“Let all who are hungry come and eat”

Slow Food USA is a relatively new recruit to the movement to reform the Child Nutrition Act. We entered the fray just last year, and did it in a particularly Slow Food way – by bringing thousands of people together at more than 300 Eat-Ins nation-wide that built public support for helping schools serve healthier food.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, we were borrowing a cue from an organization with far more experience in child nutrition advocacy: the Jewish Council of Public Affairs. Every year at Passover, the JCPA and Mazon: a Jewish Response to Hunger ask leaders in the Jewish community to organize Child Nutrition Seders across the nation, bringing families, neighbors and food providers together for a meal that mixes politics with pleasure and responsibility. The 2010 Child Nutrition Seders are coming up next month.

Using one of the most evocative lines from the traditional Passover Seder – “Let all who are hungry come and eat” – organizers use the meals to re-contextualize the Passover message of redemption from slavery into the modern struggle that hungry children face today. The goal is to send a powerful message to policymakers: we have a duty to end hunger, and investing in child nutrition programs must be part of the strategy.

This year’s Child Nutrition Seders share a policy goal with Slow Food USA’s Time for Lunch Campaign: for Congress to invest at least $1 billion in additional funding in the upcoming reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act. (Slow Food USA is also urging Congress to strengthen nutrition standards and equip schools to buy local.) Since we all share a belief in the power of bringing people together around a single table, Slow Food members and supporters may be interested in attending or organizing a Child Nutrition Seder near you. Learn more on the JCPA web site.

It’s not too early to start planting! Jonesing for green…

by Anastacia Marx de Salcedo, Slow Food Boston

February is tough on even the most chlorophyll-phobic among us. The other day, I caught my brother-in-law—the guy who’s enacted a total ban on houseplants and helivacs the floral arrangement from the dining room table—stuffing my Seeds of Change catalog down his pants.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Um, planning a garden?”

Ordinarily, I would have been supportive, but we’re talking about fodder for late night fantasies featuring Armenian cucumbers and Kurota Chantenay carrots.

“Not with my catalog you don’t,” I said, ripping it out of his hands. “But I’d be happy to give you a few pointers.”

Here’s what I told him:

A first-time gardener can’t go wrong with a lettuce and greens patch. The case in a nutshell: 1) They’re far and away the easiest vegetables to grow. 2) They yield the greatest bang for the buck, since you eat the whole thing except for the root. 3) They’re a cinch to prepare: just pick, wash, dress and eat.

My favorites are the old-time varieties with their distinctive flavors, cool looks and funky names. There’s Deer’s Tongue—mild taste, velvety texture and eponymous shape. Forellenschluss, crisp Romaine-type leaves spattered with crimson. And Bull’s Blood Beet, crinkled wine-colored tops with an oxalic zing. Round out these three (all from Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste, our catalog of endangered foods) with a handful of peppery, fast-growing arugula, beloved by humankind since the Roman Empire, and you have yourself a killer salad—every day for months!

But that’s not all.

By growing heirlooms, you’re helping to preserve biodiversity—and wresting a smidgen of control over the world seed market from big corporations. Today, a staggering 82% of the $36.5 billion seed market is “proprietary,” owned by a mere handful of companies (that list starts with Monsanto). Consolidation began in the 1940s with the development of supermarket-friendly hybrids (good looking! will travel!) and accelerated in the 1990s with the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

to read the rest of this article, on Boston’s “Public Radio Kitchen,” click here.

Opportunities for Students: Two Contests and a Conference about Healthy School Food

by intern Julia Landau

Right now, the National Farm to School Network is running two contests for grade school and college students, and has its fifth National Farm to Cafeteria Conference on its way. These are all great opportunities for Slow Food members who work with local schools, and for anyone and everyone interested in getting healthier food into schools and creating jobs in local farm economies.

The first contest asks K-12 and college students to record a video that shows what the phrase “real food” means to them. Farm to School poses three questions:

1 – What does real food mean to you?
2 - How does what we eat affect our culture, health, economy, or environment?
3 – Why should your cafeteria start or continue buying local food?

In answering these questions, the film can be anywhere from thirty seconds to three minutes, and directed in any style (documentary, fiction, live action – even animated). The grand prize? Appropriately, $1,000 toward the winners’ school lunch project. To check out last year’s stars, click here.

More after the jump

Youth food summit discusses food justice

by Slow Food on Campus member Julia Yerkovich

I have a confession to make:  I am not an activist.  I read my local Edible magazine and Michael Pollan’s books, and I shop at farmers markets.  But I am not an activist.  Because activists don’t buy, read, or eat their way out of their problems; activists, well, act.

This notion was probably the most important thing I realized this weekend at the “Strengthening the Roots” Convergence at UC Santa Cruz.  At first I was content with my self-contained actions of buying and eating local, and being a self-proclaimed escapist with ideals of aiming to live a self-sustaining lifestyle on my family’s farm.  I was satisfied with claiming the impossibility of toppling our capitalist government-run food system as a reasonable excuse for my refusal to act. I was frustrated with the isolated success of the food and health movement as being one that was possible only amongst those with the good fortune to have read the right books and buy the right foods. 

Then I met someone who told me of a place called the People’s Grocery in Oakland whose goal is to make healthy clean food accessible to ALL people.  And I met others who had organized against their campus food service providers, or had installed a campus garden, or student run food co-operative.  All of a sudden my actions of buying and eating local and my goals of escaping seemed selfish.  And I no longer saw the status quo as something discouraging, but as the exact reason for action.

And then I realized it is imperative to hear and tell success stories throughout this movement; without them we lose hope.  We have to be reassured that our efforts can lead to change. It is so easy to be inspired, only to choose not to act because of all the “realistic” roadblocks that stand in our way.  After hearing stories of students pairing up with farmworkers through the Student/Farmworker Alliance or the success of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, I was reminded that no one is ever too powerful, not even government or big business, to silence our attempts to improve our food system; because, after all, we are the ones who grant them their power, and without our support, they are nobody. 

On that note, I would like to leave you with a quote I heard this weekend, originally spoken by Lila Watson, an Australian aboriginal woman.  It’s a quote that truly illustrates the importance of community outreach in the success of the slow food movement: “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us walk together” What will move the sustainable food movement beyond being a trend is encompassing all classes.

Julia Yerkovich is a Nutrition Science Major, in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition in the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences at California State Polytechnic University, in San Luis Obispo California.

Let 2010 Be the Year of the Heirloom Apple

by Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan

While the Chinese will be celebrating 2010 as the Year of the Tiger, we in America have historically had no tigers except those in zoos and circuses. But what we once have had many of—heirloom apples—are now in danger of becoming as rare as tigers are in Asia. Of some 15,000 to 16,000 apple varieties that have been named, grown and eaten on the North American continent, only about 3,000 remain widely accessible. Roughly nine out of ten apples varieties historically grown in the U.S. are at risk of falling out of cultivation, and falling off our tables.

One apple variety, Red Delicious, comprises 41% of the entire American apple crop, and eleven varieties produce 90% of all apples sold in chain grocery stores.  Much of the apple juice, puree and sauce consumed in the United States is now produced in other countries. And as the overall number of apple trees in cultivation declined to a forth of what it was a century ago, the number of apple varieties considered threatened or endangered has now peaked at 94 percent. These are not just abstract statistics, for they affect not only our health, but also the health of our landscapes.

One driver of the decline in available apple diversity has been the loss of roughly 600 independently owned nurseries over the last fifteen years. They have had their business usurped by the garden-and-lawn departments (“pseudo nurseries”) of big-box stores, which offer far fewer apples. Perhaps just as problematic is that over the last half century, there has been a dramatic loss of traditional knowledge about apple cultivation and varietal usage.

But the worst may be yet to come. Climate change may be one of several natural and man-made factors reducing the number of chill hours being received in apple growing areas, leading to predictions that within four decades, apple production may be lost from orchard-rich regions like the Central Valley of California and from southern Pennsylvania.

There are signs of hope, however. Despite the economic downturn, heirloom and antique apple varieties are being successfully marketed at many of the 5,000 farmers markets and 2,500 Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects in the U.S. In fact, some CSAs, like the one begun by Bill Moretz in North Carolina, specialize in introducing customers to heirloom apple diversity. Consumption of hard cider is also on the rise in America, offering a means to use many heirloom varieties not well-suited for eating fresh. Future market prospects for heirloom apples look good, both among chefs and cider makers.

More after the jump

Get Cooking with The Art of Eating In

Thanks to Cathy Erway I right now have bread dough rising on my kitchen counter. 3 years ago I read Mark Bittman’s NY Times article with Jim Lahey’s phenomenally easy bread recipe, but it took sitting down with Erway’s new book, “The Art of Eating In,” for me to get cracking.

Right around when I was reading Bittman’s article, Cathy Erway was making a radical decision; in this capital of restaurants, in this city of buying and spending, she was going to stay in and cook.  Every night for 2 years. So while other twentysomethings blogged about which new restaurants they’d tried, she chronicled her home cooking adventures on “Not Eating Out in New York.” But there are a million home cooking blogs out there—why did hers capture people’s imaginations?  Why did it capture mine?

Well it turns out that the somewhat odd and haphazard parameters she set up for her experiment allowed her to explore (and then blog about) NYC’s emerging DIY food renaissance.  She discovered and then immersed herself in a world of cook-offs, takedowns, park foraging, underground supper clubs, and dinner parties. She even hung with the dumpster-diving freegans once or twice.  In the process she became entrenched in a new community of bloggers and foodophiles, becoming a kind of mini-celebrity herself.  You know, “that girl who decided not to eat out anymore.”

And this is a young girl, a cute girl. One who the fellas might want to take on a date. In this town, a date basically equals a restaurant trip.  What’s a girl to do?  I am reminded of the Beavans of No Impact Man, and how when they gave up eating out, they sort of fell in love with dinner parties and family time.  Erway, too, reminds us—both on the blog and in her book—that there are many more fun and creative ways to court a person than going to a restaurant. Her #25 reason for not eating out? Creative dating.

She also learned that if you are making your own food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you had better get good at it, and learn new techniques and discover your creative side. What she makes plain is that cooking is fun, yes, and delicious, yes.  And it will also save you a hell of a lot of money. And you’ll also create less waste—something she actually calculates, by ounce, in her book.  And guess what, you’ll also probably spend more quality time with people, and build community and make new friends and be healthier all around. The blog and the book inspire through storytelling, hence the bread dough growing on my counter and the parsnip pancakes I am making for dinner tonight.

More after the jump

School lunch support from Congresswoman Nita Lowey

by Dr. Susan Rubin and Linda Viertel, chapter board members of Slow Food Westchester

When it comes to our food system, everyone has a different wake up call.  For Congresswoman Nita Lowey, it was reading about ammonia use in ground beef in the New York Times. A grandmother of eight and former healthy food advocate during her own children’s early years, Mrs. Lowey was horrified. She knew she must take further action.

As she rounded up food and health experts in the county to learn more, she called upon Slow Food Westchester to be part of the conversation. Mrs. Lowey had attended our Slow Food Eat-In on Labor Day at the Washington Irving School in Tarrytown along with 200 local residents. That event impressed her with our group’s ability to create community around advocating for better food in schools. Slow Food has done a great job in framing the conversation about food that is good, clean and fair.

Our meeting with Mrs. Lowey went well. We handed her more information on Slow Food’s mission and Slow Food’s national policy platform for the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act. We also discussed the value of a better school lunch program in conjunction with the health care issues she is facing in Congress. We used the opportunity to hand her a booklet filled with letters written by kids and parents about school lunch. Reading these letters and hearing the stories of families impacted her in a way that no statistic on children’s health could. Congresswoman Lowey is now a passionate advocate for a better food system.

Over 20 years ago, Wendell Berry said, “Eating is an agricultural act.” It’s more true today than it ever was. But today, thanks to Michael Pollan and others, we also know that eating is a political act and that “we vote with our forks every day.” These days, when both personal and planetary health are on the line, it’s up to all of us to go beyond the end of our forks and roll up our sleeves to get involved. Writing a letter to your Congressional representative can be a great start to a deeper connection to your own government that will help result in real change for our nation’s food policy.

Both food and democracy work best when we are not just spectators but active participants.

Secretary Vilsack speaks to the people

by intern Julia Landau

Yesterday afternoon, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack hosted a conference call for ordinary citizens where he explained the Administration’s priorities for the Child Nutrition Act. There were 1,000 people on the call, which is incredible – and which demonstrates the momentum behind making real improvements to child nutrition programs.

What was the number one thing Vilsack recommended we do to improve the food in our country’s schools? SPEAK UP. While Vilsack noted the immense interest in this issue and clear public support for getting healthier food into schools, he also stressed that this issue isn’t appearing in the national media and the only way to get the message through to Congress is grassroots advocacy. What does this mean? Our Secretary of Agriculture is calling on us to contact our Senators and Representatives as they move on this bill – and to get media coverage as we do it. You can find a great jumping-off point right here at Slow Food USA’s Time for Lunch Campaign.

Vilsack also stressed community involvement in small-scale agriculture through the USDA’s program Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food. Check it out for resources and grants to support local food in your community.

The people on the call today were 1,000 small farmers, food service providers, PTA members, teachers, doctors, and dieticians. In answering their questions, Vilsack outlined some key focus areas for the Administration: increasing the nutritional value of school food; strengthening farm-to-school programs; providing training and equipment in school kitchens; providing healthy food during non-school days; expanding enrollment in reduced and free lunch programs; and supporting the new 60 minutes of play a day initiative. In general, he voiced his support for the First Lady’s new childhood obesity effort, Let’s Move.

So you heard it, folks. We know how important Child Nutrition Reauthorization is - now, it’s time to make Congress and the media understand as well.

Comment period to tell USDA what you think about genetically engineered food

The USDA thinks we (consumers) don’t care about genetically engineered food.  So, here’s your chance to tell them they’re wrong about that.

Background: Despite the fact that in 2006 genetically engineered alfafa was declared illegal, it appears that the USDA again intends to deregulate it without any limitations or protections for farmers, consumers or the environment. In addition, the USDA is claiming that there is no evidence that consumers care about GE contamination of organic.

Here’s where you come in: Let them know that you care about GE contamination of organic crops and food--you’ve got until MARCH 3rd.

For all the details about what to say and where to say it--handwritten letters are, as ever, the best--go to Organic Valley’s web site where they’ve got it all laid out clearly.

Michelle Obama Launches Childhood Obesity Effort

by intern Julia Landau

Calling the childhood obesity epidemic “eminently solvable,” today the First Lady rolled out her plan to eradicate this serious health threat within one generation. Her take-home message? Let’s move!

Before unveiling the exciting project, Michelle Obama invited Will Allen, farmer and founder of Growing Power in Milwaukee, and Dr. Judith Palfrey, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics to talk about their work. The launch was also preceded this morning by the signing of an executive order creating a childhood obesity task force.

Approaching childhood obesity through four main avenues, the initiative (called “Let’s Move”) will focus on: helping kids and parents make healthy choices, providing healthy food at school, encouraging physical activity, and making healthy food accessible and affordable. Combining personal choice and public access, the initiative seeks to tackle the issue through “waves of efforts” across the country – starting right now. You can learn more at the Administration’s brand-new website, LetsMove.gov.

Speaking of cross-country-school-food-healthy-children efforts, Slow Food USA’s Time for Lunch campaign is doing just that – and giving citizens an opportunity to speak up. In her speech, Michelle Obama called for Congress to swiftly reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act and “get healthier food into our nation’s schools.” As the First Lady said, an investment in child nutrition pays for itself many-fold in the long run. To learn more about Slow Food’s efforts to give kids America’s kids a healthy future, check out the newly updated Time for Lunch Campaign web site.

Interested to hear more but didn’t catch the webcast? You can read the full transcript of the First Lady’s speech and, as always, check out the ObamaFoodorama blog for great updates on White House food initiatives.

Let’s keep moving!