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Slow Food 
Tue Sep 08, 2009 at 09:58:34 AM PDT
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Yesterday I attended one of the many Slow Food Eat-Ins held across the country as a kick off to lobbying for healthier school lunch. The one I went to was in Duvall, WA in the Snoqualmie Valley. We literally ate the rainbow, with veggies in every single color. It was so pretty that I took pictures.
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There's More...
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Comments, 64 words in story)
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Sun Mar 22, 2009 at 04:51:38 AM PDT
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- Mark Bittman shares a recipe for oven baked steel-cut oats. Yum! I'm trying this.
- Need more details about the new White House garden? How about a map and pics of the groundbreaking.
- I have a new goal for my food career. Check this out - tourists to Tuscany will pay big bucks for the privilege of cooking with Michael Pollan. Oh yeah, after my book becomes a New York Times bestseller (lol) I want to be invited as the celebrity guest to an Italian food resort!
- Natasha Chart reports on a super-sweet bill in the Montana state government that forces biotech companies to obtain a farmers' permission before sampling crops on their land. Nice! It's already passed the House... just has to get past the Senate now.
- Civil Eats features a fantastic piece on farming in Namibia.
- How Much Water Do You Really Use? This site rocks! Did you know it uses 37 gallons of water to make a cup of coffee, 33 for a soda, and only 9 for a cup of tea? But all that ain't nothin' compared to the 634 gallons required for a hamburger!
- A gardener describes her garden library. If you're looking for some good books on gardening, this might be the place to go for suggestions.
- Scientific American weighs in about MRSA on hog farms with their article "Our Sick Farms, Our Infected Food."
- Marion Nestle comments on Disney characters advertising food. I'm with her - let's keep our cartoons and our food separate. The last two pics in the post make a very clear point - Sponge Bob hawking baby carrots AND Burger King. If we're teaching our kids to choose the food that Sponge Bob eats, like carrots, does that mean that Burger King is good for you too?
- Wow! Slow Food and Michael Pollan met with the CDC! If only the freakin' House Ag Committee was so receptive to their message...
- Marion Nestle reports on the USDA's plan to test ground beef at packing plants 4 times a month (PDF). I like this idea... sort of. Four times a month seems pretty weak to me, considering the volume of ground beef one of these plants can make in a single day. I'd be very happy if the proposal was to test the meat 4 times a DAY instead.
- As if you didn't have enough to look for on food labels already, now you might start seeing a sustainable water certification. Nice idea, but why can't we just drink the stuff out of our taps?
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Discuss
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Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 10:30:50 AM PDT
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( - promoted by Jill Richardson)
I should preface this post by admitting that as a vegetarian, I was skeptical of attending the Slow Food Nation event this weekend in San Francisco. I prefer to promote the idea that we should eat less meat, because I don't believe that the world can maintain its current meat-eating habits on locally-produced animal products.
But there is still much common ground, and I support eating locally, shop at my farmers market, and just love everything about fresh produce. So I decided to spend Sunday afternoon at the Civic Center, roaming around the Victory Garden and other festivities. Upon arrival, I was impressed with the large crowds, array of booths, and the garden was lovely.
While it was great to see so many people there, it was also almost impossible to get close to many of the farmer booths, especially those giving out free food samples. But that's not my gripe. I was perfectly willing and eager to pay for some prepared food on the other side of the plaza. But when my partner and I went looking for something to eat, we could find nothing. Every single booth we saw was selling another kind of dead animal. (He called it "carcass row.")
So I went over to the information booth and asked if they knew of anybody selling vegetarian food. The sympathetic Slow Food Nation rep said, no, she didn't see anything either, and since she was vegetarian, understood our plight. She said that other people had also complained, so the feedback would be duly noted for next time.
We did finally find some bread to go with our cucumber, and enjoyed some nice pear juice on the lawn, on a glorious day. But it still felt like a slap in the face. I know of several local vegetarian restaurants that would have been thrilled to have been there. (And yes, some do source their ingredients locally.) It's also not a great way to bring in new supporters. There are many people who believe in the precepts of slow food, but who choose not to eat meat. We are doing our part to save the planet by eating lower on the food chain. To exclude vegetarians does not help build the movement. At the information booth, they were trying to sign up new members. I will wait until next year to see if they heard the feedback.
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Discuss
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Sat Aug 16, 2008 at 10:58:21 AM PDT
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I was just listening to a radio program called How We Eat and the Slow Food Nation when I got a phone call from Eddie C. The program is a conversation moderated by Eric Schlosser with panelists Alice Waters, Anya Fernald, Bertram Lubin, and Harold Goldstein about the Slow Food movement and children's health.
As I was listening to Alice speak about the power of good food, Eddie's phone call proved her point. Yesterday I sent around an email to several friends in San Francisco and one in New York (Eddie) about a Slow Food Nation event (text of the email is pasted below), an Eat-In that is a collaboration between Slow Food Nation and Outstanding in the Field. What was Eddie's phone call about? He's buying his plane tickets and he's going to San Francisco. Slow Food Nation was already going to be fantastic, but with Eddie there it will be a thousand times better (for me, at least!).
Click the link above to hear the radio show (it's wonderful and very worth listening to), and give me a heads up if you'll be in SF Labor Day Weekend.
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There's More...
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Comments, 208 words in story)
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Sun Jul 06, 2008 at 07:33:15 AM PDT
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Since this site is dedicated to Locavores, I'd like to expand a little on that movement. What happens when one takes on the challenge to eat only locally produced food (and wine) and all within a 160 kilometer radius (100 miles) for an entire month? It's about getting back to our grassroots, supporting our local farmers and reducing the miles our food travels from paddock to plate. It's that simple. It is a movement sweeping the world.
Coined by a Bay Area group, the term "locavore" refers to people who only eat food grown, processed and produced within a 100 mile radius of where they live.
More and more of us are turning our backs on imported products and getting back to our grassroots supporting local farmers and producers. Eating local food cuts back the distance it travels from the paddock to the plate and in turn reduces harm to the environment.
I have a few suggestions, over the orange bar.
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Comments, 603 words in story)
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