Green Eggs, No Ham: Sustainability In The Food World

For 1970, the words were remarkably prescient. Margaret Mead wrote, “What we do about food is…crucial, both for the quality of the next generation, our own American children, and children everywhere… If food is grown in strict relation to the needs of those who will eat it, if every effort is made to reduce the costs of transportation, to improve storage, to conserve the land, and [to recycle] wastes and water, we will go a long way toward solving many of our environmental problems.” Dr. Christine Thompson’s brief reading of Mead’s essay, “The Changing Significance of Food,” opened the recent panel discussion Green Eggs, No Ham: Sustainability in the Food World, held on October 18th in the Tyson Amphitheater. The gathering was part of a series of Focus the Nation educational initiatives, in which teams of faculty and students at colleges, universities, and high schools come together in national and interdisciplinary conversations, all focused on the theme of “Global Warming Solutions for America.”

The first presenter on the panel was Noah Fulmer, co-founder and executive director of Farm Fresh RI. This on-line network, created in 2004, intends to save farmland, connect local farmers with potential buyers, and grow a food system that values the environment. Fulmer related a story highlighting the lack of awareness at that time. Noticing that the local supermarkets were filled with Idaho potatoes, he persuaded a couple of the managers to try an experiment. After displaying the locally grown potatoes side-by-side with the Idahoes, the Rhode Island potatoes outsold the others by 4 to 1. But despite the demand, neither the motivation nor the resources were available to forge the links necessary to bring the local produce to market in a significant way. Enter the RI Fresh Network, an important component of the Farm Fresh concept. “Our expertise isn’t growing, selling, or culinary, it’s about forming connections. And it’s about new technology meets old,” said Fulmer. The Farm Fresh RI website, http://www.farmfreshri.org/, is designed to foster collaboration between businesses that buy locally, and successfully aims to build consumer awareness of where to find local foods. The networking culminates in an annual RI Local Food Forum, whereby schools, restaurants, caterers, retailers, and growers can share farm-to-table best practices and increase the consumption of local foods.

But forming those connections isn’t the only barrier to sustainable foods, according to John Turenne, the owner of Sustainable Food Systems. This consulting firm he created helps organizations design locally grown and ecologically sound food programs. As the second speaker on the panel, Turenne believed that “cost confusion” is also a factor. The perception of buying locally from farmers is that the cost is often higher than buying from one’s neighborhood grocery store. “People think that it costs a lot more. But it doesn’t have to,” he said.

Another challenge to sustainability is that of the “template mentality” towards food, where quality, convenience, and automation take precedence over quality, taste, and sustenance. When businesses prepare their food in such a way as to respect and maintain its quality and freshness, they attract more customers, help preserve farms and biodiversity, while cultivating passion and creativity among their employees. Chefs will learn to adapt to the natural progression of the seasons, utilizing the best of what nature has to offer, and get to know the “faces behind the food”—the people who work so hard to bring the farm to the table.

Minimizing waste and using natural resources as efficiently as possible are also a key feature of any sustainable program. Michael Oshman, founder of the Green Restaurant Association and the last speaker at the forum, is dedicated to creating sustainability in the restaurant industry. In the US, half of the entire food budget is spent in restaurants, so it’s not surprising that they account for a quarter of all the food wasted in the nation. Restaurants are also the largest user of electricity in the retail sector, consuming at least a third of that energy in refrigeration, heating, lighting, and cooking. Furthermore, according to Oshman, the average conventionally-grown food item travels about 1300 miles from the farm to the table, resulting in significant fuel and transportation costs.

Obviously, a multi-faceted approach is required to meet the challenges and to reap the benefits of sustainability in the food world. It certainly takes more than local vegetables to make a green kitchen. But while making food businesses sustainable may be an experiment, eating them is quite a different matter. People who aren’t sure whether or not to give them a try could follow the advice of a famous doctor when it comes to trying new things: You can eat them here or there. As a matter of fact, you can eat them anywhere.