Bon Appétit

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