In My Backyard

Who needs the agricultural-industrial complex when you can gather free food close to home?

Who knew yummy local food was available only five minutes away from my house! Right on Pulaski Road, Kerber's Farm is a small paradise for localvores. Started in 1941, the farm was renovated last year and opened to the public last September.

Their farmstand not only offers fresh eggs, pies and other bakery deliciousness, but also fantastic breakfast and lunch sandwiches made with their products. For those in search of an immune-system-boost, they also have honey from the farm's bees.

As the popularity of local food has exploded over the past several years, advocates have started pushing to bring the movement to urban areas, where, they say, small-scale farming can create jobs, strengthen communities, and improve access to and education about fresh, healthy foods.

If you don’t have a child in school, work in school nutrition or pay much attention to the news, you may not know of the changes that affected school lunch starting last year. The Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA) was a radical piece of legislation that aimed to reduce childhood obesity and instill healthy eating habits in children. Promoted by First Lady Michelle Obama, the HHFKA mandated many changes that included more fruits and veggies in the children’s lunch, fewer proteins and grains, whole grains and whole wheat pasta, rice and breads, etc.

When the program rolled out in September 2013, everyone seemed to be having a hard time: Foodservice operators were having a hard time sourcing adequate products that met the standards; food manufacturers hadn’t developed enough products that met the standards; parents and children had a hard time adjusting to these new foods being offered, etc. A lot of the food served ended up in the garbage since children didn’t really want to eat the veggies they were forced to take with their lunch. (Veggies, ewww! they’d say).  Furthermore, the grain and protein portions were smaller which meant kids were getting a smaller sandwich with a smaller meat patty for instance. Due to this backlash, last year the regulation softened and lifted the cap on grains and proteins while keeping the overall calorie count of the meals. This allowed more flexibility to menu different meals.

According to the USDA’s Fact Sheet on HHFKA, the regulation has been overall successful. However, right now in Congress there is a battle going on to allow schools to opt out from the HHFKA rules if the schools are losing money in the lunch program. Regardless of political partisanship, if in fact this is the first step to roll back the changes, then we are in for a biggie. Research has shown that if young children are not encouraged to eat fruits and veggies, they will not eat them later in life. If children don’t eat healthy foods at home and are not even exposed to these foods in schools, then they will grow up with terribly unhealthy diets that will result in health problems later on. It is already a shame that being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the US has one of the highest indexes of type 2 diabetes, obesity (more than one third of Americans is obese according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and even worse, childhood obesity (17%). Can you imagine the situation getting worse?

The future of school lunch has very much to do with OUR future as a society not only from the public health point of view, but also from the local foods movement perspective. Did you know that a lot of schools have a Farm-to-School program? Without those purchases, the local farms might have a hard time subsisting. Furthermore, if children don’t learn to include fruits and vegetables in their diets, who will buy them in the future???  Will this be a society based on refined sugars and fried foods?

This past week I was reflecting on the nature of the food supply in the US. I happen to be in Peru visiting family, and had the opportunity to travel to a region in the Peruvian rainforest.

I was able to eat deliciously fresh local foods such as trout fished a couple of kilometers down river and a fantastic soup made from the naturally free-range chickens (people in the region do not cage their animals). It seemed to me these meals were as luxurious as a seven-course dinner at Per Se in NYC. I couldn't believe how incredible it was to be able to eat food that was sourced from a few feet or a couple of miles away, and how hard it was to find something like this in the US!

Here are some definitions from some popular supermarkets located in Long Island:  

Walmart: It sources 10% of their produce from local vendors), local products are those grown 450 miles from a distribution center.

Whole Foods: Defines local foods as anything that have traveled less than 7 hours by car or truck.

Stop and Shop: This store partners with Grown on Long Island, an organization that groups various local Long Island farms, so their produce in Long Island stores comes from pretty much down the block.

Trader Joe's: This store is a little hush hush about their sourcing methods. The only information I got was on their website: "Trader Joe's has stores in many states and regions and we try to source goods locally where we can."

You're craving access to fresh produce, but don't know where to turn? Check out this list of CSAs (Community-shared agriculture) in the LI region http://bit.ly/1l9GOe1

Although only 20 miles east of New York City, Long Island is more than a mere suburb of the greatest city in the world. A mix of suburban and rural areas, the “island” is a paradise for foodies and promoters of the localvore movement.

With this blog, I’d like to highlight the sustainable food initiatives happening in my backyard. From farmers’ markets, local farms and sustainable farming practices to restaurants featuring local products in their menus and local regulations that would affect the “local foods” movement, there is a lot that is happening in this corner of the world!