Platter Chatter

Conversations about food.

Today we are featuring Lisa Markley- dietitian and food educator.

What’s your definition of local?

For me, local is defined by the nourishing relationships that I have been able to develop with the growers in my community. I rely on them to grow clean, healthy, and delicious food using ecologically sound growing practices, and they in turn rely on me to provide them a fair price for their products (and sometimes a little help with the harvest). Local is also the sense of community that I have grown to love by going to the farmers markets and sharing local food with others interested in this movement.

What’s your definition of sustainable?

Taking from the earth less than can be given back to it…leaving it better than we found it so that we don’t compromise the ability of future generations to thrive. In terms of agricultural practices, using growing methods that help build up the soils with organic matter and nutrients instead of depleting the nutrients and causing the soil to erode away. Sustainable agriculture promotes biodiversity, not monoculture. This is important to me as a nutritionist who understands the importance of eating a colorful diet for disease prevention. I am very concerned about the loss of diversity in our fields and on our plates and the grave consequences this is having on our health.

When you think of local, sustainable, and community, how would you rank the three (from most important to least) and why?

These three words are intrinsically interconnected making it difficult to rank them linearly as one being more important than the other. But if I had to pick one that might have more driving force over the others it would have to be “sustainable”. If we are thinking in terms of sustainability, then we are working together in our community on a local level to create a system that provides us what is needed now without compromising resources for future generations to live healthy.

What’s one thing people can do to be more local and sustainable?

Vote with your fork. You have at least three opportunities a day to make a difference. Eating local foods enables you to make a statement that you support a food system based on nourishing relationships, wholesome foods, sustainable growing practices, less reliance on fossil fuels, and fair wages for our hard working farmers. We have a moral responsibility to be good citizens to each other and to future generations.

We met Lisa Markley last year on our Eat Well Guided Tour of America! She was a wonderful host for a whole day of amazing activities and farms from Kansas City to Lawrence, Kansas. We are excited to have her continue to be a part of Sustainable Table!

Lisa Markley is a registered dietitian and food educator who takes a holistic and ecological approach to nutrition and health. She holds an MS in Nutrition from Bastyr University. Her education was unique in that it was taught from a philosophy of natural healing that emphasized whole, natural, and organic foods as the basis for optimal health. She also holds a BS in Health Education from Northern Arizona University, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude.

Markley is passionate about promoting food choices and lifestyle approaches that truly create wellness and prevent disease on an individual as well as a global level. She started her own consulting business, True Food Nutrition, to offer the following wellness services: whole foods cooking classes, nutrition counseling, menu planning, kitchen makeovers, grocery shopping tours, public speaking, and workshop/conference planning.

Markley is also an advocate for the development of a more sustainable food system. She helps to build awareness in her community about the links between agriculture, food, and health by teaching workshops and writing articles about the health, nutrition, and environmental benefits of foods that are grown by small family farmers using ecologically sound practices. She is involved with the Kansas City Food Circle, the Kansas City 100 Mile Diet Team, the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, Growing Growers, the Kansas City Healthy Kids Healthy Food Policy Coalition, and the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group.

In her free time she enjoys cooking, yoga, gardening, and sharing meals with friends made from the most delicious local ingredients.