When the kitchen buys the farm the organic zucchini is cheaper
Sara and Lenny Martinelli own six restaurants and a catering business including the popular Boulder Dushanbe Tea House, reports the Daily Camera. Now, they own a three-acre farm where they grow their own kale, beets, peppers, tomatoes and zucchini, harvest eggs from their own chickens, and produce goat cheese from their own goats. “If we didn’t grow our own produce, we would not be able to offer that organic produce without raising those prices substantially,” Sara Martinelli said.
“When you have a restaurant, it is very nurturing for people, you’re feeding people is a big deal.”
Food companies supply $10 million for anti-GMO labeling campaign
The Los Angeles Times reports that PepsiCo, Kellogg, Cargill, Coca-Cola, Monsanto, Nestle, J.M. Smucker, Campbell Soup, General Mills and others have pumped almost $10 million into the campaign to defeat Proposition 37, the November statewide ballot initiative to require labels for genetically engineered crops and processed food products.
Time to bring back home ec classes
Slate.com’s Torie Bosch recently argued for re-introducing home ec classes. “You could make the case that home ec is more valuable than ever in an age when junk food is everywhere, obesity is rampant, and few parents have time to cook for their children,” she wrote. Two children’s health experts made a similar argument in a Journal of the American Medicine Association. Citing sobering statistics on childhood obesity, the authors concluded that “providing a mandatory food preparation curriculum to students throughout the country may be among the best investments society could make.”
To eat clean, learn how to cook
“I want people to eat whole, minimally processed food because it’s nutritionally dense, affordable and good for the environment. If you eat food in the form closest to nature, that means buying a turkey breast or a whole chicken and cooking it yourself, as opposed to buying (prepared) chicken nuggets. The challenge means you have to cook, which many people will have to learn.” – Lauren Niemes, executive director of Nutritional Council