The Heaven on Earth Agrarian Road Trip (HEART) is 15 adventurous individuals from around the country who will be exploring local food and food justice initiatives in eight states. These are gallant efforts to rebuild local/regional food supplies that are more equitable, more just for farmers and farm workers, more secure, and more sustainable for the future. At the end of the journey, HEART will join some 17,000 people in Detroit – “Ground Zero for Urban Farming and Renewal” – for the 2nd US Social Forum, where Food Justice will be a powerful theme.

WHY HEART? Vibrant local/regional food economies are needed in the United States AND  everywhere – especially in impoverished nations whose farming has been weakened by international trade rules,  foreign “assistance” policies, and the dumping of subsidized crops on their economies.

Road Trippers have experienced these problems in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and will highlight these issues along the way. But the main focus will be to explore, celebrate and broadcast to the wider church the great things happening to address these systemic problems in our food and farm systems – by starting in our own households, congregations and communities.

As we rebuild food security and sovereignty here in the United States, let us always remember, pray for, and do all we can to support the same around the world. Advocacy on US foreign assistance and global food security legislation, as well as the Trade Act, will be critical this year.

So . . . How to follow the HEART?

Home base for the Heaven on Earth Agrarian Road Trip will be the Food and Faith Blog where you can find HEART photos, posts, videos and interviews from the Road Trippers, June 13 – 26.

Follow HEART and find events along the way! The Eat Well Guide has donated their database of local food farms, farmers markets, restaurants and much more to create a Heaven on Earth map, event descriptions, and even a printable local foods and farms resource for each of the towns we’ll visit.

Find us on the HEART Google map.

And “fan” the HEART facebook page for more updates!

Methyl Bromide, a soil fumigant often used on strawberry crops, was phased out in the US by 2005 because it was depleting the ozone layer.  The phase out was based on the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the Clean Air Act.

Good news, right? The EPA was acknowledging that yet one more federally-approved chemical was actually causing more harm than good. But I only found out about the banned Methyl Bromide because of the attention recently placed on Methyl Iodide. Approved in 2007, and currently used in many states as a “good” replacement for the banned Methyl Bromide, Methyl Iodide has its own set of problems.

Methyl Iodide is currently under scrutiny as the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) proposes approval of its use. Even though Methyl Iodide is used in many states already, California, which has its own pesticide approval process, has been questioning its safety level for the last year. While Methyl Iodide is not an ozone depleting pesticide like Methyl Bromide, it is extremely toxic to humans, a consistent carcinogenic that is used in the lab by chemists to induce cancer in experimental subjects such as mice. It has also been found to affect the nervous system, lungs, liver and kidneys, and to damage human fetuses.

While an independent review requested by the DPR concluded that “any anticipated scenario for … use of this agent would result in exposures to a large number of the public and thus would have a significant adverse impact on the public health,” the agency is still pushing for its approval, suggesting more stringent regulations than originally spelled out by the EPA.  These tighter regulations include better training in proper application, controlling the amount used, limiting exposure for workers and requiring special permits. They would also include bigger “buffer zones” between fields sprayed with the toxin and local hospitals, nursing homes, prisons and schools.

Though it isn’t looking good, if the California proposal is rejected, it could have a large impact, possibly moving up the next scheduled federal review of Methyl Iodide, now slated for 2013. It could even help lead to a federal ban.

As the revolving doors between industry and the government continue to …revolve, it takes very little digging to unearth a sketchy connection in this situation. In 2007, the year Methyl Iodide was approved by the EPA, Elin Miller, a past employee of Arysta (the company that makes the pesticide), was EPA Administrator for Region 10, which includes Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington State and 267 Indian Tribes. Methyl Iodide was originally approved for one year, but the probationary time line was extended indefinitely as the Bush administration left office.

In the wake of President Obama’s Cancer Panel report, which found that the “risk of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated,” and links between chemicals and diseases (such as that between pesticides and ADHD) showing up regularly, the DPR’s proposal flies in the face of facts we’ve been privy to for a long time. You can send your comments about the proposal to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation until June 29^th at mei_comments@cdpr.ca.gov.

More Information:

Scientists Fume Over California’s Pesticide Plans,  Pesticide Action Network – Methyl Iodide

Helpful tips:

Dirty Dozen – Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides

From our friend Leslie Hatfield at the Green Fork blog… our sister blog and soon to be more! Curious? Read the bottom of this post for more details.

It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since we launched The Green Fork but there it is, 473 blog posts later.  Two years ago today we set out to gild the lily that was the Eat Well Guide by not only steering you toward good food, but insisting upon its importance.  That year, we kicked things off with 20 Ways to Green Your Fork.  Last year, I hurriedly typed out an Earth Day post from the hallway of a hotel in San Jose at the annual W.K. Kellogg conference, gathering quotes from such sustainable food advocates as Michael Pollan, Joan Gussow and Anna Lappe, reporting that it had been a landmark year in the sustainable food movement, which it certainly had.

This year, I set out to throw together a mixed (good and bad) list of people and organizations to watch over the next year.  I solicited my colleagues at Grace for some of their favorites, and I gathered their suggestions, but when I sat down to write the intro to the list, I couldn’t really get into it.

This year I wasn’t riding quite as high as last, even though the White House gardeners built hoop houses this winter, and the USDA launched the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program (also, Mario Batali’s Earth Day menu looks amazing).  Truth be told, I’ve long had reservations about Earth Day.  I feel like it’s been given the Christmas treatment and become completely commercialized.  Privately, I’ve rolled my eyes at Earth Day, saying that it’s too corporate, too precious, too. . .overdone.

(Yes, in launching The Green Fork on Earth Day, we did — purposefully — use Earth Day as a “news hook” to promote our new endeavor, but it’s not like we were opening a gimmicky restaurant chain).

Anyway, I just couldn’t get into the spirit.  So I did some reading about it.

It’s easy for people under 50 to imagine that first Earth Day, 40 years ago today, as a gathering of a bunch of idealistic hippies, but in many ways, things were just as serious then as they are today.  Sure, most people didn’t know how rapidly we were approaching peak oil or the climate tipping point, but they were living under the threat of nuclear war.  There were virtually no environmental regulations, so factories were spewing pollutants willy-nilly into the air and water ways. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring had raised major eyebrows over rampant pesticide use with its release in 1962, but the US wouldn’t ban DDT until 1972. Rivers caught fire. Forget the fact that everyone was still driving gas-guzzling V-8s, there was still lead in gasoline.

My friend and colleague Regina Weiss tells me that back then, you couldn’t see stars at night in New York City for all the smog (light pollution was a factor too, but that probably hasn’t changed) but that she can, now, and she thinks about that when she’s walking home at night and it gives her hope that things really are getting better, at least in fits and starts.

You rarely get this impression from movies about that time period — at least, not that the environmental situation was so drastic — but things were serious and it was clear there was change to be made.  To be sure, there were people who’d know this for years and been suffering as modern Cassandras doing activism work on one issue or another, but that first Earth Day (credited to US Senator Gaylord Nelson, who originally called it the National Environment Teach-In) is said to have shown the activists that they all had something in common, thus galvanizing the modern environmental movement.

Anybody who does environmental activism these days can probably attest to a need for such a coming together today.  Go ahead, shake your head at the egregious greenwashing you’ll see this week.  Give a side-eye glance at the government agencies you don’t think are doing enough.  But maybe we can still come together over Earth Day, the way we come together with our families, warts and all, during the holidays.

Maybe Earth Day was the catalyst for the movement, but more likely, it symbolized the critical mass that had been reached around some of these issues — in any case, there’s no doubt that policies started changing soon after.  Nixon passed the Clean Air Act Extension, which gave more teeth to the original CAA, the EPA was formed and required to enforce it and the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972.  Gas lost its lead in the ’80s. At some point, the stars came back out in New York.

I really wanted to end this with a mixed bag (The Good, the Bad and the Questionable, I was going to call it, and in addition to the good guys, I was going to list off the greenwashers and the junk scientists and the just plain bad ideas) of “ones to watch” for Earth Day, but I can’t muster the cynicism.

Don’t worry, it always comes back.

Thanks for reading The Green Fork these last two years, we hope you’ve enjoyed the ride even half as much as we have.  In the spirit of coming together, a quick roundup of great efforts to get us out of this mess.  I know I didn’t even scratch the surface here so please, feel free to suggest a few of your own in the comments.

So Many People Doing Such Great Work

Farmer Jane Monsanto may think that all women who live on farms are wives and mothers (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but in fact, there are more women entering into farming than men, by a lot.  Farmer Jane, a new book by Temra Costa, will tell us all about it.  Look for our review soon.

Let’s Move Who knew what the organic garden on the White House Lawn would grow into, and how quickly?  Michelle Obama has claimed her issue, and it is childhood obesity.

Farm Corps This brilliant new program, just announced, will organize volunteers around the country to work in school food systems, helping staff source local food and helping teachers develop good food curricula.

La Via Campesina Anna Lappe gushed about them last year, and with good reason — the international peasant movement has long fought against corporate control of the food supply and this week, organized over 100 actions around the world for the International Day of Peasant’s Struggle.

FEEST I first heard about FEEST — Food Empowerment Education and Sustainability Team — at a W.K. Kellogg gathering last December (The Kellogg Foundation helps fund FEEST).  The Seattle-based, youth-run program runs a weekly organic dinner and a monthly community potluck.

Friends of Family Farmers This Oregon-based group of sustainable agriculture advocates spent the fall and winter organizing community meetings around the state, gathering information for their Agricultural Reclamation Act, and also educating eaters — how brilliant does “InFARMation (and Beer!) sound?

Cooking Up a Story These guys often let us cross-post their amazing videos.  Their site is a great place to get inspired and witness some of the innovative farming methods people are coming up with.

INFORM A green nonprofit here in NYC that does interesting, snappy short videos – The Secret Life of Paper, The Secret Life of Cellphones – next up is The Secret Life of Beef.  Meatless Monday’s Chris Elam calls it “a clear, simple and accessible way to make sense of a complex problem, and how we’re all part of the solution.”

Meatless Monday With cities around the globe jumping on the Monday bandwagon much to the chagrin of the American Meat Institute and for some reason (do I smell industry dollars?) conservative talk show hosts, I’m sure we’ll see more Monday action in the coming year.

Citizens Campaign for the Environment CCE is running a number of great campaigns at the moment, including stop power plants from sucking up aquatic life from rivers to cool their systems, effectively killing billions of fish every year.

Eat Well Guide We couldn’t not promote Eat Well on Earth Day, could we?  The team here has been putting together local food maps for events like South by Southwest and Anna Lappe’s book tour, and as always, there’s more on the way!

* A note to our loyal readers: one day in the near future, we’ll be shutting down shop here at The Green Fork, but don’t panic; we’re actually moving into a bigger place, one where we can cover not just food issues, but water and energy issues as well.  We’re keeping the details close for now, but don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know when it’s time, and we’ll be giving Green Fork readers a sneak peek when we get ready to go public. ]]> http://www.sustainabletable.org/2010/04/earth-day-2010-celebration-vs-cynicism/feed/ 0 http://www.sustainabletable.org/2010/04/let%e2%80%99s-ask-marion-does-the-usda-stand-for-ultra-silly-dietary-agenda/ http://www.sustainabletable.org/2010/04/let%e2%80%99s-ask-marion-does-the-usda-stand-for-ultra-silly-dietary-agenda/#comments Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:37:41 +0000 http://www.sustainabletable.org/?p=5092 With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally’s kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:

KT: Monday’s New York Times had an editorial supporting the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, a bill that would give the US Agriculture Department “new powers to set nutritional standards for any food sold on school grounds, particularly junk foods that contribute to obesity.”

The current standards leave a lot to be desired, as Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution has revealed. In the first episode, Jamie stood accused of shortchanging the kids on carbohydrates because he omitted the bread from a meal that already included rice.

Last Friday, in episode three, Jamie found himself charged with the violation of “insufficient vegetables,” despite the fact that his noodle-based entree featured seven different vegetables. The remedy? Add a bunch of french fries to the meal to meet the veggie quota.

How did the USDA’s school lunch standards ever get so nutritionally nutty? Would passage of the CNA support the wholesome, made-from-scratch meals that Jamie Oliver’s trying to bring back to our cafeterias?

Dr. Nestle: You are asking about the history of the USDA’s school lunch program? Nothing could be more complicated or arcane. Fortunately, two new books take this on: Susan Levine’s School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program (Princeton, 2010), and Janet Poppendieck’s Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (California, 2010).

I used Poppendieck’s book in my Food Ethics class at NYU this semester and reading it while watching Jamie Oliver’s programs was a lot of fun. Yes, Oliver is doing reality television but no, he’s not exaggerating. If you find this difficult to believe, read Poppendieck’s book or take a quick look at Kate Adamick’s review of Oliver’s Food Revolution on the Atlantic Food Channel.

As Levine and Poppendieck explain, and as I discussed in Food Politics (California, 2007), school lunches started out as a way to dispose of surplus agricultural commodities by feeding hungry kids. Over the years, it got caught up in a series of “wars”–first on poverty, hunger, and malnutrition and later on welfare and obesity.

The politics of school lunch, and of the CNA in particular, have always reflected the tension inherent in any welfare program, in this case feeding the poor vs. inducing dependency and overspending. In recent years, as obesity became much more of a public health problem than malnutrition, the politics came to reflect the tensions between commercial interests and those of nutrition reformers. Congress is always involved as it endlessly tinkers with the rules for “competitive foods”–the sodas and snacks sold in competition with federally supported school meals.

Competitive foods put schools in a dilemma and in conflict of interest. They make money from competitive foods to help support the school lunch program. But sodas and snacks undermine participation in school meals programs.

Poppendieck points out that the result is a mess that leaves financially strapped school districts with few choices. It’s not that the “lunch ladies” (you have to love Jamie Oliver’s term) don’t know how to make decent meals. It’s that they are up against inadequate funding and equipment, and impossible nutrition standards that can be met most easily by commercial products like Uncrustables that are designed to meet USDA standards. My favorite example contains 51 ingredients (my rule is “no more than five”).*

Inadequate funding is a big consideration in the Child Nutrition Act. This act provides $4.5 billion over 10 years for school meals. Although this represents a 10-fold increase over previous (2004) funding, it works out to an additional measly six cents per meal–not nearly enough to solve school districts’ financial problems.

But–and this is a huge step forward–the act gives USDA the authority to set nutrition standards not only for foods sold in the cafeteria but also in vending machines and a la carte lines.

And the bill does a few other Very Good Things. It provides:

• An estimated $1.2 billion over 10 years for meals at after-school programs, free meals to all students in schools with high poverty levels, and increased availability of meals during summer months.

• An estimated $3.2 billion for establishing nutrition standards, strengthening local wellness policies, and increasing reimbursement rates.

• Mandatory funding for schools to establish school gardens and buy foods from local sources.

• Increased training for local food service personnel.

• Automatic enrollment of foster children for free school meals.

As for the pesky nutrition standards: the bill expects the USDA to revise them according to the recent report of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), School Meals: Building Blocks for Health Children. This report recommended a conversion to food-based, rather than nutrient-based, standards along with increases in the amount and variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and limits on calories, saturated fat, and sodium.

All of this makes the CNA well worth supporting. Is it perfect? Of course not. But it is a good first step to making big improvements eventually. In the meantime, plenty of schools are already doing great work and more are joining the food revolution one meal at a time. These deserve all the help we can give them.

*NOTE: the label of this particular Uncrustable was sent to me by someone who works in an upstate New York school district:

BREAD; ENRICHED UNBLEACHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, YEAST, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL AND/OR SOYBEAN OIL, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: WHEAT GLUTEN, SALT, DOUGH CONDITIONERS (MAY CONTAIN ONE OR MORE OF: DIACETYL TARTARIC ACID ESTERS OF MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES [DATEM], MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, ETHOXYLATED MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, CALCIUM PEROXIDE, ASCORBIC ACID, AZODICARBONAMIDE, L-CYSTEINE), YEAST NUTRIENTS (MAY CONTAIN ONE OR MORE OF: MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, CALCIUM SULFATE, AMMONIUM SULFATE), CALCIUM PROPIONATE (MAINTAIN FRESHNESS), CORNSTARCH, ENZYMES (WITH WHEAT). PASTEURIZED PROCESS CHEESE SPREAD: CULTURED MILK AND SKIM MILK, WATER, WHEY (FROM MILK), SODIUM PHOSPHATE, SALT, CREAM (FROM MILK), CORN SYRUP, LACTIC ACID, SORBIC ACID (PRESERVATIVE), GUAR GUM, ARTIFICIAL COLOR, ENZYMES. BUTTER FLAVORED OIL: PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL, SALT, SOY LECITHIN, NATURAL AND ARTIFICAL FLAVORS (WITH MILK), VITAMIN A PALMITATE, BETA CAROTENE ADDED FOR COLOR.

SCHOOL DISTRICTS FROM ACROSS THE COUNTRY WORK TOGETHER IN CHICAGO TO SOURCE BETTER SCHOOL FOOD

Food Service Professionals Joined by Community Organizations, Government Officials and Vendors to Learn, Share, and Make Change Happen

Over 100 school food service directors, community activists, and government agency partners will convene at the second Annual Meeting of School Food FOCUS, March 25-27, 2010, at the University of Chicago’s Gleacher Center to change how school food is sourced. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

School lunch is hot. A cause taken up by the likes of First Lady Michelle Obama, the quality of meals that kids eat in the lunchroom is capturing America’s attention as never before. A growing number of Americans are getting in touch with their food through farmer’s markets, cooking at home, and even growing their own. Rising rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents has caused widespread concern.

This shift in thinking, combined with the upcoming Congressional debate on the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, has Americans thinking: how do we change what kids eat?

School Food FOCUS supports the nation’s largest school districts in their efforts to procure more healthful, more sustainably produced and regionally sourced food. In Chicago, FOCUS is bringing together a passionate, knowledgeable network of committed people to learn from one another, share successes and create new paths to change school food. Representatives from a dozen food companies will also be in attendance, selected for their work toward reaching FOCUS goals.

“Those with the drive to change food procurement practices in schools have opened up an incredible set of opportunities,” said Toni Liquori, executive director of School Food FOCUS. “This is the right time. By working closely with everyone involved, we can create real and lasting change that affects children, farms, local economies, public health, and food systems for the better.”

The Annual Meeting, which opens with a keynote speech by Jan Poppendieck, author of the new book “Free For All: Fixing School Food in America,” and includes a welcome from Gail C. Christopher, Vice President for Programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, will feature:

Demonstrated successes in procuring more healthful, more sustainable and more locally sourced produce, meat, dairy and grain items for school meals, told by school food service professionals and their community partners from four school districts: Chicago, Denver, Portland (OR), and Saint Paul.

The first Real School Food Showcase: a selection of carefully chosen chicken, whole grain and other products available for institutional purchasing that strive to meet FOCUS criteria for more healthful, local, and sustainable. The Showcase is presented by School Food FOCUS in collaboration with Kids First, a Rhode Island-based non-profit known for its pioneering Regional Healthy Foods Marketplaces. The Showcase is augmented with a series of roundtable discussions to examine barriers, develop solutions and determine how best to change the school food supply chain.

A conversation with representatives of USDA about how the agency can partner with school food service, community organizations and others – including opportunities around the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative and Child Nutrition Reauthorization, currently being reviewed by Congress.

“I’m excited to stand alongside my fellow school food service professionals, confident that we are significantly transforming school meals,” said Bob Bloomer, regional vice president of Chartwells-Thompson at Chicago Public Schools. “Providing healthy food for kids is a top priority for all of us. In this collaborative environment, we’re creating powerful relationships and tools for change,” added Gitta Grether-Sweeney, MS, RD, assistant director of nutrition services at Portland Public Schools.

About School Food FOCUS

School Food FOCUS (transforming Food Options for Children in Urban Schools) is a national initiative that helps school districts with 40,000 or more students to procure more healthful, more sustainably produced and regionally sourced food, so that children may perform better in school and maintain healthier lifestyles. FOCUS maximizes its programmatic impact through a strategic partnership with Public Health Solutions, a nonprofit that develops, implements and advocates solutions to prevent disease and improve community health, providing FOCUS with financial and administrative services. FOCUS is supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

About Kids First

Kids First is a non-profit organization whose mission is to help guide communities to improve the nutritional and physical well being of children.

Monday was a momentous day, thanks to the historic, histrionic passage of health care reform. Lack of access to adequate health care kills an estimated 20,000 to 45,000 Americans annually, so here’s hoping that the health care bill will stem that terrible tide.

But Monday was also World Water Day, a fact that pretty much fell through the cracks. And that’s a shame, because access to safe, clean drinking water is essential to good health, and the lack of it kills millions of people all over the world each year. As a UN report released yesterday entitled Sick Water noted, “the sheer scale of dirty water means more people now die from contaminated and polluted water than from all forms of violence including wars.”

Ironically, those of us who have relatively safe drinking water are the ones buying up all the bottled water that’s become the bane of environmentalists. Annie Leonard, the force of nature who brought us the wildly successful Story of Stuff video (and her new book by the same name), explores this perplexing trend in her latest video, The Story of Bottled Water, released yesterday to coincide with World Water Day.

I’ll be discussing the bottled water phenomenon with Leonard tomorrow evening in a live interactive webcast at 8 pm EST. We’ll be joined by Elizabeth Royte, author of Bottlemania: Big Business, Local Springs, and the Battle Over America’s Drinking Water. Please tune in and join the conversation!

Earlier this month I ventured down to the nation’s capital to attend Meeting the Demand: Growing Markets for Sustainable Meat and Dairy Production, a conference organized by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR).  Turned out to be well worth the epic all-in-one-day roundtrip subway/train ride; ICCR managed to cram the schedule full of speakers, panels, and workshops like pork in the farm bill.  Lots of big ideas; lots of inspiring solutions.

Rather than burden you with a whole lot of extra words, I have compiled a list of 31 facts/thoughts/themes from the conference.  Why 31?  Because it’s a prime number, silly.  This should satisfy your sound-bite appetite – but if you hunger for the hearty stew of detailed description, leave questions in the comments section and I’ll write more.

To Farmers: provide reliable services; collaborate with other farmers to solve problems and share costs; don’t fear middlemen.

To Corporate Chefs: remember your oath to your craft – don’t let emphasis on cost savings overshadow the quality of food!  Start by sourcing 5 or 10% of your ingredients locally.

29. To Investors:  Invest in individuals.  Trust these individuals.
30. Stimulus: economic recovery policy has excluded agriculture.  But the Fay-Penn Economic Development Council is on it – their Federal Agriculture Economic Stimulus Program describes policies to create a new generation of farmers while simultaneously stimulating the national economy.
31. Policy Proposal: forgive small farmers’ debt service requirements when commodity prices dip below 75% of production cost.
32. Unsolicited Personal Opinion about Transportation: train travel is fantastic.Want more details about any of the points above?  Leave requests in the comment section and I’ll elaborate. ]]> http://www.sustainabletable.org/2010/03/dispatches-from-the-beltway-meeting-the-demand/feed/ 2 http://www.sustainabletable.org/2010/03/eat-well-sxsw/ http://www.sustainabletable.org/2010/03/eat-well-sxsw/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:14:46 +0000 http://www.sustainabletable.org/?p=5018 In anticipation of SXSW, Eat Well Guide teamed up with Edible Austin on a free interactive map to sustainable food in the City of Weird. The festival, in its 24th year, began last week with SXSW film and interactive, with SXSW music kicking in this Wednesday, the 17th. If you’re lucky enough to be in Austin, take the time to treat yourself to some amazing sustainably-raised food.  There are plenty of choices where you will definitely be able to eat well. You can view the online map here, or download the PDF below.  Post widely and share these yummy treasures!