THE EAT WELL GUIDED TOUR OF AMERICA!
August 2 to September 8, 2007
Just over a week into their 38-day journey across America, the passengers on the cross-country Eat Well Guided Tour of America bus have dined with a family that has been crafting cheese by hand since the 1930s, visited bountiful local farmers markets that are as much about growing community as tasting cuisine, and seen Oakland's City Slicker Farms, which offers produce based upon a customer's ability to pay.
"When we began our bus trip, we knew that Americans were tiring of seeing food as little more than something to gobble down while driving," said Diane Hatz, who is leading the tour.
"We know from the USDA that farmers markets have increased nationally by 80% between 1994 and 2002. What better way to show how eating local, sustainable food is becoming more popular?"
But not long after the bus took to the road in Los Angeles, Hatz and her colleagues at Sustainable Table, the nonprofit program she founded and now directs, were excited by the heartfelt commitment that so many Americans have to sustainable agriculture and healthy diets.
So far, we've seen that local, sustainable family farms are not only alive and well," Hatz says, "but that a younger generation of American farmers are committed to sustainable ideals and I believe it's just a matter of time before the farming system will be changed. Sustainable food is here to stay -- it's better for our health, the environment and American tables."
From the kickoff event in West Hollywood's King's Road Park to the "Pie and Popcorn" barn-side film screening in Bowling Green, Ohio, Sustainable Table and its local hosts will delight in the summer's harvest while bringing together area residents for events that will include local food, great conversation and local music.
Highlights of the tour include:
- "Pie Across America" - Pies are a great metaphor for local, wholesome food, and their ingredients tell stories about the people who bake them and the areas where they're created. Sustainable Table will honor pie-making traditions by baking, tasting, comparing, sharing and eating endless varieties of pies from across the country.
- The September launch of the Eat Well Guide "road trip" feature - Think Eat Well Guide meets Mapquest. Conscientious eaters will be able to map out routes with sustainable food outlets from start point to destination. Making lattice pie
- Moopheus and friends - Life size characters from "The Meatrix" are also on board the bus visiting towns across America. www.themeatrix.com
The bio-fueled bus will travel across the country to potlucks, pie competitions and roundtable discussions between farmers, ranchers, chefs and retailers in over 25 states. It will finally stop at the September 9th Farm Aid concert at Randall's Island in New York City.
Anyone with a computer can join the adventure by visiting the tour's interactive site: www.sustainabletable.org/roadtrip
The trip was organized by Sustainable Table, the New York-based nonprofit program dedicated to educating consumers about food related issues, offering viable solutions to industrial based agriculture, and building community, as well as, the Washington D.C., based Food & Water Watch. Hatz is also the award winning Executive Producer of "The Meatrix," a series of animated shorts in which "Moopheus" and other characters based on "The Matrix" expose some disquieting truths about factory farming.
"We haven't forgotten, as we head into the heartland, that our movement remains vulnerable," Hatz said. Just look at the July 24, a federal court ruling that synthetics can be used in foods certified as "organic."
"But this tour is not about courtrooms and Capitol Hill," Hatz said. "It's about celebrating the positive and showing that sustainable food from small, family farms is more common than we all realize. There may be threats on the horizon, but from what I've seen on the road, I have no doubt that our hunger for sustainable, healthy food will only continue to grow. We are seeing that buying and eating locally is not just about the food it's about building a community."
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