Catch “What’s on Your Plate” Super Bowl Sunday!

Catch “What’s on Your Plate?,” the documentary about kids and food politics (and a favorite of the Sustainable Table staff), on national TV this Sunday – February 7th!

Join families across the country for a Family Cook-In! on Sunday, February 7th and spend an afternoon learning with your kids about food – what it’s made of, where it come from and how to enjoy every bite. It shows on Sunday at 2pm, perfect timing to watch the movie and make some fun nutritious snacks for the Super Bowl! If you can’t fit it in on Sunday, Discovery’s Planet Green is playing it throughout the week, see below for additional times.

HOW TO JOIN IN THE “FAMILY COOK-IN!”

First, download our Screening Toolkit.

It has all the stuff you need to have a fun and delicious Family Cook-In!

Second, watch What’s on Your Plate? at 2:00 p.m. on Discovery’s Planet Green. Click here to find your local channel.

Third, check out the games and activities in our Screening Toolkit.

Fourth, cook and eat together! Get everyone in the kitchen chopping, stirring, pouring and baking. Then sit down together for some fresh and yummy home-cooked food.

Think food justice is too tricky for kids? Think again. What’s On Your Plate? proves that not only can kids understand the issues, they can actually teach other kids about how they are what they eat.

The film follows two eleven-year-old multi-racial city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. With the camera as their companion, the girl guides talk to each other, food activists, farmers, new friends, storekeepers, their families, and the viewer, in their quest to understand what’s on all of our plates.

According to Michael Pollan: “‘What’s On Your Plate?’ is exactly the film we need now.”

And Alice Waters says: “It was an amazing experience to hear kids talking about these issues. This movie can have a real impact on the way we think about what we’re eating.”

Visit the website for more information on the film and how you can get involved.

Can’t make the Family Cook-In! broadcast? No problem. The film will be showing throughout the week, with additional broadcasts on:

Saturday February 6th, 2010 at 10 pm

Thursday February 11th at 11 pm

Friday February 12th at 7 am

Friday February 12th at 3 pm

Do You Know “What’s on Your Plate”?

Kids and nutrition has been a very popular topic in the news. The Bancroft Elementary School students have been helping Michelle Obama in the White House organic garden, and the first lady has been very vocal about getting more healthy foods into the USDA’s Child Nutrition programs. Sites such as School Lunch Talk and Better School Food are spreading the word about the unhealthy food kids are served in school and what action can be taken. Slow Food USA just launched the “Time For Lunch: National Day of Action” campaign to fight for “real food” in schools. On top of all this, a new movie, “What’s On Your Plate” explores food, nutrition, and our modern food system from two eleven year old girls’ points of view.

On a summer vacation to Ohio, Sadie and Safiyah taste the best cherry tomato of their young lives, which leads them to ask, “Where did this come from”? Sadie’s mother, the film’s director, asks them if they want to meet the farmer who grew it, and so their journey begins. Back home in New York, they question the processed food they see in grocery stores and try to figure out “What exactly is a Funyun”? They join a CSA, visit farmers’ markets and speak with friends about their dietary habits and what can be done to improve their health.

Along the way, the two girls meet up with food activists, chefs, authors and teachers to explore the depths of America’s food system. The advisory council to the film reads like a roster of major players in the sustainable food movement: Anna Lappé, Dan Barber, Raj Patel, Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, plus many more. The girls meet with food activist Kate Adamick, who takes them to the supermarket where they take a look at the ingredients labels on supposedly “healthy food.”

According to director Catherine Gund, “Kids need to know the full benefits of local food: more energy-efficient production, more prosperous farmers, healthier communities, longer lasting and better tasting fruits and veggies. Kids need to know that their food doesn’t only come from the supermarket or the factory, but from nearby farms, trees and the ground. Adults need to be empowered to share this information with the next generation.”

If you feel this way too, take your kids to a screening! For New Yorkers, there is a free screening in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park this Saturday, June 27^th as well as one at the BAM cinemas on July 7^th.

For other screenings around the country, check out the fabulous “What’s On Your Plate” site. They have an interactive map, animation clips, information on the advisory board and much more. You can watch the trailer there, or click below.

What’s on Your Plate?

A new film called What’s on Your Plate? is currently in post production and will be released in Spring 2009. To give you a little background on the movie….

WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE? is a witty and provocative documentary produced and directed by award-winning Catherine Gund about kids and food politics.

Filmed over the course of one year, the film follows two eleven-year-old African-American city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. With the camera as their companion, the girl guides talk to each other, food activists, farmers, new friends, storekeepers, their families, and the viewer, in their quest to understand what’s on all of our plates.

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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.

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Platter Chatter

Conversations about Food.

Today we are featuring Wendimere Reilly of The Health Chic:

What’s your definition of local?

Local means goods and services produced and sold by folks in my community. Here in Florida we tend to extend the definition of community to include our entire state.

What’s your definition of sustainable?

Sustainability is all about reduction. Reduce, reduce, reduce then reuse and if all else fails then recycle. Renewable, and biodegradable have their merits but learning to consume less is the real answer.

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

If we feel connected to our community then we would probably naturally want to support our local friends, neighbors, farmers and small businesses. I think one of the root causes of our endless desire to consume is to fill a void or emptiness that comes from a lack of connectivity. Give a group of kids a ball and they can entertain themselves for days. Put a kid in a room by himself in a room full of toys and he’s eventually going to become bored, lonely and frustrated.

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

Pick one thing and do it. Shop at a small business, go to the farmers market, eat at a family owned restaurant. Encourage the businesses that you patronize to buy local and “green” up their own operations. Vote with your dollar, consider the consequences of your spending. Buy less.

Wendimere Reilly is a good friend of Sustainable Table, has The Health Chic house (in Florida) and website, drives The Health Chic mobile , works with kids and wrote the wonderful book- The Health Chic Guide: Hip, Fun & Delicious Living. Find out all about her on The Health Chic website!

At the Table – COOL

Another good, crazy week of planning for the road trip. The main reason we’re touring the country is to promote local, sustainable food, and to let you know about communities and groups around the country that are promoting and living a sustainable lifestyle. (Well, that and to go around the country and meet as many people as we can! Oh, and to eat pie. Lots of pie.)

To prepare for the trip, I thought it would be good to read up on what’s happening in the eat local movement, so I’ve been doing as much research as I can – which, unfortunately, isn’t as much as I would like because the logistical planning takes so much time!…

But I’ve learned some interesting things. A recent study done by the Montreal organization Equiterre and reported in Sustainable Food News stated, “that 85 percent of respondents said buying local foods is important to them, and 77 percent said they make an effort to do so. Also, 72 percent said they are willing to pay more for locally produced foods, partly to encourage local producers (84%), partly because of the quality of the products (57%) and partly because they felt purchasing local was better for the environment (42%).”

And did you know that the number of certified farmers markets (not including roadside stands) has risen around 20% annually over the past few years? (source – the United States Department of Agriculture) Also, in 1920, 34 different commodities were grown or raised on at least 1% of Iowa farms – in 1997, that number had shrunk to 10, with corn (68%) and soybeans (62%) grown on the majority of farms.

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Sustainable vs Organic – what’s the big deal anyway?

One of the hottest debates in food circles these days is the organic versus sustainable issue. To help you wade through the chatter, I thought I’d try to explain the difference and talk a bit about what’s happening in the marketplace.

Although many of the principles and practices used on sustainable and organic farms are the same, some organic farmers are not sustainable, and some sustainable farmers are not organic. Organic farms must be independently certified every year through a government program, while sustainable farming is more a philosophy or way of life and doesn’t have independent certification. Organic food is labeled “USDA organic”, whereas with sustainable food, you generally need to ask the farmer questions about his/her production methods and then decide which food you think is best for you and your family.

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What’s in a Label?

Ok, so we’re a bit slow on this one, but Ethicurean’s Dairy Queen (aka Bonnie) reported back in October that White Marble Farms, a pork producer which sounds quite wholesome (and claims to be, on the first page of this pdf), is actually an offshoot of industrial agriculture outfit Cargill, and distributed by food giant Sysco. Read the DQ’s redux here.

This from the AP: so far, no food producers are required to provide information on acrylamide, a chemical that occurs naturally in starchy foods when they are excessively heated and has been linked to cancer. A little poking around found several more stories on mislabeling, labeling, and a suspicious lack thereof. Read on…

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What is the problem?

The problem with factory farms is not the farmers themselves – the problem is what has happened to our agricultural system. Big corporations and businesses have taken over and either control the farms themselves, or control the farmers they contract with.

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