Bon Appétit

Today is Low Carbon Diet Day!

In more than 400 cafés across the country, Bon Appétit Management Company will be launching our Low Carbon Diet program!

At lunchtime, the entire Bon Appétit café will be transformed to illustrate ways our customers can reduce climate change through their food choices. Each station in the café will highlight a principle of the Low Carbon Diet in addition to a low carbon food choice.

We also developed a Low Carbon Diet Calculator, a fun and interactive tool that helps illustrate the impact of your food choices--check it out!

So far, we're off to a good start: a front page spread of the Los Angeles Times!

Here's a short video we made for the Low Carbon Diet as well.

--Katherine Kwon, Communications Project Manager

"Hidden Jewel" Portola Restaurant Discovered

In the Monterey Herald newspaper today, the Bon Appétit team at Monterey Bay Aquarium received well-deserved kudos for their "use of fresh, seasonal, organic and sustainable food items — along with heavy doses of creativity."

Several culinary delights that impressed food writer Mike Hale and his "foodie" 16-year old daugther:

• Not-your-ordinary calamari: "Monterey Bay squid pieces share a panko dredge with Meyer lemon slices and shaved fennel bulb"
• Colorful, sustainable, flavorful char: "Pan-roasted, tarragon-dusted arctic char (a sustainable alternative to farmed salmon) with golden beet risotto, crisp asparagus, grilled ramps and orange" 
• Expand-your-seafood-palate shellfish: "Monterey farm-raised abalone with fava bean purée, braised vidalia onions, Meyer lemon and olive oil sorbet"

That's enough to entice any food-lover to stop by for a visit! Add in a beautiful ocean view and great service, Portola Restaurant is a 'must-experience' when you're visiting northern California. As Mike puts it, Portola is "one of the Peninsula's most innovative, interesting and conscientious restaurants." Check out customer reviews on Yelp.

The dynamic Bon Appétit team (left to right): Pastry Chef Cheyenne Diaz, Chef de Cuisine Estevan Jimenez, Executive Chef Dory Ford, Executive Sous Chef Jeffrey Walker (photo credit: Monterey Bay Aquarium/Randy Tunnell)

-Katherine Kwon, Communications Project Manager

Organic or GMO?

Did you know that the PLU (price look-up) code of produce tells you whether it's organic or genetically-modified?

* The PLU codes on fruit and vegetables contain four numbers (i.e., 4859).
* If produce is organic, the PLU code is 5 numbers starting with a 9 (i.e., 94859).
* If you see 5 numbers starting with an 8, (i.e., 84859), that means the fruit or vegetable is a GMO (a genetically-modified organism).

Of course, you'll see signs loudly marketing fruits and vegetables as organic so you probably won't have to examine the PLU to figure that out. However, for those "quiet" GMOs that have found their way into the food system and consequently into our diets, here's a way to keep them out!

- Katherine Kwon, Communications Project Manager

Yahoo for Yahoo!

"And for the category of Most Vegetarian- and Earth-Friendly Corporate Café, the winner is...Yahoo!"

While movie fans eagerly await the verdicts of the (possibly telecast) Oscars this year, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) gave a standing ovation to the winners of their 2008 Proggy Awards. For five years now, PETA has recognized companies, leaders, products and organizations demonstrating animal-friendly achievements in 21st century culture and commerce.

The Bon Appétit Management Company team at Yahoo! was highly praised for their great food and vegetarian-friendly options: "Yahoo's various environmental efforts can be seen on Yahoo! Green, but the real measure of the company's compassion can be tasted at its employee dining hall. The [café] serves more than 6,000 meals per day and features a variety of vegetarian options at each station, including an Asian bowl with Gardein or tofu, pasta and veggie marinara, Boca burgers, a vegan mezze plate, a salad bar, and more along with strategically placed posters pointing out the benefits of a vegetarian diet for the environment, resources, and health."

Visit Yahoo!'s blog, Yodel Anecdotal, to watch a video clip of Executive Chef Bob Hart (aka Chef Bob) expertly illustrating Bon Appétit's various sustainability initiatives. Look closely and you may even catch a cameo of Yahoo!'s CEO Jerry Yang! 

Photo: Chef Bob proudly displays his team's Proggy Award

Keep up the great work, Yahoo! team.

-Katherine Kwon, Communications Project Manager

Amazing 'Carbon Food Myths'

Food is a climate change issue.

It's amazing to say those words now and not get the same quizzical looks I got two years ago when I first gave presentations on this subject. More people accept this big idea, but with acceptance is a growing number of odd notions about how the food system does, and does not, contribute to climate change. Here are some of my favorite 'carbon food myths' uncovered recently, which I hope will provide readers with some good questions to ask their food providers: 

MYTH #1: Food transported in passenger-plane cargoes maximizes the use of a resource that is already there. This sounds logical at first, but it's totally false. Food transported in planes of any variety add weight. Weight adds fuel use. Fuel use = carbon emissions. There's no greater carbon emissions in transportation than that which belches out of airplanes. As consumers and chefs, we need to reduce the demand for products that must be transported long distances overnight and change suppliers' habits where possible.

MYTH #2: Becoming a vegan is the only way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with food choices on a consumer level. Our research is showing that a relatively modest change in meat eaters' food choices would do more to mitigate climate change impacts of food production than if the number of vegans tripled in the U.S. What may be more important than this over the long run, however, is a greater regionalization of meat production so that animal waste can be used as nutrient inputs to crops rather than croplands having to depend on fertilizers and other additives produced thousands of miles away.

MYTH #3: Food miles don't matter. Yes they do. They may not be the only factor in calculating emissions associated with certain foods, but don't be fooled. We can't shorten the distance between two points, but we can increase the environmental responsibility of local production methods, including how food is distributed. Rather than de-emphasizing local food, we have to support its improvement and make it truly more 'local,' including where local farms get their inputs (feed and seed). A local cheese whose milk was transported 500 miles isn't really local food, is it?

- Helene S. York, Director, Bon Appetit Management Company Foundation 

Women Chefs Tackle Climate Change

Nov. 10: Last weekend I had the pleasure of speaking at the annual conference of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs in Rhode Island. What a delightfully high energy event that was! A wide variety of chefs, farmers, and writers attended my talk on whether climate change is going to redefine what we mean by "sustainable food." Two wonderful Bon Appetit chefs -- Preeti Mistry of the deYoung Museum in San Francisco and Mary Soto of American University in Washington DC -- joined me and gave practical examples to balance the more theoretical concepts I offered.

When I give presentations, I'm always surprised that professionals and students alike assume that discarding disposables -- paper plates, styrofoam containers, etc. -- are the MOST important environmental issue in a dining hall. The perception of avoiding waste of recyclable materials has really become ingrained since I went to college. Interestingly, though, we don't yet apply that same sense of responsibility to food or food waste. Perhaps we're okay with food waste because it dovetails with our national pasttime of avoiding leftovers. There's probably another reason as well. Polls show that consumers believe they're justified in throwing out "natural products" but not discarding plastic or non-biodegradable products. Most of us, apparently, believe that products that can bio-degrade actually will. Most of us, apparently, also haven't been to a landfill to see that "natural" products, including biodegradable packaging materials, NEVER decompose unless they are exposed to oxygen, such as in a compost pile.

Through Bon Appetit's Low Carbon Diet Program and the smattering of Op-eds that are appearing with more frequency, there is a growing awareness that food is a climate change issue. I hope one of the major results of these efforts is a narrower definition of what we consider to be "waste" and a better understanding of the implications of disgarding food. Reducing the usage of disposables, one of the Low Carbon Diet initiatives, is important, but from an environmental perspective reducing the incidence of food waste is tops on the list.

- Helene S. York, Director, Bon Appetit Management Company Foundation

Taking the Farm Bill Rhetoric Personally

Politics makes strange bedfellows and even stranger dinner plates. Amidst much controversy, the Farm Bill reached the Senate floor on Monday and created some unusual alliances. As the San Francisco Chronicle put it, "Seldom in Washington do such coalitions develop that unite the Bush White House and the group Environmental Defense on one side, and on the other, Senate Democrats and Republicans who have set aside their ideological hostilities to preserve and expand crop subsidies for a minority of wealthy farmers."

Michael Pollan's op-ed in the New York Times, Weed It and Reap, does a great job explaining the state of the current bill and how "some nutritious crumbs" have been added "to ensure that reform-minded legislators will hold their noses and support it." A little money for food stamps and "specialty crops" and we're supposed to forget that the lion's share of the funding ($42 billion) goes to supporting the five big commodity crops. As Pollan puts it, we "subsidize precisely the wrong kind of calories (added fat and added sugar), helping to make Twinkies cheaper than carrots and Coca-Cola competitive with water." No wonder we're all getting fat!

So what about the food we actually want to eat? Is there any support for the type of farms that produce healthy, nutritious food? Well, according to Chairman of the House of Representatives Agricultural Committee Collin Peterson, as quoted in Financial Times, the farm sector that raises organic produce and grass-fed beef for local consumers needs little federal help. "It is growing, and it has nothing to do with the government, and that is good," he told the FT. "For whatever reason, people are willing to pay two or three times as much for something that says 'organic' or 'local'. Far be it from me to understand what that's about, but that's reality. And if people are dumb enough to pay that much then hallelujah."

Wait a minute, did he really call me dumb? Dumb enough to eat food that is full of natural flavor and doesn't need sodium or fat to make it taste good? Dumb enough to support farmers in my community who hold-off suburban sprawl? Dumb enough to care about our country's agricultural heritage and preserving a rural way of life where farmers grow food of which they are proud? Dumb enough to be concerned about food security? Well, count me as really really dumb! But, don't count on my vote for business as usual when it comes to our food system.

- Maisie Greenawalt, Director of Communications & Strategic Initiatives

Lessons Learned in School Food Service Spur Documentary

There is nothing more fun to watch than a well made documentary. No really. I'm not kidding. Anyone who had the great pleasure of seeing King Corn with me at a special screening in San Francisco on Monday night would definitely agree. This film about two recent college graduates moving to Greene, Iowa to farm one acre of corn was laugh out loud funny and thought provoking. What more could you ask for in a movie?

The film's "stars" Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis are both witty and inquisitive as they navigate the industrialized food system in hopes of learning why they are "made of corn" (a fact they learn after having a hair analysis). Corn is in our meat (fed to cows in CAFOs), drinks (I believe it's Harvard professor Walter Willett who says in the movie that soda isn't a beverage, its "liquid candy"), used to sweeten everything from bread to marinara, and, well you name it, just about everything else. Ian and Curt follow a conventional farming path and use fertilizers and pesticides. They also play a lot of stick ball as the actual farming took a total of less than two hours of work. Yeah, that's right, two hours over many months. The rest of today's corn farmer's time is spent applying for government subsidies, watching the commodities market and other less "romantic" things than our vision of working the land.

I got a chance to speak with the filmmakers and learned that they were involved with the Sustainable Food Project at Yale. This is a great example of how food can play an integral role in the education process of a student. At Bon Appetit Management Company we see ourselves as educators not just food service providers. The chefs and managers who work at our college and university accounts try to teach their guests about how food choices affect their community, environment and personal well being. In fact, we created a whole website to help them - www.CircleofResponsibility.com. As much as possible, our people get out of the cafes and into classrooms with events like the Save Seafood Tour and go wherever people are talking about food issues - even to the dirt itself like with this new community garden project at Hamilton College.

Food has the rare power to teach us about hard science and real community. King Corn definitely proves that.

- Maisie Greenawalt, Director of Communication & Strategic Initiatives

Sustainabilty Movement is Burning the Candle at Both Ends

I had the pleasure of speaking about sustainability to two very different groups this week. On Monday I addressed a set of business executives who work for companies that have signed the United Nations Global Compact - "a framework for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption." On Wednesday I took part in Santa Clara University's Sustainability Day and sat on a panel with other Silicon Valley organizations interested in green business.

The coupling of both events left me with a feeling of great optimism. The sustainability movement is burning the candle at both ends in a very positive way. On one end, the biggest of businesses, multi-nationals, are looking for sustainable business solutions. Are they doing this because they understand the dire state of our planet or to be able to market to LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability) consumers? I'm not sure I care as long as the companies are making real changes in their operations (did anyone else read Business Week's cover story called Little Green Lies? It includes a searing indictment of renewable energy credits and how corporations are using them to hide increases in CO2 emissions. It reinforced my confidence that our Low Carbon Diet approach to reducing emissions in the food system is the right thing to do).

On the other end of the candle, young people are engaged. I got asked great questions about the complexity of the issues (e.g. organic versus local produce) and how students can be a part of the solution (e.g. do we have internship opportunities?).

With our brightest minds both at corporations and colleges focused on sustainability, the candle of hope is burning brightly.

Side note - also on the Santa Clara University panel was a representative from d.light, a company working to bring affordable lighting solutions to rural households. Two billion people in the world currently live without electricity and many use kerosene which is dim, dangerous, polluting and expensive. d.light had some great ideas. I was very impressed.

- Maisie Greenawalt, Director of Communications & Strategic Initiatives

You Are How You Eat

An interesting poll from Grist.org asks its readers about an environmentalist's food choices. Yesterday, more than 1,500 people had voted and the results were as follows:

"An environmentalist should be..."

• a vegetarian (12%)
• a vegan (29%)
• mindful but not rigid about diet (47%)
• concerned with things other than food (12%)

I just checked back today and surprisingly, the scales have tipped a bit. Of 1,760 people, 35% thought that environmentalists should be vegan and 43% thought they should be mindful but not rigid. Although my vote is included in the mindful category (everything in moderation), I'm pretty fascinated by the poll results.

No longer does "environmentalism" mean just "saving trees"; it also encompasses animal welfare, climate change, food. I think our Low Carbon Diet comes at an opportune time as more and more people connect food choices with environmental impact.

I wonder what people think dietitians should eat...I know I like to indulge in a brownie once in a while!  :)

--Katherine Kwon, MS, RD

Communications Project Manager