Redesign the system
The switch to a sustainable food system is a matter of culture: while we may idealise small farmers in their human-sized parcels, if taken individually, their power as agents of change is limited.
Thanks to digital means, all pioneers can be connected, support one another, learn from each other - and amplify change. Whoever they are, and wherever they are in the world. Let’s find them and connect them !
Pioneers also need infrastructures, systems that support them and integration into their communities. Engaged customers and local territories could become benevolent “accelerators” that help support and envigorate these businesses, and in the end, create a demand for a sustainable food system - on a global scale.
The culture of food is as important, if not more important, than the production of food.
Taste
The best flavors come from the best ingredients, and the best ingredients come from the best farming approaches. Because when you treat Nature well it gives you the gift of great food.
And what if chefs become catalysts for this change? What if they could empower and educate people who consume their food? What if they could advocate and support producers that are shifting the model?
The act of cooking could be described as a transcendent experience. It is more than just culinary. It is an ecological act, too. And as Dan Barber says, chefs have the opportunity - and perhaps the responsibility - to use their cooking to shape cultures, to manifest what’s possible and, in doing so to inspire a new ethic of eating.
What if chefs can help us recognise that our food is part of an integrated whole, an entire web of relationships that cannot be analysed in separate, single ingredients? Their mission goes beyond raising awareness on the importance of sustainable agriculture, it goes up to redesigning the whole system, from fork to table.
Restaurants are often seen as places of escape. Well, what if they were also places of connection?
The Journey
Kitchens
What if what we eat could be the cheapest and most enjoyable medicine?
“Let the food be thy medicine and thy medicine be the food”
Kitchen(s) are above all, the room that matters the most in a house. this is where we create, experiment, chunk and taste.
Revolution starts here: we can change what we put in our plate, as an individual or as a family, overnight. When we cook our own food, we have the power to choose what we eat. Home made food teaches us how to re-connect with products, teaches us to recognise what is we are eating, and patience and time to prepare it.
Kitchens are also one of the places where, to me, love is nurtured. When we love someone, we cook for them. Food is love to bite into ! Our “tribe(s)” reunite around kitchens. And the best ideas and discussions often come out of a bunch of minds and a table.
“The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.”
Farms
The garden is the place where we meet nature halfway.
The more people know about what their food is and the way it is produced, the more likely it is that their values - and not just the price value, will influence their purchasing decision. This means that our entire food system has fundamentally been built on ignorance and indifference: the less we know about who is at the end of our food chain, the less we, as consumers, care.
“You are what you eat - and what you eat eats”
The farmer is dependent for his health and survival on many forms of life, and he has to respect the wilderness of his soli and his plants to make his garden flourish the most. You cannot grow flavourful food unless the soil is a thriving active biological community.
In order to achieve the transition from a "conqueror of the land-community" to a "citizen of the land", we should erase any divisions between eating and farming. Our duty, as "eaters", is not only to support the farmer, but also to support the land that supports the farmer.
Restaurants
As Dan Barber brilliantly says, “we have to redefine the definition of fine dining to help lead us in a redefinition of everyday eating”. The shift to another food model and another conception of food is not likely to happen if there is no culinary application of it. Chefs have a key role to play, now more than ever. They have become true celebrities and, in turns, have the power to influence people’s thoughts and action. They can be advocates for a new way of eating and cooking.
Healthy Food for healthy minds : how "organic grown students" can change the future of marginalized communities
Stephen Ritz is a South Bronx educator who believes that students shouldn’t have to leave their community to live, learn, and earn in a better one.
Green Bronx Machine is a school-based model using urban agriculture aligned to key school performance indicators, to grow healthy students and healthy schools and to transform communities that are fragmented and marginalized into neighborhoods that are inclusive and thriving.