Foi Gras

Speaking of Dan Barber. . .

This is the video (yet another TED talk, from the TASTE conference I believe) that turned me on to him. He and I hardly have allied beliefs on many things food-related, but I respect his beliefs and the thoughtfulness he puts behind every bite. And he is a big proponent of supporting local agriculture. Even if he does pull the horrendous "but it tastes so good" joke, I'm willing to hear what he has to say.

Ellen Gustafson: Obesity + Hunger = 1 global food issue

Jamie Oliver

Every year the TED Conference awards at least one of its speakers a "TED PRIZE" to "an exceptional individual who receives $100,000 and, much more important, "One Wish to Change the World." Designed to leverage the TED community's exceptional array of talent and resources, the Prize leads to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact." This years recipient was Jamie Oliver, and this week he revealed his wish to the world.

I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.

He speaks passionately about the need to educate children and parents about food. Repeating the haunting mantra expressed by so many other nutrition experts - that we have welcomed in a generation of children whose life span is less than their parents - he implores people to accept the reality of the situation and, even more important, accept the responsibility of it as well. He talks about obesity and bad health as a very serious and deadly epidemic (with diet-related diseases sporting a higher death toll than all other leading causes of death combined). Yet, unlike AIDS or Cancer, it is not only completely preventable, it is reversible as well. He presents simple facts and necessary solutions. Don't listen to me summarize - check it out for yourself in the video above.

Jamie Oliver is a celebrity chef who worked to revolutionize food in the British school system by launching a campaign entitled "Feed Me Better" and now has his sites set on America with an upcoming reality show "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" on ABC, where he takes on the fattest city in the nation, Huntington, West Virginia, in hopes of turning around their eating habits.

I am happy to see him gaining attention and finding a way to bring this topic into mainstream media outlets. Its truly embarrassing what we feed kids in schools, and our justifications for it just don't hold up.

His talk got me to thinking and I realized that most of the issues I feel passionate about, with regard to food, stem from us as a global culture distancing ourselves from food. We distance ourselves from the unpleasantries of factory farming, we distances ourselves from the environmental strain of large scale agriculture, we distance ourselves from knowledge about where our food comes from - we don't properly understand its nutritional value, and often times eat things that contain ingredients we know absolutely nothing about. We distance ourselves from the responsibility all these revelations entail. When we are not properly educated we are helpless. Below is a list of a couple of things Oliver outlined in his talk to help the US get back on track.

• Every child in the U.S. should learn to cook 10 meals before leaving high school.
• Supermarkets should appoint "food ambassadors" to explain to customers how they can prepare local, fresh and seasonal foods.
• Food companies should make education a central part of their business.
• Food labeling should be improved to accurately warn people about unhealthy food. In his video he calls America's current food-labeling system a "farce."

Ann Cooper: Renegade Lunch Lady

Rainy mornings are for peach tea and TED talks. Thinking seriously of rewarding my 7:30 AM wake up with a 9:30 AM nap, I decided instead to watch an online video of Ann Cooper speak, and her talk mesmerized me. Who is Ann Cooper? She is the director of nutrition services for the Berkeley (California) Unified School District, and she's an outspoken activist for serving fresh, sustainable food to kids. Following her talk I visited her website and following her website I read an online interview from 2006. She is very clear and direct in her mission to provide kids with healthy food.

According to her, reforming school lunches is a "social justice issue." Hardly giving you time to process the information, in her talk she hurls out at you one statistic after another about government subsidizing and big agribusiness leaving kids with unsuitable, detestable, barely-edible lunches that are making them sick. Sick to the point where we are ushering in a generation that is expected to have a lifespan shorter than their parents. 70% of all antibiotics consumed in America is consumed by animal husbandry. The result? We get diseases (like e coli) that we cannot cure. Not only that but by feeding children a diet high in suguar and saturated fat, we undermine their chance at a healthy life. According to Ann Cooper :: "The Centers for Disease Control estimates that of US children born in the year 2000...one out of three will develop diabetes in their lifetime."

Her talk got me to reflect on my personal school lunch experiences. When I was about 7 years old, and living in San Diego, California, I would pretend to get a corn dog for lunch (even though I hated them) so that the lunch lady would serve me ketchup (which I loved to eat on its own - gross). By 6th grade my palate had evolved and i was now living in Corpus Christie, Texas. I ate chili-cheese Frito's and an ice cream snickers bar every single day for lunch. I was perfectly ok with that. I was 11 years old. High school found me back in San Diego, where we didn't even have a cafeteria. Food was served at one or two "food carts" which were bright orange carts on wheels, smaller than the kinds found at football games. It offered an array of chips, microwavable burritos, cup 'o noodles, and cookies. When I decided to become a vegan at 15, needless to say I started bringing my own lunch.

None of this seemed odd to me. We go to school to learn and without knowing it, I learned how to eat (poorly as it turned out). 7 year old ketchup-loving me doesn't care about nutrition, or sustainability, or organic produce, unless someone is there to guide and educate me otherwise. Of course I was ok with chili-cheese Frito's and microwaved burritos, I never knew any better. No one explained to me the consequences, the long term costs. No one taught me how to grow my own vegetable garden, how to cook, how to tell a ripe avocado from a rotten one. And if we don't learn how to eat healthy in school, where are we supposed to figure it out? If eating this way, 5 times or more a day over the span of 13 years, is not only the norm but a norm sanctioned by our teachers - the ultimate figures of authority, then why would we break out of this habit once we leave school? We don't. And we pass this misinformation on to our own children and the cycle continues until it is so protected by tradition that we have to label anyone who cries for its upheaval as a "renegade."

Ann Cooper is trying to change this. When she started in the Berkley school system, the only tool in the kitchen was a box cutter. There are kids who have never seen fresh produce, who do not know that strawberries come from the ground, not from a bush or a tree.

I could go on and on inarticulately parroting the things i have learned from her today. I would rather people explore for themselves. Let 20 min of your day whiz by as you look at this video. Its worth it.

I've included a picture as well of her "meal wheel" I think its awesome and far more accurate than the bogus pyramid we all grew up with. Yes, bogus.