Check Out This Article
Check out this article about the Starside Garden. Great job Paula!
Food Atlas
I never knew this existed! It's pretty addictive just playing around with it.
Mainstream Perspective….
This article comes from QSR, a national fast food publication. Interesting perspective.
http://www.qsrmagazine.com/articles/features/139/local_v_organic-1.phtml
This Article Comes From Q
This article comes from QSR, a national fast food publication. I find this to be an interesting but uncomfortable perspective. Check it out.
http://www.qsrmagazine.com/articles/features/139/local_v_organic-1.phtml
Kids Growing Food
Being a chef, people often ask me the question “What’s the healthiest thing I can do for myself?” Usually I find they’re fishing for some new food trend that will make them feel healthier with minimal effort and hopefully no exercise. Lately I have an answer that I love to hand out and it often leaves folks with a discontent stare.
“Plant a garden.”
In the time before WWII, most average families spent a great deal of time and effort sustaining their lives. Gardens were planted, seeds were saved, fruit was preserved and nothing was wasted. They felt cravings for foods that were only available once a year. Their bodies utilized the nutrients from these seasonal items in ways we no longer possess. The obesity rate of the time was practically nonexistent compared to today. The mentality was, “I plant a garden because I need to”. Today, it’s mostly “I plant because I want to.”
The Deerfield Elementary School Garden project offers up an honest take on our current food values crisis. By combining “need to” and “want to”, the value of education forms a new path for real, local food and more importantly, healthier family eating. Children are the biggest influence on what goes in the family shopping cart and their demands can side with good choices as often as bad. When my child asks for a pint of blackberries at the grocery store I don’t hesitate to appease, no matter the cost, budget or not. If a child grows tomatoes at school, eats them, and demands to grow them at home, we’ve completed a small but powerful link in the food values chain. Teaching children to grow real food is the first step in getting them to eat it.
Planting a garden may not be the answer to all that is plaguing our food system today but it is certainly the single most honest maneuver in the battle. If your neighborhood school doesn’t have a school garden project perhaps you could push to start one. And don’t forget to plant your own.
