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GreenMoney Journal - publishing since 1992
Fall 2010 issue
Socially Responsible Investing – Better Companies, Better Communities
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The Landscape of Food Fifteen Years Down the Road
Deborah Madison
What looks like small movements are usually seeds that contain great vitality, so when I think
about what the next fifteen years will bring in terms of food, a very broad subject to be sure, I'm
looking at somewhat fledging motions that on their way to becoming mainstream. Think of the small,
crude beginnings of the organic movement in the sixties-he wormy carrots, the wilted beets, and the
brave new farmer. Never could we imagine what organics would look like today. The same is true of
cooking. In the sixties we had some idea about what we wanted-wholesome, healthy and pure food-but
we didn't have a clue as to how to cook from unadulterated ingredients. Our early attempts yielded
sincere but not very tasty food, much of it brown, most of it heavy, and all of it vegetarian.
Again, it was hard to imagine the extent to which inept culinary adventures would be shaped into
mainstream offerings. That Greens Restaurant (in San Francisco) has flourish for 28 years, that
Gourmet magazine has a vegetarian column, and that eating vegetarian no longer automatically
assigns you to some outer ring of civilization.
There is a lot of future food activity to ponder. Changes in the structure of farmers markets is
one we're starting to see as they shift to more formalized businesses and start to morph into
public markets. Scary food regulations regarding things like the pending rule to pasteurize
almonds, use the milk of cloned cows in dairies, and the proliferation of GMO crops, are in
abundance. More regulations on the part of the USDA, which tends to favor corporate food and
agriculture rather than the small farm movement, are looming. E-mails arrive nearly daily about
developments that keep all of us who care about the quality of food we eat and the life it's
connected to on our toes scanning new threats to food democracy and striving to keep the standards
of the national organics intact. I suppose food-functionalism, the idea that food does good stuff
to us, which is why we should eat it, will continue. Hopefully it will trail off as people finally
realize that flavor and pleasure have to be there, too. I suspect (and fear) that in the next 15
years some young food writer will actually describe strawberries as a crisp-texture large fruit
that is red on the outside and white in the middle. There will continue to be talk about home and
family, cooking and eating together, but there will also be the big picture images to pay attention
to, like global warming, the problem of pollinators and sickness of bees, diminishing water
supplies that have to have agricultural implications. If Africa, which is now growing a lot of food
for Europe and some for America, becomes even drier and hotter, we may have to finally rethink
where our food is coming from and look closer to home. Food will probably get more expensive as
erratic climate activity disrupts and destroys crops.
But there are also good things that
we can hope to see mature in the next 15 years. I'm particularly interested in what's happening
with school lunch, a place where there are healthy signs of change. The degradation of American
food has brought us the collapse of vibrant health, especially in our youth, and concurrent rise of
obesity and occurrence of diabetes, also in our youth. School lunch has done nothing to improve
the situation. If anything, it has long been part of the problem with its menu of chicken nuggets,
canned vegetables, pizza and processed foods. Now there are people who are affecting change in
their schools all over the country. The feisty Ann Cooper has taken on the entire Berkeley school
system's lunchrooms. She reports that it's a climb, but it's a doable one. Bit by bit the kids in
Berkeley are eating more wholesome foods-foods you might not mind eating yourself. One of the
interesting side effects of Ann's works is that parts of the school lunch menu are being farmed out
to small, independent Bay Area businesses, something that keeps money turning in that community.
Berkeley has always been a place for food revolutions so it's no surprise that it's the public
school system there that is the first to change. But change has to start somewhere and such a
large undertaking can serve as a model for other school systems, not just individual schools.
I have along believed that for children (or adults, for that matter), to change what they eat
it's not enough to give them a fear talk about fat or the lowdown on beta-carotenes and why a sweet
potato is a better choice than a regular potato. They don't really care. Instead there has to be
some way to build a bridge to a child's experience of food so that they can make their choices
their own, and there are some exciting instances of that happening. In Santa Fe Lynn Walter's
successful ten-year program, "Cooking with Kids," introduces children to new foods through
classroom curriculum. For example, a class that's studying Morocco might cook couscous and
vegetables in class. Later, the dish appears in the cafeteria, and because the kids are already
familiar with it, they are open to eating it. Yes, whole-wheat couscous, a mixed vegetable tagine
with chickpeas makes a healthy meal, but it's viewed in a very different context then, "Eat this.
It's good for you." That healthy food has already been made familiar through study and through
actual cooking.
The Edible School Yard, again in Berkeley, provides instruction in the
garden and in the kitchen. I've watched a class of kids who were studying street foods in social
studies make empanadas using chard, kale and even big velvety oyster mushrooms grown in the garden.
To look at them, you'd have no reason to think, "These are kids who dig vegetables!" But they jump
into cooking them then scarf down every single empanada. As their garden teacher says, "Once
they've prepared the soil, planted the seed, tended and harvested it, they're very committed to
eating it!" They are connected to these vibrant greens through their garden experience, and to the
idea of making empanadas through their social studies class. Not a word about nutrition need be
spoken.
Public schools in Santa Monica, Davis and other California cities have, for the
past ten years, been enjoying a dynamic farmers market salad bar program. Would you assume that
kids would like salad bars? Not necessarily. But they love them! In fact, more children choose the
salad bar than the standard issue of corn dogs and pizza. Kids especially love the strawberries,
but they also like the salad bar because they get to put together their own plates. The kids' link
to the salad bar is made through field trips to the farmers market where they meet the farmers who
grow those delicious berries. They also have school gardens where they learn to grow the foods like
those they eat, and it's these connections that make these so-called good for your 9-serving-
a-day-required foods appealing. That and the fact that they taste good! Plus, the salad bar
supports local farmers, again keeping money circulating at home.
There are stirring
examples of kids eating wholesome food and loving it all over the country. They happen whenever
there's an experience that makes eating good food not something abstract, but connected to their
lives in a meaningful way. Here are some possibilities for school lunch in the future:
- The food served is valued by those who cook it and those who eat it. Apples don't have to
be cut up because otherwise they might be used for baseballs or flushed down toilets.
-
School lunch is prepared by cooks who are paid more than minimum wage for their knowledge and
skill.
- Lunch period will be long enough to be civilized. It will an opportunity for
conversation and as well as eating.
- School lunch will be part of the curriculum,
linked to other classes such as science, biology, social sides and art.
- School
lunch will connect economically to others who grow and prepare food from farmers to bakers, cheese
makers, ranchers, thereby enriching both experience and the economies of local communities.
Community gardens provide a homespun agricultural nitch that bridges food and
community, and they keep coming up on my radar screen. One, like the Eastside gardens in St. Paul,
is for children. Through gardening they learn to talk to each other across their cultural divides,
grow good food, share it and even sell it through their own farmers' market. When it comes to their
first job after high school, they already have a number of useful skills in place. In Milwaukee a
community garden exists in order to rescue a rundown neighborhood. The residents there also have
plans for an urban orchard of miniature fruit trees and a market café, all good signs of community
involvement, economic activity, and pleasure around food. Another community garden, like one in a
more affluent Seattle neighborhood, grows food for local food bank. Obviously there can be gardens
for all kinds of communities, and they can always include children. I hope to see community gardens
become a more visible part of our social and culinary landscape. Perhaps in 15 years housing
developments will automatically feature an area that's set up for the community garden, as some
already do.
No doubt there will be discouraging developments in food in the future, but
those that nourish and connect to children and community are those I am most hopeful for.
Article by Deborah Madison, founder of The Greens Restaurant in San Francisco and the
author of nine books, writes about food, farming and eating from farmers'markets from her home in
New Mexico.
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