School Lunch debate picking up speed

The debate around school lunch and child nutrition is gathering major momentum.  The 2 big reasons why:

   
• On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack will speak at a National Press Club luncheon, where he will highlight the Obama Administration’s priorities for reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act and call on Congress to act swiftly to pass a strong reauthorization bill to improve the health and nutrition of America’s children.
   
• On Tuesday, Michelle Obama will be announcing her big new initiative around preventing child obesity. She’s been doing a big ol’ ramp-up this week including an appearance on the Today Show, and a meeting with some key cabinet members and senators, covered extensively on Obamafoodorama.  Also, click here to read Jane Black’s interview with Senator Harkin, in which they discuss Michelle Obama and nutrition (Harkin: “I sensed among all the people there a real desire to make significant changes and put some emphasis on this”).
What a good time to get involved in the Time for Lunch campaign! You, too, can be part of all the hubbub. Sign our petition; write a letter to your legislator; heck! have a party for lots of people to write to their legislators!  Click here to get the lay of the land.

1 Comments | Categories: Events, Farms and Farming, Film/TV/Radio, Food Justice, News, Current Events, Policy, School Food, Take Action

Dinner from the Dumpster

by Emily Vaughn

No matter how sustainably produced your food purchases are, food that goes uneaten is a waste of resources and a major pollutant.  Food scraps make up nearly 13 percent of municipal waste in the US. That percentage includes discarded trimmings like carrot peels and apple cores, but the bulk consists of surplus or aesthetically imperfect items from food service providers. Organic material like food waste produces methane as it decomposes in landfills: a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide.  What’s a conscientious consumer to do? 

One solution is to reclaim discarded food from the dumpster.  The new documentary,

Dive!: Living off America’s Waste by newcomer director Jeremy Seifert follows a lighthearted a group of bearded, freegan friends as they rifle through the trash bins of LA’s big-box grocery stores, and rattle off the code of containering (eg. “Never take more than you need”). One dive’s haul includes plastic cartons of blueberries, presumably thrown out because a handful of berries were bruised or moldy.  The next morning the director’s towheaded toddler grins with a mouthful of blueberry pancakes as he explains the meal’s origin to the camera. 

But after a few dives that reveal the extent of the food available for scavenging, the film matures from a youthful how-to into a serious examination of the industrial and corporate practices that make dumpster diving possible.  In a pivotal scene with cleverly balanced gravity and cheek, Seifert does some quick math—written out on a driveway in freecylced Reddi-wip—to show that reclaiming just one percent of the food thrown out in LA County would more than triple the food deficit of its food banks.

The focus then shifts to getting grocery stores to step-up their donation programs, and inspiring citizens to make it happen.  The film closes with a quote from Noam Chomsky, “Change and progress very rarely are gifts from above—they come out of struggles from below.Ԡ And it looks like the dumpster is the new battleground.

Dive! is screening at several west coast film festivals in coming months. You can also set up a screening in your area or purchase a copy online for $10.

Latest School Lunch News

The temperature is rising on the conversation about school lunch reform!

 
• Slow Food chapter leader and Better School Food advocate Susan Rubin writes about one teacher’s 2010 project: eating school lunch every day for a year.
 
• Secretary of Ag Vilsack calls for more resources for better school lunch: click here to listen to what he has to say.
 
• Jamie Oliver’s much anticipated US show has announced it’s March 26th debut. Click here to watch the trailer.
 
• Bay Area school lunch superstar Revolution Foods gets NY Times coverage this weekend for their above-standard school lunches and their advocacy to see reimbursement rates increased when the Child Nutrition Act gets reauthorized.
 
• Our Time for Lunch campaign is going strong—over 2,000 kids have written letters to their congress people—click here to get in on the action!

Farming?! That’s so QUEER!

This week I attended a preview of Out Here: A Queer Farmer Film Project. A work-in-progress, this documentary centers around queer farmers helping shape today’s movement of do-it-yourselfers bringing an umm, rainbow of real food to America’s tables.

For nearly three years I was a farmer (I like to say I’m retired). I also identify as a gay man, so I was excited to see a clip of this project. Yet, part of me wondered: why a film about queer farmers? And who is this movie for? In many ways the queerness factor has nothing to do with farming. But, when you actually ask if it does you’ll spark an interesting discussion.

The panel featured queer urban farmers from NYC’s Greenthumb program, Just Food’s Livestock Training Program, the NYC Community Gardens Coalition, and a woman from Darling Doe Farm in Saugerties in the Hudson Valley.

The audience and on-screen interviewees seemed to reach consensus that there’s a natural affinity drawing us queers to agriculture today – especially in the urban environment. Is it because as gays and lesbians we’re demonstrating that alternative ways of viewing the world have equal merit? We’re successfully challenging the norms of the traditional family, so perhaps participation in new food systems and community planning are natural extensions.

I leave it to social scientists to come up with data, but discussion pointed to a seeming tendency for queer agriculturalists to address the social justice issues at play in the food system. Likely, this is because queers too, face societal injustices every day.

When we talk “identity” politics and sociology we uncover diverse perspectives, but may still overlook others. One panelist noted that skin color was the identifier people notice first – not her sexuality. Queerness has nothing to do ability to teach another how to transplant tomatoes, but race and gender certainly may provide an element of “legitimacy” in one’s work in disadvantaged communities for whom the current food system disproportionately serves.

More after the jump

“What’s on Your Plate?” hits the TV waves

If you’ve been meaning to catch one of their screenings, but haven’t yet done so, take heart: “What’s On Your Plate?” will air on the Discovery Channel on Saturday, February 6th.

Consider planning a viewing party! Have a potluck, host a discussion, watch the movie in your living—anything goes.   Just make sure to save the date in your calendars now.  Click here to learn more about the film; it follows two eleven-year old multi-racial city kids as they explore their place in the food chain in New York City.  You can also read about the movie right here on our blog where we wrote about it last July.

There are additional airing dates listed on their web site.

Watch Food Inc. at home with friends

Food Inc., the movie that caused quite a stir earlier this year by exposing the shocking truth about the food we eat, was released today on DVD and Blu-Ray.  As we previously highlighted on this blog, Slow Food USA and many of its chapters were intimately involved in helping to promote and pre-screen this film to shed light on how our food supply is controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, worker safety and our own environment.

What were the reactions of audience members to this film?  What were your own thoughts as you watched it?  What should we be doing to continue to push big Ag to change their ways? How can we help ensure sustainable farming (and growing, processing, distribution) practices become the norm rather than the exception?  Share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

The DVD release also contains some additional footage and news coverage that you may not have seen around the time the film was released, including:

• Celebrity Public Service Announcements
• Resources
• ABC News Nightline “You Are What You Eat”: Food With Integrity
• “The Amazing Food Detective” and “Snacktown Smackdown”: Stay Active and Eat Health
• Deleted Scenes

Also, n.b.: The Center for Ecoliteracy has published a Food, Inc. Discussion Guide, designed a classroom resource for grades 9 to 12. 

The 102-page guide provides questions and activities about the film’s themes, including health, sustainability, animal welfare, and workers’ rights. It is designed to help high school students make more thoughtful choices about food and participate in a meaningful dialogue about food and food systems. 

You can download the Discussion Guide at the Food, Inc. web site.

Slow Food on Campus takes on Food and Climate Change

by intern Heather Teige

The first of Slow Food on Campus’ three-part event series focusing on ‘good, clean, and fair’ kicked off October 24th.  Slow Food on Campus (SFOC) chapters participated in, and coordinated on-campus events to help raise awareness of the “clean” part of Slow Food USA’s mission.  Our SFOC chapters supported 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action and were a part of the lively patchwork of creative and thoughtful events that advocated for better climate change policy (one that caps CO2 emissions at 350 parts per million).

Slow Food on Campus chapter efforts were part of more than 5,200 registered events around the globe; from these events, over 19,000 photos have been submitted and uploaded to 350.org.  The incredible breadth of diversity found in these photos, whether it be where the photo was taken, or the personal thoughts on climate change that the photos express, is inspiring.  The sheer number of people involved is a testament to the societal shift that has occurred in recent years and stands as proof of the commitment people are ready to make to help encourage better climate change policy.

More after the jump

Vegetable Love, even in late October

by intern Grace Mitchell

In July, I befriended a twelve-year-old boy, Jackson, who proclaimed to me his fierce love for vegetables of all kinds and his disappointment in his peers who, unlike him, were not raised on farms and had yet to find such love.  He told me he had trouble making friends because “they just didn’t understand.”  Lucky for our friendship, I too have an undying vegetable passion and appreciate like-minded souls, so Jackson and I became fast friends.

That soft-skied evening I ventured to the garden with Jackson’s grandfather where we admired his gargantuan squash plants that would provide bountiful and opulent meals come fall.  I tucked full my mouth with the exquisite fruits of his raspberry patch, a fine deal of which would become wine to warm their bodies through the wet winter.  Jackson introduced me to his hog, whom he was fattening up for the state fair competition, and who would, with or without prize, give Jackson and his family bacon and the like with the passing of October.  After harvesting far too many sugar peas from their vines and eating plenty more, we moved inside where Jackson’s grandmother set aside the spare sugar peas for freezing and pickling, and we sat down to enjoy a glass of last summer’s raspberry wine and the past autumn’s dried pears.  A meal followed, comprised solely of pickings from our evening garden stroll.  What luxurious ease it was to dine so gloriously!  And Jackson and his family would be eating in like manner all winter, thanks to their voluptuous garden and seasoned foresight.

Then one day I picked up and moved to New York City, where I still have yet to secure a dresser and other useful items of furniture, where I live in fear of lighting my antique oven, and where when the L train ceases to run (mm, going on four Saturdays?)I fail to make the one-and-a-half hour trek to the farmers’ market and too frequently find myself subsisting on spelt berries and a gifted and rapidly dwindling jar of apple butter. 

Alas!  How easy were those summer days of backyard vegetable bounty!  If I lived like Jackson, my vegetable love could be fed not only all summer and into fall harvest season, but also through the winter by the overabundance of summer produce preserved through canning, drying, and freezing.  It makes my heart prickle to know that while so many others committed to eating locally have been putting up their autumn harvest for coming months, I am preparing myself for a winter of vegetable doldrums and…more spelt berries.

More after the jump

“Botany of Desire” on PBS

Tomorrow night, “The Botany of Desire” airs on PBS(check your local listing for channel and airtime).  In anticipation of this, we partnered with the producers of the film to put on an heirloom apple scavenger hunt, and are today announcing our 9 winners. Those who entered were asked to take photos of as many heirloom/heritage apple varieties as they could, including the farm or farmer where the apples were located, and send us their list of apple varieties, their photos, and a recipe for something they made with one or more kind of apple. What a way to celebrate apple season and the work being done by Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Alliance to identify rare apple varieties, coordinate regional “forgotten fruit” workshops and compile resources on apple diversity!

For a review of “The Botany of Desire,” check out Paula Crossfield’s post over on Civil Eats.

And for beautiful apple photos and some terrific apple recipes form our winners, read on…

More after the jump

Food Revolution: a la Francaise

What happens when an adventurous mayor of a small town in France decides to introduce local, organic produce into the school cafeteria? I was curious, so I headed off to a screening of Food Beware, which had its NYC debut last week.

Ten minutes into the documentary I was convinced that I was about to sit through a French version of Food, Inc., which hit American theatres this past summer. Fifteen minutes I was proven wrong. The main voices of the documentary are almost exclusively those of the town’s residents, lending it a tangible degree of “humility” and the “personal” which other films in the food-doc genre (Food, Inc. included) are missing, in my opinion.

The film is shot predominantly in the idyllic town of Barjac in the Languedoc-Rousillon region (NE of Avignon) in Southern France. The progressive mayor, along with the school district’s central kitchen chef, embarks on an experiment to shift the district’s school food to an entirely organic menu. The result is that the kids love it. But, the parents love it too, and the local farmers, and a few local business owners, and… You can see where I’m going with this: there is a ripple-effect throughout the town’s families and economy. Even the local Meals-On-Wheels program is overhauled.

Aside from the school experiment, upon which the film centers half of its attention, the other focus is on the farmers and citizens who call the Languedoc their home. The region is bread basket and wine country. We see the stark difference between the soil tilth of an organic vineyard with that of the scorched and eroded landscape of a neighboring one. We see farmers gearing up and riding through their orchards to spray toxic chemicals. Underscoring these scenes are conversations with the peach farmer who becomes sick from his use of pesticides and whose own children suffer from genital deformation, and a mother of a child who died of leukemia, who’s doctors can only explain was caused by environmental factors.

More after the jump