Locavore News – World by Elbert van Donkersgoed

Author: Kyle L. McGregor

Posted: April 12, 2010

Categories: News from Sustain Ontario

• Do the Math about eating on welfare
• Europe starts to COOL
• Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food Control
• Campaign to give every school child the chance to grow own food
• To save farms, Florida county lets small owners branch out
• Top chefs change focus from eating good to eating well
• Alice Waters’ seven essentials of a green kitchen
• Reclaiming Ireland’s Culinary Heritage, One Roast Lamb or Sponge Cake at a Time
• A blend of food, good health
• A blend of food, good health
• Urban farming brings change to the home

Perspectives on good food and farming
April 12, 2010

Do the Math about eating on welfare

Toronto Councillor Joe Mihevc’s 11-year-old daughter Catherine looks at her family’s food bank ration of tinned salmon, dried chick peas and peanut butter and wonders what her friends will think when they come to her house for lunch this week. That was one of the first reactions of 10 prominent Torontonians at the Stop Community Food Centre yesterday, as they embarked on a week of living on what thousands of people on social assistance regularly pick up from local food banks. The initiative is part of the Stop’s Do the Math campaign, which began last August by inviting people to estimate the monthly expenses of a single person on welfare. It shows that after rent, clothing and transportation, there is no money left for food, forcing people to rely on food banks. Toronto MetreNews.castory. Interactive website where visitors are asked to add up the monthly expenses they think necessary for a single person on social assistance.

Europe starts to COOL

The European Union always had a difficult time explaining how it could look both ways at once. Only the French seem to have a natural understanding of how it might work. France is a fierce defender of its nation state and everything that is “France” – its language, its food and drink and its independence. At the same time that Frenchmen defend the tricolour they operate a de-centralised political system where the local mayor may hold more sway than any President of the Republic, and each department and region supports its own food and drink products over any other. The citizen defends the nation but has a strong identification with his local region. The EU has not managed to work this trick – perhaps because the EU’s citizens were being too quickly pushed into a box where every product or service had to be “European” and clearly labeled so. This was seen in food and drink products where labeling laws do not specify country of origin except for specified products with agreed “denominations”. This might be about to change. The Environment Committee of the European Parliament has just voted in favour of mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) for several foods. John Stark blogs on MeationgPlace.com.

Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food Control

Though not everyone on the left is a believer, it would be a serious mistake to underestimate Oliver’s present and potential influence here in America. Thanks to TED, Oliver already has the ears of heavyweights at Google, YouTube, and Amazon. The same week Oliver won his TED Prize, Michelle Obama launched a $1 billion campaign to battle childhood obesity in America. That money will likely flow in spite of the fact childhood obesity rates in America stopped rising in 2008, according to the Centers for Disease Control. But data be damned. If Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution is a hit, then Great Britain’s so-called national treasure may find an Obama White House invitation is just the first step in one chef’s quest to subjugate the American diet. Baylen Linnekin blogs at Crispy on the Outside. This Essay is posted on Reason.com.

Campaign to give every school child the chance to grow own food

The campaign highlights the health, educational and environmental benefits of food growing, and calls for it to be incorporated as part of a food education for every child. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is backing the campaign – alongside Garden Organic, Good Gardeners Association and the Children’s Food Campaign and chair of London Food Board Rosie Boycott. Horticulture Week story.

To save farms, Florida county lets small owners branch out

Concerned about the mounting pressure on growers over the past decade to sell their land for urban uses, county officials want those with small farms to attract visitors by emulating the tourism cachet of California’s Napa Valley and New York’s Finger Lakes region. “If the owners can make money and create jobs, they’ll be more prone to keep their land in agriculture,” said Miami-Dade County Commission Chairman Dennis Moss, whose district includes part of the Redland community. Moss and eight other commissioners sponsored a trio of recently approved ordinances that loosen restrictions on small-scale commercial ventures within the farms.Portland Press Herald story.

Top chefs change focus from eating good to eating well

Jamie Oliver is using fresh fruit and vegetables to try to win the hearts, or at least the fatty arteries, of a West Virginia city. Rachael Ray is working to reform school lunches. And Paula Deen, queen of Southern-fried goodness, recently taught an auditorium of kids how to cook and eat healthy. Chefs have always wanted us to eat something good. Now, it seems they’re just as interested in seeing that we eat well. “They’re digging down to more substance, which is great because we all win,” says Phil Lempert, the food marketing expert known as The Supermarket Guru. “Before it was cleavage and being cute to get noticed. Now it’s all about substance, nutrition.”CTV News story.

Alice Waters’ seven essentials of a green kitchen

Alice Waters, chef and founder of the revered Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., thinks how we eat is our most political act. For her culinary philosophy – “eat what’s in season, eat what’s locally available, and share it with your family and friends” – she’s earned the title of mother of the United States’ Slow Food movement. Now, with her latest book, In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart, she is attempting to simplify the cooking-from-scratch edict. Globe and Mail story.

Reclaiming Ireland’s Culinary Heritage, One Roast Lamb or Sponge Cake at a Time

IN 1968 — when Alice Waters had just graduated from Berkeley, when Paula Wolfert was studying couscous in Tangier, when Diana Kennedy was writing recipes after years of research in Mexico — another young woman, this one from the Irish Midlands, went to work at a peculiar new restaurant on the southern coast of County Cork. “I had heard that there was a farmer’s wife running a restaurant in her house, serving Irish food and writing the menu every day depending on what was in the garden,” said the woman, Darina O’Connell Allen. “You can’t imagine how revolutionary all of that was at the time.” None of these women knew it, but they would all pursue the same radical culinary goals: to break the stranglehold of French haute cuisine in the English-speaking world; to cook seasonal food, grown sustainably; to cook with respect for traditional home cooks and simple, excellent dishes. New York Times story.

A blend of food, good health

Joining the World Health Organisation (WHO) campaign ‘1000 cities, 1000 lives’ for World Health Day 2010 which focuses on urban health, ITC Grand Central at Lower Parel, has launched a weeklong event — Food for Urban Health at its coffee shop Hornby’s Pavilion till April 14. “In the last few years urban lifestyle has changed considerably and it’s important for people to know what to eat and when to eat,” says junior sous chef Dhaval Ajmera, ITC Grand Central. The WHO campaign that calls upon all cities worldwide to open up portions of streets to people to promote health activities for one day during the week of April 7-11 will see this city hotel focusing on healthy eating and living. DNA Mumbai story.

Urban farming brings change to the home

Sevelle’s Urban Farming organization began in 2005 when they planted three gardens in Detroit. Now they have the equivalent of 800 gardens across the U.S. and abroad. These 800 gardens provide fresh produce to approximately 50,000 people. It’s amazing what a few seeds and a little bit of will power can produce. Triscuit Crackers has also joined the Home Farming Movement after a recent Triscuit survey revealed that nearly two-thirds of Americans are interested in home gardens, and that three of four surveyed would rather eat foods containing only a few simple ingredients. As a result, 40 million cracker boxes are now packed with dill and basil seeds. Martlet (student newspaper at the University of Victoria) story.

AND if You Have Time

Meat supplier gets aggressive in resolving unpaid bill

Facing a restaurant’s unpaid bill, a meat supplier in Germany took matters — and steaks — into his own hands. According to published reports, when the supplier made a delivery to the restaurant in Aachen, Germany, and found the customer could not pay his bill, he proceeded to take back the meat he delivered — steaks in the cooler, steaks on the grill and even steaks right off restaurant patrons’ plates. Police were called to the scene, but didn’t have a beef with the situation. MeatingPlace story.