Pittsburgh’s AppleFest

by intern Alaine Janosy

Apparently there is nothing that says ‘Western Pennsylvania” quite like an apple, or at least that’s what Donald Gibbon thought when he helped found the region’s annual AppleFest, which will be celebrating its fourth year this Saturday, October 24, 2009.

As a member of Slow Food Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA), Donald has a long history of working with all sorts of small-scale farming initiatives in the area. While working as a photographer, he fell in love with the apple cider from a local farm and documented the farm’s entire cider-making process, start to finish. All of this exposure to the apple farming community in Western Pennsylvania made him aware of the not-so-slow decline in the number of area small orchards. These orchards were having trouble competing with all the apples being shipped-in to grocery stores from other locations, both international and national. After reading Michael Pollan’s “Botany of Desire” and Frank Browning’s “Apples: the story of the fruit of temptation,” Donald decided to do what he could to promote local apples.

So, AppleFest was born. It has grown into an event sponsored by Slow Food Pittsburgh, Allegheny Group - Sierra Club, East End Food Co-op, PASA, and Pennsylvania Agricultural Extension Service. The festival has helped raise local awareness about the wonderful apples available to residents right in their own backyard. The local farmers that provide apples and cider to the festival for sale and tasting are more than willing participants because they do not have to give up a day’s work to bring their products to the public. Volunteers go out to the farms and pick up the apples and cider that will then be sold at the downtown festival. Some of the unique varieties featured at the festival include Monroe, Opalescent, and, Donald’s personal favorite, Stayman. According to Donald “this is a very special apple. It is both firm and tart, making it a spectacular baking apple. If you had no other reason to move to SW Pennsylvania, its Stayman apples would be a good enough reason!”

More after the jump

IOM Releases Nutrition Recommendations for School Meals

Deborah Lehmann is studying economics and public policy at Brown University, where she was recently awarded a Royce Fellowship. She writes for the Brown Daily Herald, covering campus news and trends in higher education. She is also the editor of School Lunch Talk, where this post first appeared.

The current nutrition standards for school meals are in sore need of an overhaul. They haven’t been updated since 1995, and they’re not in line with the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The USDA tried for several years to bring the regulations up to date, but after running into problems —either technical, or political, or both — the department outsourced the task to the Institute of Medicine last year.

The IOM released its recommendations yesterday, and there’s some good news and some bad news.

Here’s the good news: If the USDA follows the IOM recommendations, school meal regulations may soon set limits on calories and sodium, require more whole grains and vegetables, and outlaw whole milk.

Here’s the bad news: the changes may increase costs for cafeterias by up to 25 percent for breakfasts, and up to 9 percent for lunches. Unless Congress increases the reimbursement rate for school meals, most cafeterias won’t have the money to meet the new guidelines.

The IOM proposed sweeping changes to the school meal nutrition standards. First, the committee recommended a food-based menu planning system that includes limits on calories, fat, saturated fat and sodium. Currently, schools have the option of using a nutrient-based system, which makes it easy to serve heavily processed, fortified food. They can meet requirements for vitamin C, for example, by serving fortified fruit snacks. Under a food-based system, nutrient targets are used in developing the standards for school meals, but they are not used in the actual menu planning. Instead, schools must simply serve items from a number of different food groups, including dark green and orange vegetables and legumes.

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Slow Food on Campus chapters team up with 350.org

by intern Heather Teige

On October 24th, Slow Food on Campus chapters across the country will be hosting the first of their ‘good, clean and fair’ events.  This month, students are focused on the clean part of Slow Food USA’s mission and pooled their networks to support 350.org, an international campaign that raises awareness about global warming.  Many chapters are hosting on-campus events that will highlight the relationships between food and climate change.

This Saturday Slow Food on Campus chapters will host events, photograph them, and submit their photos to 350 to form a lively international visual petition stressing the need for new climate change policy.

Slow Food on Campus chapters will show their support by hosting 350-person bike rallies or coordinating 350-person seed plantings.  Some chapters may host cooking demonstrations, organize potlucks with ingredients that are all found within 350 miles of campus, or table at events educating communities about the benefits of eating locally.

We are excited to report about all of the exciting events our Slow Food on Campus chapters have planned, so check back next week for stories and pictures!

CSI: Organics

Setting the scene: young woman and her beau dining out. Later, woman dies of unknown poisoning. Suspect: boyfriend - until it’s discovered that she contracted an über-deadly new strain of e-coli. Did it come from the restaurant? “No!” the chef explains, bitterly. She runs a tight ship: “it had to have come in from the fields.”

Sound like the latest in a string of headlines? Nope, it’s the story line from the most recent episode of CSI: Miami titled “Bad Seed.” Yes, I’m a sucker for cheesy crime shows, David Caruso one-liners and overt Miami sexiness. I never thought I’d see overlap between my own passions and day job, with the CSI franchise, but it’s telling, I think, of how our movement has managed to get our messages across to the wider American audience. “Baby – we’ve made it to primetime!” In a way.

Warning: If you’re intending to watch the episode I’m totally going to give away the ending here!

How so? The episode was complete with shots of corn and tomato monocrops and undocumented farmworkers who work for one of many “organic” growers contracted by a mega-firm known as Dickson Organics. It just so happens that one of these farmers has an irrigation well where the e-coli contamination seemed to originate from, which of course lies just downhill from a huge cattle compound.

Case closed, right? Fine the farmer for negligent homicide? Well, in another plot twist, the original victim’s boyfriend has himself suffered from a poisoning, leaving him brain-dead and paralyzed. Turns out that this farmer has become the victim of “drift” from his neighbors, and water contamination from another, as he explains to the CSI team. Dickson Organics is going after his land and livelihood because they discovered genetic markers from their patented corn on his land.

In an effort to support this farmer’s fight against a likely lawsuit, the CSI team tracks down the GMO corn genetics. What they find is a bacterial gene has been fixed to the corn in order to better break down cellulose, and in turn allows people to more easily digest corn products. A seemingly beneficial quality of GMO corn, yeah? Except the bacteria is directly related to the bacterial strain that causes botulism – and paralysis – and the Dickson Organics CEO knew about it.

More after the jump

Know Your Farms and Pop-up Markets

by intern Grace Mitchell

A few years ago in Davidson, North Carolina, Christy Shi wanted to transform her diet into one comprised of local foods.  She started driving to area farms and meeting farmers, but had guilty pangs because her efforts benefited only herself.  Indeed, she was able to learn where her food came from, but she wanted to share that knowledge with others, too.  Christy organized a club serving about twenty people, and, after some initial hurdles, farmers saw the advantages in Christy’s efforts, namely, they did not have to transport or market their food. Before long, her endeavors grew into a business called Know Your Farms, which brings food to communities surrounding Davidson, including chefs in nearby Charlotte and students at Davidson College.

Businesses similar to Know Your Farms are appearing all over the country.  Here in New York City, the organization Basis Farm-to-Chef works to connect small and mid-size farmers with city-dwelling consumers.  To date, it has been primarily concerned with linking chefs working in the city to farmers outside the city.  This past weekend, however, Basis jump-started a new and essential effort: a pop-up farmer’s market.  This market marks an important step in making the food they sell available to everyone—not only restaurant patrons.  I had the opportunity to work at the farmers’ market on that blustery and energy-filled Saturday, October 10th, to see firsthand the efforts of Basis Farm-to-Chef.  In the morning, New York City chefs attended the market and met the farmers.  The market opened to the public in the afternoon, surprising and engaging pedestrians who may have otherwise not visited a farmers’ market were it not along the path of their afternoon stroll.  The efforts of this pop-up farmers’ market will see a permanent fruition with the opening of a Basis store in the coming months, which will be located in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan.

While providing food to restaurants comprises an important and exciting chunk of business for Know Your Farms and Basis Farm-to-Chef, their more community-oriented efforts, such as farmers’ markets, have greater potential to truly reshape community food systems.  Forging a connection between farmers and consumers is essential, but one that not all farmers can do themselves.  Businesses such as Know Your Farms and Basis Farm-to-Chef enable farmers to focus their time and energy on growing food, and have led to increased availability of that food.  If you don’t have a farmers’ market where you live, or even if you do, follow the examples set by these businesses and locate a farmer nearby.  See what you can do to support her work—it will probably be quite delicious.

Do you know of similar organizations in your area?  Let us know who they are by posting a comment to this blog.  We’d love to hear about them.

How Biodiversity Can Save The World

by intern Shanti Prasad

A Thousand Suns, a new short documentary by The Global Oneness Project explores the stark contrasts between the industrialized world and the natural world of The Gamo Highlands in the African Rift Valley of southwestern Ethiopia. The film shows how the indigenous people of The Gamo Highlands may be “holding keys to our own survival” through an in depth look at their interconnected culture, belief systems, and agricultural practices, which have remained intact for 10,000 years.

The documentary examines the involvement of two outside organizations that are potential threats to the Gamo Highlands. One is the evangelical Protestant church; it is introducing monotheistic traditions that have no place for worshiping nature, a central tenet of the Gamo system of laws and rituals.

The other organization is the controversial Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which was established by The Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006. The movie illustrates how proponents of AGRA say that they are helping to provide technology to small-scale farms. Critics in the film argue that with agribusinesses like Monsanto, Cargill, and Syngenta involved, AGRA is profit driven, and its practices will result in reduced income for Africans. The Network for Eco-Farming in Africa argues that the knowledge of African farmers should be taken into account rather than relying solely on foreign technology and ideas.

This movie—available for free download, and airing on PBS this spring—reveals how the Gamo Highlands is an ideal example of a rich ecosystem that has been preserved through sustainable stewardship of the land. They are now a center of agricultural diversity, which gives them the resilience necessary to cope with agricultural adversity. The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) released a study, which concludes that organic agricultural systems are out producing traditional agriculture and are making “a significant contribution to hunger and poverty.” The Gamo people provide a lesson in how our holistic relationship with nature is deeply linked to our survival.

Stalking my Stomach

Eating is something I take very seriously - and so is the concept of memory.  Yet in spite my love of eating, I often have a hard time remembering what I ingest - even just a day or two later.

I moved in with an old friend at the start of September and we have been having dinner together most nights - but with time I began forgetting what I had cooked.  Knowing my love of data collection, he suggested I start writing our menus down.  In college I studied history, and the intersection of memory and record is really fascinating to me. In this case, how does the concept of enjoying a meal change when I can’t recall it without the help of notes? 

I began tracking our dinners, but soon enough that expanded to jotting down all my meals, snacks, and desserts.  At that point I realized, why keep this to myself when I could share it with the world through twitter?

This step changed the process for me.  What began as a way to remember personal experiences, became a willfully public statement about my food decisions.  Knowing that someone - anyone - could see what I eat has begun a curious change in my behavior.  I have always eaten well, but now the pressure is even greater.  Social pressure, though silent (and potentially non-existent!), made me want to strive to eat well.

Once I had begun down this path, why stop there?  Looking at my consumption is interesting, but then I realized I could bring the analysis further by bringing in how much all of this cost.  I keep pretty good track of my finances, so I began pulling numbers.

More after the jump

It’s Heirloom Harvest Week

It’s Heirloom Harvest Week in Providence, Boston and Portsmouth (October 12-18)! Chefs Collaborative asked all the chefs participating in the RAFT Grow-out project to put one or more items on their menu this week that highlight and honor locally grown vegetables from the project. Various factors, including the incredibly hard year farmers had, have made project vegetables scarce in some areas.  However, all the project chefs have scared up a RAFT Grow-Out veggie or two, and they are doing some amazingly delicious things with them.

If you live nearby, check out their creative creations before the week is up!

More after the jump

Hey You! Are you Growing Green?

If you answered yes to this question, you should consider nominating yourself or someone you know for the National Resource Defense Council’s “Growing Green Award.”  Through this national award, NRDC will recognize extraordinary contributions that advance ecologically integrated farming practices, climate stewardship, water stewardship, farmland preservation, and social responsibility from farm to fork.

The NRDC’s panel of judges, which includes Michael Pollan, will select one outstanding individual in each of the following categories to receive a cash prize: Food Producer, Business Leader, Thought Leader, and Water Steward.  $10,000 will be awarded in the Food Producer category.

Click here to read about the other judges and to review the eligibility and criteria.

Or, here to nominate you or someone you know.

Nominations are due by December 4, 2009.

Lunch Money

by Slow Food USA staffer Gordon Jenkins

This week is National School Lunch Week, as designated by Congress in a law that dates back to 1962. To announce it, the White House issued a press release that began, “Every young American deserves access to a wholesome, nutritious lunch.” This is noteworthy because it is true and because the reality of school lunch is nowhere near it. More often than not, the lunch served to 31 million young Americans at school is overly processed and unhealthy, and the impact of this problem extends far beyond the cafeteria.

Congress created the National School Lunch Program in 1946 “as a measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well being of the Nation’s children.” At the time, the U.S. was emerging from a war in which an alarming number of army recruits were so malnourished that they were unable to serve. Recognizing that lack of adequate food during the Depression had created a national security risk, Congress created a program to provide every child with a healthy lunch every school day. When President Truman signed the program into law, he declared, “No nation is healthier than its children.”

This is a lesson we have forgotten. Today’s kids are the first in over two centuries to have shorter life expectancies than their parents. We shouldn’t gloss over that fact: for the first time in modern history, our kids are unhealthier than we are. Why? Because we let them eat the overly processed foods that have taken over the American diet. Many parents let their kids eat them at home, which is irresponsible – though sometimes parents don’t have much choice. Letting kids eat them at school is just unacceptable. In this economy, more kids than ever need the guarantee of a healthy meal every day. It is wrong to put a child who relies on school lunch in the situation where the alternative to going hungry is to eat the processed foods that are going to make him sick and keep him from performing well in the classroom. Our nation can do better.

To get involved in Slow Food USA’s Time for Lunch campaign, click here.

More after the jump