The Green Music Group (GMG), a project of Reverb, has launched a series of earth friendly calls-to-action this summer. Starting tomorrow, Guster is challenging fans to use the Eat Well Guide to find and eat at least one meal using local, organic food. You have until noon on Friday June 18^th to submit your foodie photos and become eligible to win a Live Nation Ultimate Access Pass. You can check out all the details at the GMG challenge page. The “Eat Local” challenge is part of GMG’s mission to encourage concert venues to sell local and organic food.

GMG is a group of musicians, industry leaders and fans working to inspire environmental action. Directed at music fans everywhere, a different challenge will launch each week though mid-August with an exclusive video from a founding artist, including the Dave Matthews Band, Sheryl Crow, Linkin Park, The Roots, Barenaked Ladies, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Maroon 5 and, of course, those CO2-saving superheroes, Guster.  Challenge prizes include season passes to concert venues, a specialized mountain bike and a Honda Insight Hybrid – plus that green glow we all get from just doing the right thing.

Join the GMG community and check out the various challenges throughout August, and don’t forget to use the Eat Well Guide to find fabulous locally produced food all summer long.

But Winkie had a secret – that rhubarb she was cooking up wasn’t so wholesome after all – the leaves are poisonous, filled with large amounts of oxalic acid. Perhaps this element of danger is why today, rhubarb is transcending the age boundary and infiltrating the hip locavore scene. Its tart flavor can tasted in everything from jams to jus and many top chefs are featuring the once dowdy ingredient in various ways throughout their menus.

Over Mother’s Day Weekend, rhubarbs dangerous edge had me captivated but as I could never recreate grandma’s delicious pie, I took an alternative route. After sifting through recipes such as this one for Rhubarb Cobbler and this Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Rhubarb Compote, I finally decided on a cake with unique combination of ingredients, Rhubarb Anise Upside-Down Cake.

The cake was a crowd pleaser, and I think everyone including Winkie, appreciated the departure from the classic pie. The recipe topping called for brown sugar to be caramelized in ½ a stick of butter and while it took me two attempts to get it right, it worked out in the end with a bit of patience and medium level heat. Perhaps the trouble stemmed from the fact that I only used two tablespoons of butter, “health nut” that I am, but it didn’t seem to affect the outcome of the cake. Otherwise, be sure to beat the sugar and butter together well for the batter, as that aids the airiness of the cake. Finally, be sure to enjoy the juxtaposition of danger and grandma together in one baked good.

Season: Rhubarb arrives in the Northern Hemisphere in April and May. It can be difficult to acquire at other times of the year but can be successfully frozen for mid-winter pies.

Buying: Look for long, fleshy stalks with little bruising. Some stalks may be on the greener side but that will not affect the flavor.

A bit of history: Rhubarb originated in China over 5,000 years ago and has been used throughout the centuries for its medicinal purposes as a laxative. It arrived in Maine in the 1820’s and spread throughout the U.S. where it became known as the “pie plant”.

Recipe after the jump!

Rhubarb Anise Upside-Down Cake – Serves 8

Gourmet Magazine, 1999

Ingredients

For topping

• 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 pounds trimmed rhubarb

For cake

• 1 teaspoon anise seeds
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
• 1/4 cup milk

Preparation:
Make topping:
In a well-seasoned 10-inch cast-iron skillet melt butter over moderate heat until foam subsides and reduce heat to low. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly onto bottom of skillet and heat, undisturbed, 3 minutes (not all brown sugar will be melted). Remove skillet from heat. Cut enough rhubarb crosswise into 1-inch pieces to measure 3 cups and decoratively arrange, rounded sides down, in one layer over brown sugar.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Make cake:
With a mortar and pestle or in an electric coffee/spice grinder finely grind anise seeds. Into a bowl sift together anise, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl with an electric mixer beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy and beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. With mixer on low speed add flour mixture alternately in batches with buttermilk and milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture and beating until just combined (do not overbeat).| Spoon batter over rhubarb in skillet, spreading evenly (be careful not to disturb rhubarb), and bake cake in middle of oven until golden, about 45 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool cake in skillet on a rack 15 minutes.

Run a thin knife around edge of skillet and invert a plate over skillet. Keeping plate and skillet firmly pressed together, invert cake onto plate. Carefully remove skillet and serve cake warm or at room temperature.

Remember when President Jimmy Carter visited the blighted south Bronx, with the result that images of burned-out houses and trash-stewn lots flashed across TV screens all over the nation? That visit and the movie, The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 created an indelible image of the Bronx as a hopeless borough riddled with crime and despair.

Enter Steve Ritz, a teacher at Discovery High School (the tall fellow pictured in the center of the photo above) who figured out a way to help turn all that around by teaching his students to grow vegetables on walls. Yes, vegetables on walls.

As prolific HuffPo blogger Kerry Trueman pointed out last February :

Ritz has figured out how to grow good food, good jobs and good citizens by tapping into one of our greatest wasted resources–urban youth. And he’s doing it in Hunts Point, a quintessential “food desert” that, ironically, just happens to also be one of the world’s largest food distribution centers; 2.7 billion pounds of fresh produce from 49 states and 55 foreign countries passes through Hunts Point’s New York City Terminal Market annually on its way to more affluent neighborhoods.

On June 3 Ritz is orchestrating a huge “School Garden to School Cafe” event where the teens will be cooking and serving 450 healthy organic meals with vegetables grown by them from seeds on classroom walls and in containers. Well, that’s one mighty fine way to make sure that high quality vegetables get eaten right in the Bronx! No surprise that Ritz was recently awarded an EPA Environmental Quality Award.

How did Ritz manage to grow truckloads of organic vegetables indoors with virtually no equity but sweat equity? One thing he did was partner with a for-profit enterprise called Green Living™ Technologies, a pioneering developer of cutting edge urban agricultural systems. George Irwin, CEO of Green Living™ Technologies and a man with a big heart and a vision as huge as Ritz’s, contributed all of the building materials for the grow wall.

As Ritz points out, before they started growing their own on classroom walls, these teens had no easy access to fresh vegetables. And when kids grow their own vegetables, they want to eat them–so improved nutrition is a built-in bonus when teens become vegetable gardeners.

And there are other bonuses as well: Gardening not only improved class attendance from 40 % to 93%, but has also resulted in the startling fact that 100% of the gardening teens achieved passing grades on the state Regents exams in math and science.

On April 27th, at the magnificent Art Deco Bronx County Courthouse, I was privileged to witness Bronx Borough President, Ruben Diaz, Jr. present ten of Ritz’s students with graduation certificates for completing the Green Living™ Technologies training program in green wall and green roof maintenance and installation. The training was co-sponsored by Boston Cityscapes and held in Boston. According to Irwin, “These students are the youngest in America to obtain such living wage certifications by GLT in an emerging and green industry.”

At the graduation ceremony, Ritz talks about how he and the teens made this all happen and shows some slides of the process.

Before handing out the certificates, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. talks about his passionate vision of greening the Bronx.

Up on the beautiful green roof of the Bronx County Courthouse, President Diaz receives a “shelf” of green-wall-grown lettuces from Steve Ritz:

Here in New York City, spring has arrived in full force; the leaves have returned, the cherry trees have blossomed, the parks are bustling, and legions of pallid hipsters have cautiously reemerged into the sun.  Life is good – and so are conditions for the urban cyclist.  It’s fitting therefore, that May is Bike Month in New York City!

Organized by the NYC Department of Transportation and cyclist/pedestrian advocacy group, Transportation Alternatives, Bike Month NYC is an extended celebration of – wait for it – bicycling in the city.  The goal is to encourage more New Yorkers to ride bicycles since doing so is good for the environment, good for human health and good for fostering development of the sort of livable communities that make cities great.  I’d add from personal experience that urban cycling is also tremendously fun – though to quote the inestimable LeVar Burton, “you don’t have to take my word for it.”

Anyway, as if bike month wasn’t already mind-blowingly awesome enough, Eat Well Guide is hosting the Tour de Farmers’ Markets on May 15!  It’ll be kind of like the Tour de France except without the 2,200 grueling miles of high-speed cycling.

As the cheesy title suggests, our event will involve exploration of several NYC farmers’ markets (Union Square, Fort Greene and Grand Army Plaza) via bicycle.  The goal is to demonstrate the ease with which these hotbeds of sustainable food can be accessed on two wheels.

The event is free, open to anyone comfortable riding a bicycle in the city, and will cover a very modest 6 miles (9.66 km) at a pace best described as extremely leisurely.  I’ll be the guide for the adventure, leading the group from market to market while providing riveting commentary about such topics as heirloom tomatoes, bicycle lanes, and the manure lagoons used by industrial livestock operations.

And if that’s not sufficiently enticing, we’ll also be giving away fancy tote bags, tasty snacks and some exceptionally fashionable Eat Well Guide buttons.  If you’re in/near New York City on the 15^th, join us!

Event Details:

Tour de Farmers’ Markets – Saturday, May 15, 9:00 am

Meet at the northwest corner of the Union Square Greenmarket at 9:00 am (or you can join the ride at either of the Brooklyn markets afterward – see schedule below).  Ride your favorite bicycle, wear your favorite helmet, and bring money to buy fresh food from local farmers.

Itinerary:

9:00 am – Union Square Greenmarket (meet at the northwest corner)

10:40 am – Fort Greene Greenmarket

11:30 am – Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket

Cycling Route:

See our map

The regulation has caused quite a stir among New York parents. On March 18^th, there was a “Bake-In” rally held at City Hall by NYC Green Schools calling for an appeal of the regulation. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Council Member Gail Brewer were in attendance along with parents and children fighting for the bake sale cause. This regulation has also sparked a bit of debate here at our office with varying opinions on whether the regulation is achieving its goal in reducing calories or merely encouraging students to indulge in junk food.

So, in the spirit of The New York Times “Room for Debate” column, we present you with several varying opinions on New York City’s bake-sale ban.

Home-Baked, Healthy Kids

By Sophy Bishop

New York’s children, along with the rest of the nation’s, are overweight – it’s a well known fact. I’m no scientist, but I’ve come to the conclusion that is it is junk food – mass produced, over-consumed, nutrient-poor crap – that has caused this epidemic. The issue is compounded by lack of exercise and minimal time spent at the table and with family, but at the heart of this problem, it is what children consume that is to blame.

Unfortunately, many children and their parents are never taught the elements of a proper diet. When the “authority” that is the DOE says Doritos are ok but home baked goods are not, it only enforces the scheme that junk food is what they should be eating. Seeing those labels day after day, they become commonplace, training minds and taste buds alike to prefer HFCS and artificial flavors. These preferences get carried beyond the school and out into a lifetime. They form a favor for fast meals, greasy meat byproducts and fried food and a distaste for fresh, green vegetables.

Home-baked goods trump junk food any day, whether they contain more or less calories than a pack of Pop Tarts. They surpass junk food because of what they represent – care, time, seasonality and home-cooking. There is no shiny advertising, no unpronounceable chemical and no major corporation influencing life-long decisions. Home-baked goods foster community, culture, a love for cooking and eventually, a healthier America.

Time For Real Food

By Dawn Brighid

With a fundamentally broken school food system (and food systems in general), I can see why banning the school bake sale feels like a little control over a bad situation. Childhood obesity is at an all time high, with no end in sight. Limiting a child’s food intake will solve the problem, right? Not so convinced and a bit confused by the bake sale ban, I asked some questions at the “bake in” rally at city hall.

The most problematic information I came away with was that often the “homemade” goods for sale weren’t actually homemade. The cakes and cookies are often bought cheaply from stores like Costco and Target. They are then marked up and sold back to the kids. Why? One parent told me the funds were often used to support after school activities – just the kind that help prevent obesity. But with no funds, no after school exercise. What a “Catch 22.”

We need more funds for schools. We need real food in the schools. We need education about food for kids and parents. Do I think that a bake sale ban will resolve the obesity problem? No. It seems like a quick fix to me. I think putting our time, energy and money into national programs like “Time for Lunch” is a better way to get to the core issues we need to fight the childhood obesity issues for the long run.

Acceptable (Marginally)

By Chris Hunt

As a longtime proponent of freedom, homemade cookies and public policies that don’t unduly pad the coffers of the industro-snack sector, I found it tough to stomach the bake sale ban.  But as an advocate of efficient implementation of policies that effectively protect public health, I begrudgingly support the rule.  Mostly.

Here’s the deal: 43% of NYC schoolchildren are overweight or obese – this is a public health crisis that needs to be addressed immediately.  Obviously, there’s no quick-fix solution to the childhood obesity epidemic; the problem is related to food access, consumption patterns, physical activity, environmental factors, etc.  Nonetheless, an effective policy response must involve promoting healthful food choices and discouraging consumption of excess calories.  It’s difficult to argue that brownies and cupcakes and cookies and rice crispy treats are optimal food choices – or that such foods, when habitually consumed immoderately, constitute anything but excess calories.

Ideally, we’d teach kids to make better food choices, and they’d do so despite the abundance and accessibility of junk food at bake sales and elsewhere.  The government has attempted to implement this very strategy for decades – and failed miserably.  If we make the reasonable assumption that the DOE can’t dramatically alter students’ food-purchasing preferences overnight, then a prudent policy approach would involve reducing the amount of unhealthful food available in schools – which would require the city to either limit the frequency of bake sales, or ensure that only healthful foods are sold.

Unfortunately, bake sales are an important source of revenue, so schools are unwilling to cut back drastically, or reduce profits by restricting sales to fruits and vegetables.  (Strangely, the fact that schools lack sufficient funding to operate without supplemental bake-sale dollars has been largely ignored throughout the debate.)

The city’s solution: limit the frequency of no-treat-left-behind bake sales, and ban aggressively unhealthful foods from all the other bake sales.  The obvious problem: homemade foods are prohibited from the latter events – even if they’re more healthful than anything on the city’s list of approved junkLite foods.  And of course, it’s lamentable that the policy tacitly endorses prepackaged, processed snacks and drums up extra business for the makers of Doritos, Poptarts, et al.

Nevertheless, the current ban has merit from a public health perspective; sure, it’d be great if kids ate carrots – but given the obesity crisis, it’s better they eat somewhat-healthful snacks than exceptionally unhealthful snacks – homemade or otherwise.  Ideally though, the city would either exclude everything but fruit and veggies from the “healthy” bake sales, or else develop criteria for inclusion of healthful homemade foods.  Or give schools adequate funding so that bake sales wouldn’t be a financial imperative in the first place.

Have you heard the truth about just how bad the good food movement really is? The boosters of biotech want you to know that our global food crisis will only be worsened by the sustainable ag advocates who oppose technological breakthroughs, the safety and efficacy of which have yet to be tested.

You thought maybe it had something to do with poverty and politics? Red herrings (an oily fish that is, by the way, and oddly deficient in omega-3 fatty acids, but high in contaminants.)

No, it turns out  it’s us, the real food rabble rousers, who are subjecting the poorer nations of the world to imminent starvation, because we refuse to embrace genetically modified crops, toxic pesticides and petroleum-based fertilizers. We’re also highly suspicious of those drought-tolerant, high yielding crops that thrive in the otherwise arid microclimate of Monsanto’s boardrooms but have yet to flourish elsewhere.

We’re not content to just gum things up globally, though. Here at home, we support the Dandelion Defense League (DDL), a grassroots anti-grass group that’s lobbying to not only make it illegal for America’s lawn lovers to douse their dandelions with Round-Up, but would in fact require all homeowners–and renters, too!–to harvest those bitter greens and eat them (a rider with recipes will be attached to the proposed bill.)

The suburban-based DDL is closely aligned with but not related to its urban counterpart, the Purslane Preservation Society (PPS), whose own pet cause is to pass legislation protecting this plump and plucky weed from being peed on, stepped on or otherwise disrespected by canines, ferrets or any other ambulatory animal, including pedestrians, who tread on those sidewalks through whose cracks purslane bravely rears its succulent little leaves.

Plants may, however, be harvested, provided that they are then donated to the soup kitchen or food pantry of your choice, where their zingy, citrus-y flavor can be used to add a piquant touch to soups and salads.

And then there are the militant anti-monocroppers, with their not-so-secret plot to loosen the Corn Belt’s grip on the Beltway and redirect those ag subsidies for feed corn and GMO soy into some kind of affirmative action plan for a subversive minority that the USDA tellingly labels “specialty crops.” You may know them as fruits and vegetables, but don’t be fooled by their wholesome facade; they’re just another special interest group looking for a handout.

Oh, and if we get our way, we’re going to declare a Nanny State of Emergency, which will entail confiscating all cupcakes and putting a padlock on pantries that are overstocked with over processed foods. And now that Meatless Monday’s gone mainstream, brace yourself for Tofu Tuesday, which aims to make those much-maligned slabs of soy mandatory in every public school cafeteria across the country.

But why stop at just two days of the week? Why not eight days a week? We’re a bunch of modern day Benedict Arnolds, conspiring with the Brits (well, okay, maybe it’s just one Brit, but what an arsenal of PR weapons he’s got!) to launch a coup in our school cafeterias, proclaiming an end to the Reign of Beige and installing a rainbow coalition of aggressively colored produce on our children’s plates.

And in keeping with Michelle Obama’s plea to provide kids with greater physical activity, we want to make sure our kids are getting a workout, too–by weighing their backpacks down with Michael Pollan’s entire oeuvre. Every agrarian, egg-headed essay the man has ever written, as well as his lesser known but equally eloquent treatises on gardening and carpentry, will be required reading, barring an armed uprising from the Texas Board of Education.

When it comes to farmers, Pollan is enemy number one. Just look what he’s done to poor Joel Salatin, the self-proclaimed “Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist farmer” whose Polyface Farms became the poster child for sustainable farming in America after Pollan and the producers of Food, Inc. made him a star.

Now, he’s been plucked off his farm and found himself obliged to come to a big city he openly dislikes to lecture folks on how to feed the world sustainably. Presumably he’d rather be back home tending to his flocks, herds and family, as he does so joyfully in Ana Joane’s documentary FRESH.

Joanes, like Jamie Oliver, is a European; specifically, she hails from Switzerland. But she just couldn’t remain neutral about the way we eat in America when she moved here as a student. With FRESH, Joanes gives real food rockstars like Pollan, Salatin and the mighty Will Allen of Growing Power fame a platform from which to share their radical theories about how we grow and consume, our food. It’s coming to a theater near you soon–don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This post comes from Leslie Hatfield, Editor of the Green Fork blog where it was originally posted.

I’ve been working on a broad range of food and environmental issues since 2005, but food politics became especially personal for me came a few years ago, when I was helping a field producer for a popular comedy show research a story on rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), a controversial man-made hormone supplement given to dairy cows to increase milk production.  The drug, at the time, was being marketed under the name Posilac by Monsanto (which sold it to Eli Lilly in 2008) and in the course of my research, I learned that Monsanto had also created DDT and more importantly – at least to me – Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by the US military during the Vietnam War and the likely cause of high rates of certain cancers, as well as birth defects, among millions of Vietnamese and thousands of veterans of that war, including my father.

At the time, Dad was about a year into treatment for prostate cancer, a common disease among all men but especially those who were exposed to Agent Orange, even sailors like him, who merely served offshore in the Navy, never putting “boots on the ground” but bathed in and brushed their teeth with desalinated ocean water contaminated with runoff.  The US government has acknowledged the association between Agent Orange and prostate and many other cancers, if only by paying exposed veterans, but no longer pays reparations to “blue water vets” like my dad. (This and several other things I’ll mention in this post are huge enough to warrant posts of their own, but Monsanto’s history is extensive, so click on the links for more details and try to keep up).  He’d had his prostate removed, which killed his sex life and caused him temporary incontinence, and was emotional all the time as a result of hormone therapy.  I was sympathetic to his plight but glad he was ok.  The people of Vietnam – who have also never received the reparations promised to them in the Paris Peace accords – have suffered much more serious fallout than men like my father, whose exposure to the chemical was limited.

I already knew a lot about Monsanto before I figured out the Agent Orange connection.  I knew that Posilac made cows’ udders hurt, and could cause pus to get into your milk.  I knew that Monsanto had long ago cornered the seed market and bought up the rights to Terminator technology, which, should they ever go back on their word not to use it, could put the world’s food production at the mercy of the corporate giant.  I knew the company had a very large team of lawyers, who’d been employed, at times, to sue or threaten to sue small farmers (Some of these farmers never even intended to grow GM crops but rather, found their fields to have been contaminated by drifting pollen.  You would think such a farmer could sue Monsanto for the contamination, but you would, unfortunately, be wrong.)

These days, not surprisingly, Monsanto is the subject of a number of growing controversies.  A series of “workshops” organized by the USDA and the Department of Justice (part of an investigation into possible antitrust behavior) start later this month, and at least two states – Iowa and Texas – are holding independent investigations in the anticompetitive realm, as well.  At a meeting with the Kellogg Foundation back in December, USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan called the DOJ investigation “long overdue.”

Indeed.

I would argue that, while competition in business is incredibly important, especially when dealing with seeds and by extension, food supplies, that if the US government is interested in protecting farmers, citizens, markets and global ecosystems, a broader – and deeper, and longer – investigation into the safety of genetically modified organisms is also long overdue.  Government agencies have approved all of the GMO products that are on the market today, but the overtaxed agency’s tendency to rely on industry science places too much trust in a company that my Dad thinks has proven would “rather make a buck than worry about what happens next.”

So it’s good to see that in addition to the antitrust investigations, the USDA is at least considering the regulation of two genetically modified crops, sugar beets and alfalfa.  Both glysophate resistant, otherwise known as “Roundup Ready,” they are designed to be sprayed with Roundup, Monsanto’s popular weed killer.  The overuse of glysophate as an herbicide is problematic in and of itself (carrying the risk of breeding “super weeds” that could build resistance to glysophate and require the application of ever more potent chemicals) but at issue is also the safety of ingesting a plant whose genes have been tampered with enough – by injecting, among other things, E. coli bacteria (is it just me, or does this stuff read like a John Grisham novel?) into them.

The alfalfa case is further along (the USDA has already written an Environmental Impact Study on GE alfalfa — the sugar beet lawsuit would require one), and according to most people, the one to watch, as it may have broad implications for all genetically modified seed.  The organic industry is up in arms on both fronts, as are farmers, and a recent Consumers Union study reveals that consumers are freaked out, too.  The comment period on alfalfa ends today, and even the Canadians are watching, and they want you to weigh in, dear reader, as does Food Democracy Now.  For their part, Monsanto has a signon letter, too.

I may be comparing apples to oranges here, but at the root of the Agent Orange controversy and the fight against GMO beets and alfalfa are the same issue – public health.  I’ve written before in favor of the precautionary principle, and though I can imagine the comments this post will receive from Monsanto’s PR people, I would challenge any one of them to argue against it.

When the US and South Vietnamese governments decided to dump chemicals into the jungle, we were at war, and expediency and efficacy were the order of the day.  No doubt, there is a PR man out there who would find a reason that GMO beets and alfalfa are not only safe but imperative.  But he’d have a hard time convincing most folks.  When I called my Dad last night to ask what he thought about GMOs, he said he thought that he hoped we’d learned a lesson from what happened to him and others in Vietnam, that the government and the chemical companies were too quick to call a product safe and that there needed to be greater accountability — to people, not just to the bottom line.

Ever my father’s daughter, that’s where I come down on this stuff, too.

I visited Bread & Life last week as part of a Food Systems Network NYC meeting and was impressed by the efficiency and opportunity the facility offered. Yemi Oyename, Director of Food Services for St. John’s, gave us a tour. The award winning facility, renovated in 2008, contains a large industrial kitchen which serves out over 1,000 meals a day. Ms. Oyename laughs when telling us she quickly nixed the idea for a deep fryer, but in her humor you can see the dedication to not only feeding the poor, but providing healthy, whole foods.

Anthony Butler, Executive Director, spoke of a lack of “best practices” exchange among food pantries, mostly because the data does not exist. At Bread & Life, the computerized system lets them collect this data to see what food people want, what gets left behind and how often each member frequents the pantry. Bread & Life not only covers food services, but a realm of other issues including immigration and legal aid. One of their most successful programs helps people attain official state IDs, something many of us take for granted. They also provide a medical team, a tax event and access to personal voicemail and email.

This all encompassing action represents a proactive approach that many food pantries are taking to address the problems that perpetuate poverty. Light years beyond dull canned goods and processed foods, food pantries like Bread & Life are working on innovative, comprehensive programs that don’t just fill bellies, but also offer hope to those in need.

Reverend Robert Jackson of the Bed-Stuy Farm and the Brooklyn Rescue Mission spoke about the need for community support and fresh food. While hunger represents the most urgent need, how that hunger is addressed is important. Will it be through a CSA share and the garden in Bed-Stuy, or from government-provided packaged goods. Is the community involved in these decisions, or do mandates come down from somewhere above? Whether it is access to a garden or access to a computer, the extra efforts and sense of autonomy that Bread & Life and the Bed-Stuy Farm provide for their members may be the keys to success.

The Bed-Stuy Farm is presently collecting signatures and support to save their farm from being seized. To learn more, please visit their website.

It comes as no surprise that agriculture plays a role in the lives of Japanese school children. Food is a central part of the culture and many traditional practices, such as the tea ceremony, are passed on through generations. Each region has its specialties, and there is always a clear link to the surrounding seas. Children are not sent to school with Lunchables, but a healthy mix of rice and other tasty morsels contained in a Bento Box.

As obesity rates balloon and pizza and hamburgers remain staples of American children’s lunches, we should take a lesson from the Japanese. Peak kids’ interest in food, show them where it comes from, and incorporate a science lesson in the process. Perhaps then they will understand the importance of farmers and the value of good food. Not to mention playing in the dirt is fun!

As the title of this post suggests, harvest season has come to Shimokita. Not only have I been the recipient of more cabbage and daikon radish than I could possibly know what to do with, but I have also gotten to experience harvesting some of these grains and veggies with my students in the past couple weeks.  Each of my schools, both Elementary and JH, have their own gardens varying in diversity.  The students have all actively participated in prepping the land, sowing the seeds, and now reaping the harvest.  One sunny day last week, the entire school (all thirty-six students!) harvested daikon during 4th period.  Not being incredibly familiar with daikon radish, I was surprised at how large some of these daikon were once unearthed.  It amazes me that something that starts out as teeny-tiny as a seed can grow as big as my leg within the course of a a couple months!

At another school this past week, I got to harvest sweet potatoes with my 1st and 2nd grade students.  First we tore away all the vines growing on top of the mounds, then I got to watch and help as a bunch of six and seven year olds dug around in the dirt to see who could find the biggest sweet potato!  In the end, we dug up around

30 sweet potatoes and each student got to take home a couple.  They are delicious, and so easy to make!  Just wrap in tin foil, stick in the toaster oven a couple times and a perfect warm snack!

Probably my favorite and most interesting garden experience this week, however, was the rice harvest on Friday with another of my elementary schools.  They planted the rice in spring and let it mature all through the summer.  About a month ago, all the rice in Japan started changing color – from that fresh, vibrant green to varying shades of beige and yellow.  Not only do the leaves change color in Fall, here, but so too does the rice, and it makes for a pretty beautiful landscape.  As for harvest day, we arrived after lunch and each student selected a small scythe.  Then, everyone descended into the rice paddy after being shown the correct way of slicing: you grab the clump of rice with one hand, bend forward in a lunge with the opposite foot in front, and slice towards you with the corresponding hand to the foot.  The aim is to slice the stalks as close to the ground as possible.  Then, the decapitated stalks are left to the wayside and finally bunched together with twine, and hung out to dry in various methods.  The method preferred at this harvest is common, where the rice bunches are draped over a large-scale towel-rack looking thing, but I have also seen little fairy tee-pees propped around the perimeter of the paddy, or another method where the rice is splayed out in layers on a central pole, resembling stunted Dr. Seuss trees more than anything.

The work was not overly challenging, but it was rather uncomfortable being bent over at an awkward angle for so long, and without a team of youngsters helping, it would not only be uncomfortable but incredibly time consuming.  Makes sense that a life-time of such work, in conjunction with a serious lack of calcium, would bend the spines of so many of these old Japanese obaasans.  The work succeeded, though, in giving me a sense of appreciation for where my rice comes from, and the lesson was not lost on my students, either.  In Japan this is an incredibly valuable lesson to teach, as rice is typically part of every single meal, of every single day.  I would also argue that teaching children early on that the food they consume can be easily grown at home is a really important piece of information.  Especially when a child can experience and understand the efforts and rewards that go into the growing and eating of food.  In terms of immediate rewards for the Friday harvest…we get to eat the rice at the Omochi Making Party in November!  Now that’s some upcoming gratification!