’.”

David Almy describes this as his Homer (Simpson) moment.

“While environmentally friendly attributes in a product are important, the real interest lies in what personal benefits the products deliver. In other words: what’s in it for them?

By actively promoting a product’s greener attributes (e.g. fewer, more recognizable and natural ingredients) marketers have been able to successfully position their wares as improving a personal environment while also benefiting the global environment. Success comes from emphasizing the former rather than the latter.

What’s a farmer to do? If you sell steak and it costs a bit more than conventional, suggest to a prospective buyer that “it’s so darn satisfying and good for you that you and your family don’t need to eat a pound per person. And you might skip that multivitamin when you have grass-fed beef.”

If you’re a consumer, know that once you start down this slippery slope there’s no going back, unless your budget really can’t take it.

How can you buy Mrs. Meyer Lemon Verbena countertop spray and then get a steak that was grown in half the time of its grass-fed cousins through the use of antibiotics and feedlots. You can’t—or at least it’s a lot harder. And that’s good news whether you’re working as a marketer for a big CPG company or a producer in small sustainable farming communities like those in Litchfield County or The Berkshires.

Further Reading

Organic Food is Not Just for Rich People

Great Questions to Ask Your Farmer

“It’s the Sustainability, Stupid.”

Almost a year ago, I heard Alice Waters speak to—and apparently hold in thrall—a packed hall at the tony Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, CT. I was certain that everyone, from students and faculty to farmers from Sheffield, MA to Millertonm, NY residents, heard her call to action. Charge the barricades! Go local! Boy, was I wrong.

Leaders of the food revolution: 17-year old Sam Levin of Project Sprout, Alice Waters and farmer Dominic Palumbo

The Alice Waters Story

Waters first learned about the importance of food in people’s lives while studying in Paris. Eating food together, she saw, “encouraged conversation and closeness.”

For Waters, food should be a “form of sustenance, not just fuel.” She brought that winning recipe to the opening of Chez Panisse in 1971. Her unstoppable search for great tasting, quality ingredients led her to forage for the best sources of cheese, fruits and vegetables, meat and fish in the Bay area. In the process she created a community of 85 sustainable producers that support and nourish her restaurant to this day.

The Siren Call of Cheap and Easy Food

Fast, cheap and easy may be how America eats but it’s an “illusion that degrades our health and our environment.”  While changing the food system may seem “like rerouting the Titanic,” Waters has her eye on a stimulus plan and a workforce that could transform agriculture and our health in a relative jiffy.

She’s focusing on the one in five Americans who are in school. Working through her foundation and a receptive Administration, Waters wants to create a curriculum and lunch program to show kids how to raise, prepare, cook, and share the food they eat during the day.

For students at Martin Luther King Middle school in Berkeley, their Edible Schoolyard is just part of their daily lives. Now thanks to students Sam Levin, Sarah Steadman and Natalie Akers, Monument High School in Great Barrington, MA also has its own organic, student-run garden, Project Sprout, which is inspiring others across the country.

Wondering whether or not to start your own food-garden? Then consider these two simple facts:  1) the White House garden cost all of $200 to start, and 2) during WWII more than 40% of the fruits and vegetables Americans consumed came from “victory gardens” planted in urban, suburban and rural communities.

Words Have Power

Waters kicked things off early on with a story about arugula. During the presidential campaign, Obama may or may not have said: ” ‘Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?’ he asked. ‘I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.’ ” Some political pundits even asked what’s wrong with iceberg lettuce. Waters’s take on this cable news tempest? “It’s amazing that it could be un-American to be able to distinguish between salad greens.”

To my amazement, while I was reveling in Waters’s stories and love of food, some students in the Hotchkiss audience were seething. It turns out that a lot of the junk food they loved had been ripped out over the last two years and replaced with food that was “good” for you. Alice Waters was not among friends that day. Instead, she could have had a bulls-eye painted on her chest. Finally, here was the person responsible for the degradation of “our junk-food supply.”

The Q&A period was tense. The first question from a student was typical: “Hey, I’m from New York and you want us to take up urban farming? Where are we going to do that? In Central Park.” It went on from there.

But the interesting thing is that, as distinct from the typical speaker who charms and then leaves, the Waters speech kept students talking for weeks. And it made me think that words have extraordinary power. Why should “foodie” be a pejorative term? What’s wrong with being enthusiastic about your food and the people who produce it?  Or eating arugula, for that matter? But in America “foodie” carries connotations of elitism, even to an audience of students whose annual tuition cost approaches the average American household income.

So how do we create a positive and productive conversation about food in America? Start by listening. Then talk, a little, as reasonably as you know how. And then hand a fresh, locally grown peach to your skeptical friend: It’s worth a thousand words.

Further Reading

Is Organic Food Just for Rich People?

]]> http://localorb.it/field-notes/2010/04/alice-waters-slow-food-and-school-nutrition/feed/ 0 http://localorb.it/field-notes/2010/04/please-vote-for-local-orbit/ http://localorb.it/field-notes/2010/04/please-vote-for-local-orbit/#comments Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:10:20 +0000 Erika http://localorb.it/field-notes/?p=1347 We’ve been nominated for a Slow Money award as a business that supports local economies, local farmers and sustainable agriculture and business practices.  Please consider casting your votes for Local Orbit.   And share the link with your friends.  Thank you! (and thank you whoever nominated us – it’s a nice mystery)

Most farmers who work farmer’s markets and farms stands are proud of what they produce. And many want to tell just how they do it.

There’s the grass-fed beef farmer who firmly believes you don’t need to use grain to finish beef cattle. Or another farmer who collects stinging nettles with gloves to provide greens early in the season.

Then again I never returned to the farm stand where the farmer talked glowingly about the power of Roundup, a herbicide that’s toxic to wildlife. I understand that it makes his job easier, but today there are a multitude of great alternatives.

Be Curious and Polite

Best not to turn the questions for farmers into an interrogation. Show your curiosity. Slow down. Listen and learn. Chat as you shop. Other shoppers nearby might pick up a thing or two. If the market isn’t too crowded, start slowly.

1. “Beautiful day. So how’s the season been going for you this year?” Sometimes better to start with “is there anything here you’re particularly proud of? Anything unusual?”
2. “When did you pick this fruit or vegetable? Is it ready to eat today? How do I store it?” Chefs will tell you that berries picked after a heavy rain are worthless. This year’s peaches were particularly insipid for the same reason. Some items like winter squash can last for months if stored correctly.
3. “Are you able to use organic or sustainable principles on the farm?” It’s so easy to ask “is this organic” but the fact is many farmers do not have the time and in some cases the money for organic certification. That doesn’t mean they don’t follow those very same principles on the farm.
4. “Does this produce come from your farm?” Small farms can grow an amazing amount of food but it is unlikely that they will have fruit trees and kale growing on the same patch. But that’s okay if your farmer gets produce from growers they know. It’s very likely they can talk about their neighbors’ practices.
   
5. “Do you use any synthetic products like pesticides or fungicides?” The correct answer for organic is no not ever. Dan Tawczynski of Taft Farms north of Great Barrington, Massachussets never sprays, but he still reserves the right to if his crop is in danger. Dan is as leery of chemicals as you would be. Well, actually, more so: He lives on his farm. Instead Dan employs “Integrated Pest Management (I.P.M.) where a farmer uses all of the means at his disposal in order to control a particular pest. IPM includes the extensive use of natural predators coupled with constant field scouting along with crop rotation and biological pest controls. Sprays can remain a part of an IPM program, but they are a last resort rather than the first line of defense”
6. What was the animal fed? Was the animal raised outside or indoors? Was there supplemental food? If so, when was it provided? Was the grain GMO (genetically modified)? You may have a great chicken, heritage breed, raised outdoors—but then the farmer uses GMO feed.
7. At what point do you give your animals antibiotics? Organic means never. In fact once an organically raised animal is given an antibiotic it is often sold to a non-organic farmer. But for many farmers the answer will be only when absolutely necessary to protect the animal. Lynn Mordas at Dashing Star Farm has greatly reduced deworming of her sheep through genetic selection, pasture rotation and by looking into her sheeps’ eyes. Basically, Lynn will not let her sheep graze to where the grass is less than 2” high to minimize their contact with parasites. And the eyes? Well parasites create anemia, which leads to mucous around the eyes.

Knowing how your food is produced tends to become a topic of conversation with friends and family. Learn to appreciate the richer taste of farm-fresh eggs. You’ll try new vegetables, like that delicata squash that you thought was for the mantle but really works better on the plate. By asking questions you learn something new, show respect for the farmer and make an invaluable connection to your food and local community.

Resources:

Fruits and vegetables with high levels of pesticides where organic or sustainable is a must-buy.

Friend of the Farmer

From guest contributor Rebecca Noffsinger: My grandfather, Howard Wing, with his three children: my aunts Norma (the blond on the left) and Martha (the braids on the right), and my father Paul Wing on his father's lap steering.

I put my first organic garden in several years ago. My plans were pretty ambitious, so my father agreed to help on groundbreaking day. He drove 120 miles from our family’s small dairy farm to bring the rototiller and bales of straw I needed. We spent the day working together.

We butted heads a little bit. He is firmly planted in the conventional farming world, with its nutrient rations and chemical controls. Now as Dad helped spread bone meal and greensand on the fresh soil in my yard, there was some grumbling going on. Where are you going to get your nitrogen without any N-P-K? Are you sure you don’t want to Roundup to get rid of weeds?

And with a new convert’s hubris I explained to him the reasoning and science behind going chemical-free. I was quite sure of myself, telling him that the way he had been doing things for 50 years was all wrong. After a while Dad quieted down.

As we were spreading the groundcover seed, he said thoughtfully, “My dad used to plant buckwheat,” and told me what he could remember of how my grandfather farmed when my father was a child. My heart jumped. His firsthand knowledge was a goldmine to me, and for a time we talked on common ground. This was my heritage being handed to me. But there was a bit of sadness to the conversation; a connection had been lost. Because the old ways had been abandoned as useless so long ago, Dad couldn’t recall enough details to help with my garden. It was simply a piece of our family history.

Then I wondered, did the history just repeat itself? Was I scoffing at my father’s flawed methods the way he had walked away from his father’s unseen wisdom? In 50 years would I wish that I had remembered some of the science and reasoning behind the way my dad farmed? A glimpse of my arrogance was turned back to me. Even though I believe that sustainable, organic farming practices are the ideal, could there be some merit in what the other side has to say?

A breath of fresh air has renewed the nation’s farming outlook. With focus on a regionally distributed food system that draws from smaller farms, there will be a need for new farmers and new ideas. Though this is an exciting prospect, I hope that our generation is wise enough to keep existing farmers in the fold. We need to engage them in the conversation, encourage them to convert to sustainable methods, and to support them financially in doing so. And for those that choose to stay with what they know, I hope that we treat them with respect, even if their methods are wrong in our eyes. After all, we have not walked in their shoes, and their experience with the land is too rich to lose a second time.

My father is retired now and my brother has taken over the family farm. He has made his own changes, but stays largely on the same conventional path that was laid out before him. I spoke to Tom recently about why he does things the way he does: conventional vs. sustainable, local vs. co-op market pricing. “We do a lot of different things to try to stay alive,” he said. Some of it is considered sustainable, some of it not. “But the thing you have to remember”, he reminded me, “is that farming is a complex thing. There really isn’t one right way to do it. We’re just trying to hold on to what we have.”

Rebecca Noffsinger originally posted this on her blog Finding Food For Five.

Or better, How can we create conditions that enable every community to feed itself?

Dan Barber shares the story of Veta La Palma,  a 27,000 acre fish farm in Spain that has “completely reversed the ecological destruction” created by a large cattle farming operation that preceded it.  It’s an amazing story about repairing environmental damage while building a profitable business that produces great tasting fish.

And, Barber posits, “it’s a recipe for the future of good food.”  Watch. Renew your flagging optimism.

via Cherry Capital Foods

MTO is a cooperative of experienced farmers whose individual members sell organic commodities crops like soy and corn.  They’ve come together to expand and diversify sustainable local food production.  Check out Chris Bedford’s video for their story.

[UPDATE 2/4/10 - looks like Harpo Productions took the videos off YouTube and are making the Food 101 show available on DVD.  A shame they won't allow this information to be distributed more freely, but at least they did produce great content.  You can get more info on the Oprah site.

Just wondering - do you think Food, Inc. will get a share of the revenue from DVD sales of this episode that include excerpts from the film?  Sure - they get great PR, but still..... ]

Here’s video from YouTube, in 5 parts. No additional commentary needed!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Let’s not join one of the armed camps deeply suspicious of one another shouting past each other.

The issues facing agriculture today are much more complicated than lining up behind labels such as “local” and “organic.” (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

One of the more pleasing developments of the last decade has been the long-overdue beginning of a national conversation about food — not just the arcane techniques used to prepare it and the luxurious restaurants in which it is served, but, much more important, how it is grown and produced. The only problem is that so far it hasn’t been much of a conversation. Instead, what we have are two armed camps deeply suspicious of one another shouting past each other (sound familiar?).

On the one side, the hard-line aggies seem convinced that a bunch of know-nothing urbanites want to send them back to Stone Age farming techniques. On the other side, there’s a tendency by agricultural reformers to lump together all farms (or at least those that aren’t purely organic, hemp-clad mom-and-pop operations) as thoughtless ravagers of the environment.

Well, at least we’re thinking about it, so I suppose that’s a start. But the issues we’re facing are not going to go away, and they are too important to be left to the ideologues. What I’d like to see happen in the next decade is a more constructive give-and-take, the start of a true conversation.

With that goal in mind, I’d like to propose a few ground rules that might help move us into the next phase — fundamental principles that both sides should be able to agree on.

• Agriculture is a business. Farming without a financial motive is gardening. I use that line a lot when I’m giving talks, and it always gets a laugh. But it’s deadly serious. Not only do farmers have expenses to meet just like any other business, but they also need to be rewarded when they do good work. Any plan that places further demands on farmers without an offsetting profit incentive is doomed to fail.

• What’s past is past. Over the last 50 years, American farmers performed an agricultural miracle, all but eliminating hunger as a serious health issue in this country. But that battle has been won, and though those gains must be maintained, the demands of today — developing a system that delivers flavor as well as quantity and does it in an environmentally friendly way — are different.

• Food is not just a culinary abstraction. No matter how much you and I might appreciate the amazing bounty produced by talented, quality-driven farmers, we also have to acknowledge that sometimes food is . . . well, just food. So when we start dreaming about how to make our epicurean utopia, we also have to keep in mind that our first obligation is to make sure that healthful, fresh food remains plentiful and inexpensive enough that anyone can afford it.

• There’s no free pass on progress. Just because you’ve always farmed a certain way does not mean that you are owed the right to continue farming that way in the future. The days of a small or medium-sized farm making a decent profit growing one or two crops and marketing it through the traditional commodity route are long past. The world is changing, and those who can adapt are the ones who will be successful.

• The world is not black and white. The issues facing agriculture today are much more complicated than lining up behind labels such as “local” and “organic,” no matter how praiseworthy they might seem in the abstract.

• No farm is an island. That’s not literally true, of course; there are several island farms in the Sacramento Delta. But even there, farmers have to remember that they’re living in an ever-more crowded state where their actions affect others. Assuming that what happens on your land is nobody’s business but your own just doesn’t work anymore.

• Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Holding out for an unattainable dream may mean losing a chance at a more easily realized goal. At the same time, just because an idea may not be the perfect answer, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t benefits to it. A completely locavore diet is, well, loco, but buying as much locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables as you can is just common sense.

• Quality is more expensive than quantity. Farming fruits and vegetables that are not just healthful but also have great flavor takes a lot of time and work and usually means not growing as much as a neighbor who doesn’t focus on flavor. So when you’re shopping, don’t begrudge a good farmer a little higher price — that’s what it takes to keep him in business.

• You don’t climb a ladder starting at the top rung. In a system as complex as our food supply, change is evolutionary. Remember long-term goals, but focus on what’s immediately achievable. Any argument that begins, “All we have to do is rewrite the Farm Bill,” is probably decades, if not centuries, from reality. But there are plenty of small things we can do now to start us down that road.

• Don’t assume that those who disagree with you are evil, stupid or greedy. And even when they are, that doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility for making a constructive and convincing argument.

• What’s political is also personal. If you believe in something, you should be willing to make sacrifices to support it, even if it’s expensive or inconvenient. Wailing about farmers who use pesticides and then balking at paying extra for organic produce is hypocritical because the yields in organic farming are almost always lower. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with doing the best you can whenever you can — as long as you’re willing to accept compromises from the other guy too.

• Finally, and most important: Beware the law of unintended consequences. Developing tasteless fruits and vegetables was not the goal of the last Green Revolution; it was a side effect of a system designed to eliminate hunger by providing plentiful, inexpensive food, but that also ended up rewarding quantity over quality. We should always keep in mind that when we’re dreaming of a system that focuses on the reverse, we run the risk of creating something far worse than strawberries that bounce.

russ.parsons@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times