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RedditThe emergence of food as a political and social issue worth organizing around is demonstrated by the abundance of projects, initiatives, blogs, campaigns and efforts to realign food production and consumption around goals of social justice, equality and nutrition.
Slow Food USA's Time for Lunch campaign officially kick-offs on Labor Day with a National Day of Action featuring more than 280 scheduled Eat-Ins in all 50 states. There'll also be a virtual march on Washington with citizens encouraged to send a clear message to Congress to protect children against food that puts them at risk. The campaign seeks to have Congress update the Child Nutrition Act, which is up for reauthorization later this month, to get legitimately nutritious food into school lunch programs. Slow Food USA chapter leaders have been working diligently to reach out to schools, PTA groups, churches, legislators, and community and fraternal organizations to bring as many people as possible to the table on Labor Day. More than 40 percent of local Eat-Ins are being organized by other organizations – or concerned citizens – that support the goals of the campaign.
In New Orleans, the scene of numerous innovative social programs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, ReThink has been working with chefs, farmers, architects, and artists to create twelve recommendations for changes in the New Orleans public school cafeterias. The recs included the standard (though important): buy local food, increase vegetarian options and use food garbage for composting, to things like banning sporks, redesigning eating spaces and the elimination of styrofoam trays. The group also created a video food game, apparently the first of its kind -- The Ultimate Lunch Tray. In related NOLA news, Dayo Olopade's " Green Shoots in New Orleans" from The Nation's new special issue on food chronicles how a frustrating quest for food security has led some residents to start growing their own.
Meanwhile, in California, the Edible Schoolyard has been operating since it was founded by Alice Waters in 1995 as a garden and kitchen classroom affiliated with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. The program hosts over 1,000 visitors each year--from educators, to health professionals, to international delegates--and has inspired countless kitchen and garden programs coast to coast. In 2005, ESY launched its first affiliate program in New Orleans. Today, there's a small but increasing network of Edible Schoolyard affiliate programs in cities across the country.
The Healthy Corner Stores Network promotes efforts to bring healthier foods to small, neighborhood stores in low-income and under-served communities. Combating the tendency of corner stores (bodegas, as we call them in New York) to carry a surplus of unhealthy processed food products, liquor, and tobacco, the HCSN promotes innovative retail models, policies and programs like the Snackin' Fresh social marketing campaign.
The Bioneers Food and Farming Program is striving to promote food literacy, increased access to healthy food, ecological growing practices and more just working conditions in US agribusiness. Recent projects have included the Seed Exchange, where hundreds of people traded heirloom, open-pollinated seeds to preserve biodiversity and the Alameda Point Collaborative Food Project, which operates an urban farm, producing food for low-income volunteer residents, including fruits, vegetables, eggs and honey and hosts free cooking classes. A primary focus is the youth food and farming program which brings together young community activists from coast to coast to share ideas, resources and solutions, as this video details.
Finally, here's a list of ten simple things anyone can do to help improve our food system, drawn largely from the Hungry for Change campaign.
1. Stop drinking soda.
(Great way to lose weight.)
2. Eat at home more than you eat out.
(Save money; eat healthier.)
3. Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards. (Knowledge is power.)
4. Help get schools to stop selling junk food. (Our tastes start young.)
5. Go without meat at least one day each week -- Meatless Mondays? (Single best way to help the environment is to become a vegetarian.)
6. Buy organic and/or sustainable foods without pesticides. (Chemicals kill.)
7. Support family farms by shopping at farmer's markets and CSAs. (Take market share away from the corporate sector.)
8. Know where your food comes from. Read labels! (Knowledge is power #2.)
9. Tell Congress that food safety is critical. (Regulations need to be expanded.)
10. Demand job protections for workers along each point of the food processing chain. (Labor rights are a critical part of food safety.)
Please add your own ideas in the comments field below, and check out The Nation's new special issue on food.
PS: If you have extra time on your hands and want to follow me on Twitter -- a micro-blog -- click here. You'll find (slightly) more personal posts, breaking news, basketball and lots of links.
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Peter Rothberg
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half this post is a repeat...nothing "fresh" to sell?
;)
Posted by urmygyro at 09/03/2009 @ 2:16pm
posted by PETER ROTHBERG on 09/03/2009 @ 2:06pm
For our part, my wife and I have made changes in how we use food. We largely do not eat at franchise or chain restaurants, which rely on globalized and processed food. We buy regional produce and range meat and eggs from the grocery store. Fish is wild fish from still-plentiful stocks on our coastline.
We eat a little less, reducing our overall consumption.
When we buy beer or wine, it is from in-state producers, largely, supporting a state-wide industry.
Every day I see just how far gone people around me are with respect to food. Overeating is rampant, and the food that is overeaten is mass-produced garbage served in enormous portions, cooked in a massive rush and eaten just as fast. The material inputs come from the cheapest large-scale sources that month irrespective of the impact of bringing for example apples from New Zealand into Washington State (which has an enormous apple industry). Reclaiming our eating and food production and consumption is part of reclaiming our lives, our communities, and even our economic and political realities.
Posted by syfriendly at 09/03/2009 @ 2:45pm
" ... Please add your own ideas in the comments field below, and check out The Nation's new special issue on food ..."
posted by PETER ROTHBERG on 09/03/2009 @ 2:06pm
Peter, your 'ten commandments' list is already great for ideas, but here is one of my own: "Pay attention to how much plastic goes into your food consumption."
In other words, at a time of alarm over the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and related catastrophes, I think very few of us notice just how many of our work lunches are handed to us in plastic throw-away containers, with plastic throw-away utensils. The beverage in a plastic, throw-away container. At the grocery store, we fill plastic bags with plastic-wrapped food products of all sorts. Sometimes we even purchase individually shrink-wrapped fruits and vegetables (Trader Joe's is *evil* in this way). We buy pre-made, pre-processed meals-on-the-go at the grocery packaged in plastic single-use containers.
In fact, the "fast food" lifestyle - which I suppose is the opposite of "slow food" - goes hand-in-hand with rampant over-consumption of non-recyclable (and often unrecycled even if recyclable) plastic that fills landfills and water bodies, ultimately polluting the oceans.
So my view is that when you are buying food products, always look for the low-plastic approach. The odds are good that you are going in a direction that goes hand-in-hand with reform of the food system, "slow food", etc. that way. One can add styrofoam to the idea as well (think "take out").
Posted by syfriendly at 09/03/2009 @ 2:51pm
Go to local farmers markets and eat foods in season.
Posted by Denise29 at 09/03/2009 @ 3:07pm
So, Peter seems to be advocating free choice in what we put into our digestive system...
but he just wants govt to...codefy the choices?
Meat is good for you as is all foods in moderation.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/03/2009 @ 3:07pm
SY -- That anti-plastic message is a very impt addition.
JO -- Have no idea what you're trying to insinuate. Didn't even mention the govt here.
Posted by Peter Rothberg at 09/03/2009 @ 3:31pm
Conservatives: Ask Wal-Mart to stop selling food grown with illegal immigrant labor.
Posted by DPGrassley at 09/03/2009 @ 4:16pm
But what is profitable? THE most important question we should be asking.
Posted by MATTMAN at 09/03/2009 @ 4:47pm
We eat a little less, reducing our overall consumption.
Posted by syfriendly at 09/03/2009 @ 2:45pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--but what about all those jobs being lost 'cause you're not eating as much?....
right maskerade?
Posted by urmygyro at 09/03/2009 @ 6:32pm
Victory gardens would be cool, canning the extra things you grow.
Posted by Denise29 at 09/03/2009 @ 6:56pm
Conservatives: Ask Wal-Mart to stop selling food grown with illegal immigrant labor.
Posted by DPGrassley at 09/03/2009 @ 4:16pm
Unfortunately, that would mean every grocery chain in the US.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/03/2009 @ 7:14pm
From Peter's title, for a second, I thought he was going to address the really serious "Fight for Food" going on in Cali's San Joaquin Valley!
On one side are the Enviro-Nazis trying to save a 3" smelt and on the other side, are the farmers NOT getting their water allocations resulting in NO CROPS and farm workers not able to work. Hundreds of thousands of irrigated farmland, some of the best in the US, are parched....some farm towns have unemployment rates of 30~40%.
Posted by Happy at 09/03/2009 @ 7:24pm
We regularly hear that saying, "Americans live to work & Europeans work to live."
So lets get off this goofy kick of exhorting everybody to retire later, work longer & harder hours for the "sake" of our nation. If we feel required to feed the FIRE industries, overindulge in needless & infrequent, overly expensive recreation & compete for status oriented products & services, we have only ourselves to blame.
So if you're a quiet, respectful person towards others & have some busybody approach you about "neighborhood beautification" & the need to maintain & lift property values, tellum to take a hike! Your unpainted & rustic surfaces are the same thing that they pay a premium for in the antique stores. We now know it as "shabby chic." Live with it transgressors!
And we will continue to eat wholesome food that is, yes, often time consuming to prepare. You buy a riding mower; we buy a crock pot! You commute 50 miles a day; we live where we work!
If you find yourself forced to consume fast food out of budget & time constraints. buy the cheapest items as they are paper wrapped & smaller in quantity, thus doing less bodily damage, while sustaining.
Never stop dreaming & the changes will happen regarding both situation & place!
Posted by Sorelish at 09/03/2009 @ 8:24pm
We now know where the Swine Flu started....Charlie Rangel & his staff!
Posted by Happy at 09/03/2009 @ 9:20pm
Thanks for mentioning the Rethinkers in New Orleans. They are leading voices in the call for healthy, local food in schools.
You missed a few connections between some of the causes you write about:
-Some of the Rethinkers attend the school in New Orleans that has an Edible School Yard -These students will be participating in one of the Slow Food USA "Time for Lunch" events -They will also be speaking at the Bioneers conference in the Bay Area.
What a small world it is!
You can learn more about the Rethinkers on their website: www.therethinkers.com.
Also, please support us by visiting http://3banana.com/m/3Ye/9BUxGSgjMzT
Posted by rachelelee at 09/03/2009 @ 10:28pm
Get to know your neighbors and form a gardening collective. Grow some food and teach children to grow food in your backyard or a planter so they know that food comes from the ground and effort and not from a piece of plastic in a supermarket.
Posted by skully at 09/04/2009 @ 12:18am
Posted by Peter Rothberg at 09/03/2009 @ 3:31pm
Maasch/JOMAMMA lives in dread of the day "you liberals force us to get our food, only tofu, from the ....POST OFFICE!!!!!!!!!"
heheh
Posted by Mask at 09/04/2009 @ 09:00am
Eating less meat is good for the environment as well as your health. One cow flops 16 times the manure/urine of one person. That pollution fouls streams and rivers with e. coli, salmonella, and hormones from cattle feed and cattle medications. It takes 1000 gallon of water to produce one ounce of beef. You do the math.
Posted by miskito at 09/04/2009 @ 1:06pm
Posted by miskito at 09/04/2009 @ 1:06pm
I did the math...
1-8oz filet about medium right off the grill along with an Idaho double baked, fresh asparagas with a dash of lemon butter, all washed down with a bottle of ...oh...$100 red produces a wonderful evening...
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/04/2009 @ 3:47pm
Peter, I'm sorry that you did not get many actual responses for your article. Just a bunch of snarky folk hovering over the keyboard, waiting to make the kill.
I think if there were about one fifth of the current population around there would be one hell of an improvement in the food, the air, general pollution, and this blog.
I already know what the multiple choice responses will be, but have at. I'm fresh back from Alaska, full of shrimp and halibut that the Exxon Valdez polluted. Mmmm.
Posted by ficheye at 09/04/2009 @ 7:00pm
washed down with a bottle of ...oh...$100 red produces a wonderful evening...Posted by YourJomamma at 09/04/2009 @ 3:47pm
"Die and endow a college or a cat." A. Pope
Posted by Sorelish at 09/04/2009 @ 8:52pm
Ah a subject I feel I may weild a little authority in.
I've been in the food business long enough to have worked and run both sides of the spectrum, the gigantic evil corporations, and the small time places where they actually try to give you a little value on the dollar.
Trust me when I say the gigantic corporations are evil. They care for nothing more than their bottom line, routinely sell and advertise terrible product as something it's not, and completely mislead people in general.
My real idea is that people are fat and unhealthy because they're lazy, gluttounous and generally ignorant. How it is our culture can be so completely plugged in to the "information superhighway" and still be so downright ignant.
All I'm trying to say is that eating well is completely feasible. Despite the fact that yuppie scum like maasch feel the need to spend $100 dollars on their wine (most likely without knowing anything more about it than what's on the price tag) people can eat well on the cheap without ordering from the dollar menu. I feel no sympathy for people too lazy to educate themselves however, and I have some major reservations with my tax dollars paying for heart transplants for the pigs who can't control themself.
Posted by TexasFlood at 09/04/2009 @ 10:12pm
JO -- Have no idea what you're trying to insinuate. Didn't even mention the govt here. Posted by Peter Rothberg at 09/03/2009 @ 3:31pm
Really?
3. Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards.
9. Tell Congress that food safety is critical.
10. Demand job protections for workers along each point of the food processing chain.
That's three shout-outs to the govt right there.
I've got no problem with the other points, though. I think most people are into eating healthy. I just don't want the government telling me what to eat. And, hey, the French get great cardioprotection from that expensive red wine they eat with tasty, "bad" food.
Posted by twillie at 09/04/2009 @ 11:02pm
And, hey, the French get great cardioprotection from that expensive red wine they eat with tasty, "bad" food.Posted by twillie at 09/04/2009 @ 11:02pm
Only fools & the exploitative drink expensive red wine & some research will reveal to you that they don't eat "bad" food.
Posted by Sorelish at 09/05/2009 @ 11:42am
No surprise no one on the left caught Peters govt call.It is always on the left that too many view the govt is always the answer to every issue or perceved problem
Btw , I know enough about wines to know consumption is down for all consumer goods and wine is cheap now and very fine wines cheaper.
There is good news that the democraticstream media missed(CBS, abc, CBS, CNN, ect)....
A Huge oil field find in the Gulf of Mexico.... Well, the Chinese knew of it since they are drilling of if Obamas new buddys home... Cuba. If current cabal in Washington weren't killing our currency with the economic suicide policys, gas could be under a dollar a gallon again.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/05/2009 @ 7:42pm
Only fools & the exploitative drink expensive red wine & some research will reveal to you that they don't eat "bad" food. Posted by Sorelish at 09/05/2009 @ 11:42am
Goose liver pate? Red meat doused in cream-based sauces? Fried foods? By "bad", I don't bad-tasting, I mean bad for your heart. But their heart disease rates are fairly low, due to the protective effects of red wine.
The "exploitative drink expensive red wine"? Who are they exploiting? The grapes? What a silly statement. Workers of the world , unite behind sorelish!! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
Posted by twillie at 09/06/2009 @ 12:41am
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/05/2009 @ 7:42pm
I could pour you a glass of blended Chilean Malbec & you'd swear that it was the best wine you'd ever drunk. Cost, 5 bucks a bottle, so leave the effeteness behind.
Posted by Sorelish at 09/06/2009 @ 12:52am
Posted by twillie at 09/06/2009 @ 12:41am
Moderate wine consumption is important, but the French get the overwhelming majority of fats from dairy & vegetable consumption, that is, the good fats. They are not big beef eaters.
We have some Alpine dairy goats & they provide us with a lot of food. My favorite is kefir.
If you drink 100 dollar wine, the question must be asked. Where did you get that kind of money? The answer is usually at someone else's expense.
Posted by Sorelish at 09/06/2009 @ 01:19am
I could pour you a glass of blended Chilean Malbec & you'd swear that it was the best wine you'd ever drunk. Cost, 5 bucks a bottle, so leave the effeteness behind.
Posted by Sorelish at 09/06/2009 @ 12:52am
I have to agree with you. I buy my wines through Trader Joes and Cost Plus World Market.
The Chilean Malbec's are great.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/06/2009 @ 2:40pm
Sorelish,
Try the Argentine Malbecs
<The grape clusters of Argentine Malbec are different from its French relatives have smaller berries in tighter, smaller clusters. This suggest that the cuttings brought over by Pouget and later French immigrant was a unique clone that may have gone extinct in France due to frost and the phylloxera epidemic.[10] Argentine Malbec wine is characterized by its deep color and intense fruity flavors with a velvety texture.[11] While it doesn't have the tannic structure of a French Malbec, being more plush in texture, Argentine Malbecs have shown similar aging potential as their French counterparts.[2] The Mendoza region is the leading producer of Malbec in Argentina with plantings found throughout the country in places such as La Rioja, Salta, San Juan, Catamarca and Buenos Aires.[9]>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbec
Posted by antisocialist at 09/06/2009 @ 3:23pm
I love the swine who spout pre-written crap about food and wine when they have NO clue what they're talking about.
This current fashion trend surrounding food is downright irritating if you ask me. A whole generation of "foodies" whose only experience in cooking and cuisine is on their couch in the company of Rachel Ray.
I'm not saying everyone should be in the industry in otlrder to form opinions but don't come into my restaurant and act is if you've been imparted with some sort of wisdom by the food network.
There are SO many people flooding the industry right now with high-priced educations from LCB and CIA, spurred on by their watching top chef every week. 90% or so have no clue what they're doing and no work ethic to speak of.
Sorry for the rant. Wine snobs make me want to lose it.
Posted by TexasFlood at 09/06/2009 @ 10:01pm
I love the swine who spout pre-written crap about food and wine when they have NO clue what they're talking about.
This current fashion trend surrounding food is downright irritating if you ask me. A whole generation of "foodies" whose only experience in cooking and cuisine is on their couch in the company of Rachel Ray.
I'm not saying everyone should be in the industry in otlrder to form opinions but don't come into my restaurant and act is if you've been imparted with some sort of wisdom by the food network.
There are SO many people flooding the industry right now with high-priced educations from LCB and CIA, spurred on by their watching top chef every week. 90% or so have no clue what they're doing and no work ethic to speak of.
Sorry for the rant. Wine snobs make me want to lose it.
Posted by TexasFlood at 09/06/2009 @ 10:01pm
Posted by TexasFlood at 09/06/2009 @ 10:01pm
Throughly agree, TF. Thats why I eat at home and avoid confrontations. People who've just spent 7 or 8 bucks on a chicken sandwich are usually not in good mood.
Posted by Sorelish at 09/06/2009 @ 10:23pm
If you drink 100 dollar wine, the question must be asked. Where did you get that kind of money? The answer is usually at someone else's expense. Posted by Sorelish at 09/06/2009 @ 01:19am
More of a beer drinker myself. Is that really your worldview? That someone with a lot of money must have screwed someone to get it? That seems rather bitterly cynical and irrational.
Posted by twillie at 09/06/2009 @ 11:34pm
I read an updated version of the "Verizon Is Wrong" blog post by Peter concerning the Labor Day event in WV. That blog has closed to comments.
It turns out that Verizon is just one of over 100 sponsors, mostly locals, and V's regional sales team shelled out a whopping $1,000 to have the privilege to set up a tent.
How this story started is some no-name blogger, the one at HuffPo Peter linked to, glanced through the sponsor list and just decided to unload on a national co. This is the state of `journalism' today....find a story where there is NONE.
I magine if I wanted to, I can go find a list of sponsors/contributors to some local events and blow it out-of-proportion to create some traffic to my site.
Peter, you never did answer my question from that thread:
Posted by Happy at 08/31/2009 @ 9:37pm: "Answer me, Peter, must everything that contributes to the American way of life be turned into political this-or-that, or enviro-nazism?"
Posted by Happy at 09/07/2009 @ 11:04am
I thought you lefties liked illegal labor...
Posted by pyeatte at 09/07/2009 @ 12:23pm
Just call me "The Happy Class Warrior."
And Tea Willy, doesn't this blogging cut into your "party" time? You're needed on the front lines to fight the socialists trying to take away your Social Security & Medicare!
Posted by Sorelish at 09/07/2009 @ 4:32pm
Posted by Sorelish at 09/07/2009 @ 4:32pm
Likewise, you're needed at the front lines to scream "RACIST!" at people who disagree with Obama's political appointments.
Posted by twillie at 09/07/2009 @ 5:22pm
If you drink 100 dollar wine, the question must be asked. Where did you get that kind of money? The answer is usually at someone else's expense.
Posted by Sorelish at 09/06/2009 @ 01:19am
Where did I get that kind of money? I worked hard and earned it...the sad part is I had to earn $200 so I could keep $100....you communists got the other $ 100...
The real question is...
Why aren't you making "that kind of money?'...and if that is a lot of money to you, then you know nothing about money or how to earn it and therefore, do not belong anywhere near it...especially other peoples money or have a say so in how to spend it.
Posted by YourJomamma at 09/08/2009 @ 9:37pm