The Just Label It campaign today launched a new video by Food, Inc. filmmaker Robert Kenner that empowers consumers to fight for their right to know what is in their food. The video, “Labels Matter,” is the result of collaboration between the Just Label It campaign and Kenner’s new project, FixFood, a social media platform that aims to empower Americans to take immediate action to create a more sustainable and democratic food system.

To date, more than 450 consumer, healthcare, environmental and farming organizations, manufacturers, retailers have joined the Just Label It campaign, which has generated more than 500,000 consumer comments calling on the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to label GE foods.  (We wrote about the launch of Just Label It here.) The video seeks to garner more consumer awareness and participation by galvanizing one million consumers to comment to the FDA by mid-April, the date that the FDA’s public comment period ends.

“Labels Matter” tells the story of three women who share a belief in the right to know, but for entirely different reasons. Heather Donatini is a pregnant woman who knows she is feeding her developing baby, as well as herself, with every bite. Luann Clark recently had heart surgery and has to closely monitor what she eats. Robyn O’Brien is a mother whose child developed an allergic reaction to breakfast. “As a mother of children with food allergies, the labeling of GE foods is especially important, as it would provide essential and possibly life-saving information for the food allergic population,” said O’Brien, founder, Allergy Kids Foundation. (We’ve written about Robyn’s important work here and here.)

As the video connects with each woman, Kenner shows how the U.S. compares to other developed nations, including the European Union, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia, and even China, where genetically engineered (GE) foods are labeled. The video notes that the vast majority of Americans (90 percent in most studies) believe GE foods should be labeled.

Gary Hirshberg, Chairman of Stonyfield and a founder of Just Label It, collaborated with Kenner to produce the video. “While the pros and cons of GE foods is debated, an entire generation is growing up consuming them,” he said. “Until we have no doubt that GE crops are safe to eat, consumers should have a choice about whether we want to eat them. GE foods must be labeled. Consumers need to know.” Hirshberg recently published “Label It Now,” the first consumer guide to GE foods available at online booksellers. All proceeds of the e-book go to the Just Label It campaign.

The drumbeat for mandatory GE labeling is getting louder, as the FDA decides whether to approve GE salmon and a proposal advances at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deregulate corn engineered to be resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D, a major component in Agent Orange. You can join in asking the FDA to allow consumers the right to know what’s in their food.

Sometimes a spoonful of sugar does, indeed, make the medicine go down. Though you won’t find that catchphrase in the just-released hardcover edition of Food Rules, Michael Pollan‘s best-selling little eater’s manual.

Food Rules does sport the whimsical and witty illustrations of well-known artist Maira Kalman, however. And the new book also boasts 19 new rules—many gleaned from eaters around the country that Pollan wished he had thought of and included the first time around.

Take two is again full of commonsense kitchen wisdom such as If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, you’re probably not hungry; and When you eat real food, you don’t need rules.

The takeaway message: food need not be complicated, and the act of eating is as much about pleasure and communion as it is about nutrition and health. In other words: lighten up a little and enjoy your dinner.

In case you’ve been living under a compost pile, Pollan is a champion of small-scale, sustainable farming, humanely-raised livestock, and access to real food for all. A foe of what he calls highly-processed, edible food-like substances, Pollan’s food philosophy is famously simple: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

He is the author of five previous books including the popular In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, andBotany of Desire, and he writes regularly about food matters for The New York Times. Pollan is also the Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley and co-instructor of the Chez Panisse Foundation funded Edible Education 101 at Cal this fall.

Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world last year and everyone from students and grandmas to Oprah and the Obamas listen up when the mild-mannered man speaks out about corporate food, Big Ag, school food, factory farming, eating culture, and food safety.

We talked, briefly, following an Edible Education lecture given by former Berkeley School Lunch Lady Ann Cooper, whom Pollan introduced before taking her to dinner at—where else?—Chez Panisse. And we spoke again the next day, at length, via phone.

Pollan, 56, dedicates his latest work to his mother, former New York Magazine style columnist Corky Pollan, “who always knew butter is better for you than margarine.” He lives in North Berkeley with his wife, the artist Judith Belzer. His formerly picky eater son, Isaac, recently dispatched to Wesleyan, misses family meals.

Why Food Rules Two?

I wanted to work on a more visual version of Food Rules to reach more people and continue the conversation that the first edition started. My wife and I saw an exhibit of Maira Kalman’s work at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco and Judith suggested we collaborate.

When you look at Maira’s work—like a painting of a Snickers bar on a pink ground or a framed collection of onion rings—it often manages to be poignant, funny, and sad all at the same time.

Eating is important to her but she doesn’t take food too seriously and is not politically correct about it in the least. We’re already neurotic enough about our eating; I wanted this book to be fun while it covered some serious ground.

Can you give us insider insights into Edible Education 101?

It’s been an interesting experience for me personally because I’ve not taught undergraduates before, though I should note my co-instructor Nikki Henderson is carrying most of the load as I’m technically on leave. I’ve found the students terrific; they ask questions that are sharp but well phrased and polite. In a community meeting with corporate food people you might expect to hear the Berkeley hiss, but there’s been none of that. They’re an engaged and impressive group.

We’ve learned things too. We might have had a more effective dialogue in the case of the corporate food lecture, which included Wal-Mart, if it hadn’t been webcast. That had an inhibiting effect on the conversation. I’m also used to three-hour classes; these 90-minute ones go by really fast. I think they work best when we have just one guest so we can really drill down and expound on the issues. At this stage of the semester I wouldn’t be sorry if one of our guests had to cancel just so we had some time for reviewing and contextualizing the material with the students.

And, it has to be said, what a gift this is from the Chez Panisse Foundation to the community as well as the students. The list of speakers and the subjects covered is impressive.

Has interest in the food movement peaked in the popular culture?

It’s hard to know where we are right now but I don’t think so. I remember when I was trying to finish The Omnivore’s Dilemma, published in 2006, I thought I was coming to the subject a little late. It took me forever to finish that book. I do feel a sense of urgency to keep writing about food. We’re just beginning to see the impact of our food choices on health care and insurance costs—obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are soaring—and we need to keep the pressure on the government and corporations for change. If anything, I only see the conversation deepening, and that’s especially encouraging given the economic situation since 2008.

Do you ever want to write about something other than food?

I haven’t always written about food but I find it’s a good place to talk about other things like the environment, the economy, health, culture, and politics. Food is a very big tent as subjects go. That’s why it’s held my interest.

How—and what—do you cook?

I make simple food. I grill more nights than I don’t and my wife and I typically cook together. We work well in the kitchen together. One of us makes the main and the other the sides. We’re fortunate to work from home so we’re able to make dishes that require slow cooking like braises and soups.

Some of our readers view you as an elitist foodie and roll their eyes at such stories as your New York Times Magazine piece, The 36-Hour Dinner Party. Is that unfair?

I reject that characterization while I’m sensitive to the fact that not everybody has access to good food. I appreciate that food and class are intimately tied: that story is set in Napa, which implies a lot of leisure in certain circles. But I don’t think Americans should be afraid of aestheticism; as a culture some times we can have an aversion to pleasure.

To eat healthily in this country—by which I mean consuming food that contributes both to the eater’s health as well as to the health of the environment—costs more than it does to eat poorly. That situation is a public policy problem. We need farm policies that will correct this imbalance, so that healthy calories can compete with unhealthy ones.

There is no question that there is an elite strand within the food movement, but a lot of social change movements in this country—I’m thinking of abolitionists, women’s suffrage, and civil rights as examples—have been started by the affluent because they have the leisure and resources to do so.

As a recognized leader in the food movement how do you handle the rock-star status?

A sense of humor helps, so does remembering that this type of attention is fleeting. And regardless of what people say about my books, the next morning I still have to get up and face the page and come up with sentences I like. All that other stuff doesn’t help with writing, which can be incredibly hard.

What’s the subject of your next book?

It’s about the transformation of food through cooking methods such as baking, fermentation, and cooking with liquids or heat. So it focuses on the science of cooking, the classical elements; I’ve been doing research about fire, for instance. It should be out in early 2013.

What gives you hope on the food front?

I see movement happening all around the country, like grass-fed beef in supermarkets and young people taking up farming. I’m now asked to speak in places like Troy, New York, Cleveland, and Lubbock, Texas. They aren’t typical food towns. People in their 20s are as engaged with this issue as their parents, whether it’s for health, the environment, or both. I have a lot of faith that as consumers we can change things by voting with our forks.

WATCH: Michael Pollan reads excerpts from Food Rules here, featuring the illustrations of Maira Kalman:

Photos: Top, Author Michael Pollan, by Fran Collin. Middle, Food Rules cover. Bottom, #76: Place a Bouquet of Flowers on the Table and Everything Will Taste Twice as Good. Illustration: Copyright (c) Maira Kalman 2011. Reprinted with permission from The Penguin Press from FOOD RULES by Michael Pollan.

Originally published on Berkeleyside

Have you ever found yourself at Whole Foods shopping, for say, kale and quinoa, and felt the need to poke fun at foodie culture? Some people go even further, writing a rap song about it and posting the video on YouTube.

In “It’s Gettin’ Real in the Whole Foods Parking Lot,” 37-year-old Dave Wittman raps about his kombucha habit, parking lot attitude and spending “eighty bucks on six things.”

When asked by Civil Eats’ contributor Sarah Henry about his inspiration on KQED’s Bay Area Bites, he said, “It’s completely born out of my own experience, this is what I do on a regular basis: I drive my Prius through the Whole Foods parking lot in Santa Monica and I live this ridiculously mannered West L.A. lifestyle, and I’m usually thinking about what I’m picking up for dinner that night.” He continued, “I’m clearly making fun of myself.”

Here’s the video:

Filmmaker Stett Holbrook will be happy if food reform advocates (like Civil Eats readers) respond favorably to “Food Forward,” a television series he cooked up with old college pal Greg Roden. But he’s really trying to reach an audience who hasn’t heard of Ann Cooper or Will Allen—let alone the rest of the cast of characters the pair have filmed in their travels around the country documenting food renegades changing the way people eat in America.

Holbrook wants his pilot on urban agriculture to appeal to people beyond Berkeley and Brooklyn. “To grow this movement I’m interested in reaching people who eat, say, McDonald’s to help them realize that fast food is lame,” he says. “I want them to see the show and think it’s cool to know where your food comes from, it’s cool to eat sustainable food, and there are lots of cool solutions out there.”

And he’s putting his money where his mouth is. This summer he’s sub-leased his home, taken a sabbatical from his job as food editor at Metro, a Silicon Valley alternative weekly, and he and his young family have hit the road to spread the word about the pilot (and hustle up some significant funding, he hopes, for a 13- part series.)

Holbrook is towing a vintage 1965 Airstream trailer, no less, and people can follow his edible adventures and learn more about the farming folk he meets on the “Food Forward” blog.

“Food Forward” profiles people across the country making a difference in communities where good food is hard to come by, through their work in small-scale sustainable food production. The pilot, acquired by local PBS affiliate KQED, is expected to air nationally this fall. There’s not a celebrity chef or a cooking demo in sight. Instead, it picks up where Food, Inc. left off and makes a compelling showcase for the positive developments on the food and farming front across the U.S. And while Brooklyn and the Bay Area get screen time, there’s footage from less-well covered territory, too, such as Detroit, Milwaukee, and Cleveland. 

The “Food Forward” crew sought out individuals they consider food rebels, meaning someone who is going beyond sustainable, local, and organic food production or distribution. We see farmers using hydroponic and aquaponic techniques, and people planting seeds in urban rooftop gardens, abandoned neighborhoods, even suburban malls. None of them are waiting for foundation grants or government assistance, they’re part of a new generation of D.I.Y. farmers, who just, well, do it themselves.

We meet Abeni Ramsey, who, as a young single mom, began growing her own food in West Oakland out of economic need. Ramsey, a beneficiary of the City Slicker Farms backyard garden building program, now provides produce to community CSAs and local restaurants like Flora via Dig Deep Farms, and City Girl Farms).

“In the pilot I was particularly inspired by the images from Detroit, like that young man who raises chickens for a living in his community,” says Ramsey, who describes herself as a delicious nugget who took a while to grow up. “This food movement is happening in an organic way all across the country but it’s not about politics or activism,” adds Ramsey, who spoke after a screening of the pilot in Berkeley last Thursday night.  “It’s about people in communities doing for themselves.”

Lisa Landi, project supervisor at KQED Presents, which picked up the pilot, couldn’t agree more. “This isn’t another anti-industry documentary filled with doom, gloom, and guilt,” says Landi, who also spoke at the screening. “These are well-told, beautifully-shot stories of people who are making a difference to the food and farming problems in this country.”

Case in point: Edith Floyd, a soft-spoken, middle-aged African American woman on a tractor plowing vacant lots in Detroit and replacing them with gardens full of greens, corn, okra, melons, and other produce as part of her Growing Joy Garden. Why not, she seems to say to the camera. Her quiet, can-do spirit permeates every frame she’s in.

Funding for the 13-part series is anything but secure. That’s where the road trip comes in. The “Food Forward” creators need a major donor (or two or three) to step up and underwrite the series, budgeted at around $1.5-$2 million. Holbrook hopes to meet folks with deep pockets during his four month edible adventure—he says he’s even willing to hit up Walmart for the money—if that’s what it takes to get the series funded.

Like all documentary filmmakers, Holbrook wants to educate, entertain, and inspire. He also wants to motivate people to take action on issues such as the Farm Bill, school lunch, and GMO-foods. “As a restaurant critic, I was often writing about food I didn’t really want to eat,” he explains. “I wanted to talk about antibiotics in food, soil problems, and industrial agriculture. That’s hard to do in restaurant reviews. That’s why I’m excited about what we’re doing with this series.”

Watch the trailer for the series here:

Read Henry’s Q&A with Food Forward filmmaker Greg Roden on KQED’s Bay Area Bites.

Photos: Top: Stett Holbrook, with wife Deirdre and kids Ava and Everett, hit the road in search of sustainable food rebels, by Rob Broadman. Center: Abeni Ramsey speaking at a recent screening of “Food Forward” in Berkeley, by Gustavo Fernández. Bottom: Detroit farmer Edith Floyd, by Greg Roden.

Eighty diners a night sample whatever is in season—greens, garbanzo beans, summer squash, lettuces, tomatoes, broccoli rabe—for 10 months out of the year. On the roof, hydroponic towers circulate water to plants through a closed circuit. At its base, each tower has a nutrient-rich reservoir which pumps water upward. As water trickles down from a center passage, plant roots receive their nourishment. The towers use 12 minutes of energy an hour, running on three-minute cycles.

Mooney’s produce is free of typical soil disease and pest infestation. Since he has produced it all himself, it’s also incredibly affordable. Start-up costs can be steep for hydroponic systems, but with their promise of efficiency and high-yield, “roof-to-table” hydroponics may provide New Yorker’s with another way to maximize their valuable, cramped real estate.

Check out Nightline’s report on the chef and his garden.

Appropriately, the evening began with a picnic featuring local cheese and ended with an ice cream social under a yellow moon. In between, dairy farmers, consumer advocates, professors, labor union representatives, faith communities, antihunger advocates, an aspiring cheesemaker, and even a Certified Public Accountant spoke out forcefully about the widespread injustices in the dairy industry.

The main event was a Dairy Town Hall Forum in Madison, Wisconsin, sponsored by Family Farm Defenders, National Family Farm Coalition, and Food and Water Watch, and timed to coincide with Friday’s Department of Justice and USDA workshop examining corporate concentration in the dairy industry. The workshop today is part of the ongoing investigation (which I reported on here) by the two departments to determine whether food and agriculture companies have become too concentrated.

The dairy industry is one of the most consolidated in the country, with just one company controlling 40% of the US milk supply. Prices for farmers have fallen so low in the past three years that many dairy farmers were losing as much as $200 per cow every month in 2009. Meanwhile, even though the price farmers were paid for milk fell by almost 50% from 2007 to 2009, the retail price dropped by less than 25%. Someone’s profiting, but it’s not farmers or consumers.

In these conditions, last night’s attendees do not need a year-long governmental investigation to learn if agribusiness is too powerful; that discrepancy between farmer price and consumer price affects their lives everyday. Dairy farmers shared stories of family and neighbors forced to sell their farms. One man wondered what his middle-aged sister and her kids will do now that she’s had to sell her farm, still has debt to pay, and has no off-farm skills. Her 12-year-old daughter hopes to go to college one day, but the woman isn’t sure how they will get through the next year. These stories have ripple effects, the man concluded, pointing out that his sister and her family “now have socioeconomic cost to everyone else.”

Charlotte Williams, of the Center for New Community, made critical connections between the struggles faced by rural farmers and low income urban residents, particularly those that live in so-called “food deserts” and would like to have access to high-quality dairy products. Corporate decisions (like where to open or close a supermarket) often help to create food desert conditions. “Anyway you look at it,” Williams said, “it’s a social justice issue when so little of the consumer’s dollar goes to the producer.”

Social justice and fairness were recurring themes of the evening — and are issues that the Justice Department has a real opportunity to address as a result of this investigation. At today’s official workshop, they will also be hearing many perspectives that don’t take justice into consideration; they need to continue to hear from all of us who do. You can still send a comment, sign the petition, and call your Congressional representatives to say that you support the DOJ/USDA agribusiness antitrust investigation and you hope that it will result in strong action.

Here are some voices from the Town Hall in Madison:

Chicago hip hop artist D-Nick The Microphone Misfit teamed up with B-Boy Super inLight to create “Abnormality“, a track for the opening of Graffiti and Grub, the Chicago health food store founded by activist LaDonna Redmond. Their video highlights the physical health issues brought on by artificial, processed foods and encourages us all to look at what we’re putting into our bodies.

D-Nick and Super inLight both embrace the acronym HIP HOP for “Healthy Independent People Helping Other People” and they are doing just that, using their talents to get the word out that “Eating healthy is the first step in disease prevention.” D-Nick has entered the video in The One Chicago, One Nation film contest, whose goal is to reward “videos that tell the stories of people in Chicago from different backgrounds working together for the common good.”

Please watch “Abnormality”, share it with friends, and show your support by voting for D-Nick–voting ends on May 9th:

Lyrics to “Abnormality” by D-Nick The Microphone Misfit:

Freedom from disease and abnormality/
Cause you don’t wanna have that stuff affecting your reality/
C’mon…..

I was Chillin’ with my brother Super InLight/
We were shooting the breeze getting our Mind right/
Laughing, talking, politics, and current events/
Buggin’out about a lot of things that don’t make sense/

And then Super all of a sudden got an urge from his tummy/
He looked up and said, “Yo D! I’m kind of hungry”/
“Help ya self in the kitchen there is food in the cabinet/
He opened up the cabinet and said “I ain’t having it/

There ain’t nothing in here except for junk food/
If I eat this It will put me in a junk mood/
No disrespect D don’t mean to be rude/
But Lays chips, French dip c’mon man duuude/

I had no idea you were eating like this/
Why would you ever put that on your grocery list/
This so called food ain’t meant for a human/
If I eat this then my bowels won’t be movin’/

C’mon Super don’t you think you’re jumping the gun/
I just eat this when I’m kicking back and havin’ some fun/
I don’t really need to eat nothing organically grown/
Unless you wanna make your body cancer’s permanent home/

Eating healthy is the first step in disease prevention/
It also cuts down on hypertension/
There’s a few more things I’d like to mention
If you’ll sit back and pay attention

(Chorus)

Freedom from disease and abnormality/
Cause you don’t wanna have that stuff affecting your reality/
Freedom from disease and abnormality/
Cause you don’t wanna have that stuff affecting your reality/

You wouldn’t pay your bills with counterfeit money/
So why would you put something counterfeit in your tummy/
You won’t give ya mama artificial love/
So why would you feast on artificial grub/…

Now that’s something to think about/…

While information is leaking out /
From the lies the scandal from the food pyramid/
The sucka’s who invented that need to do a bid*/

You want…

Freedom from disease and abnormality/
Cause you don’t wanna have that stuff affecting your reality/
Freedom from disease and abnormality/
Cause you don’t wanna have that stuff affecting your reality/

Originally published on Eating Liberally

It’s a good thing First Lady Michelle Obama is an Ivy-league educated lawyer, because with Let’s Move, her ambitious campaign to end child obesity in a generation, she has waded into a debate that has, since the nation’s founding, been at the center of our national discourse: Individual rights vs. the interests of the state. It’s all under the rubric of improving child health and making healthy food available to all, of course, but Mrs. Obama has spent a lot of time in the past two weeks explaining how her campaign is not treading on Constitutional issues, or personal choice. And that it’s not about government control, but rather about individuals and groups taking responsibility for their own actions, with food choices and health choices. Debates in America about food/agriculture and health are already highly contentious, with a longstanding philosophical divide between those who promote conventional production vs. organic and sustainable production, between the value of local foodsheds vs. transnational sourcing, among other things. Mrs. Obama’s new campaign adds an entirely new portfolio of issues to the discourse.

The First Lady once again waded into Constitutional issues on Saturday when speaking to the National Governors Association during the opening day of their annual winter conference in Washington, DC. From the podium in the ballroom of the JW Marriott, Mrs. Obama assured the state leaders that her campaign will not impinge on states’ rights. But at the same time, she might have been channeling Ben Franklin as she quoted the grim obesity statistics that are now a regular part of her stump speech, and appealed for the state leaders to support Let’s Move. She might as well have said join, or die to the governors, as she pointed out that America’s children are suffering from an epidemic of crisis-level proportions, and that obesity crosses all party lines, and there needs to be a unified front to combat it.

“The way I see this, there is nothing Democratic or Republican, there is nothing liberal or conservative about wanting our kids to lead active, healthy lives,” Mrs. Obama. “There’s no place for politics when it comes to fighting childhood obesity. And I know all of you agree.”

Mrs. Obama addressed the nation’s mayors with a similar appeal last month, when they were in Washington for their own winter meeting. During her remarks then, the First Lady noted that “the health and well being of children must guide every decision.” Casting the Let’s Move campaign as a moral imperative, a crisis of conscience, adds to the tricky nature of Let’s Move. And children, Mrs. Obama contends, are the victims of the lack of conscience from individuals, government, and private corporations.

“Our kids didn’t do this to themselves. Our kids didn’t decide whether there’s time for recess or gym class, or our kids don’t decide what’s served to them in the school cafeteria,” Mrs. Obama told the Governors. “Our kids don’t decide whether to build playgrounds and parks in their neighborhoods or whether to bring supermarkets and farmer’s markets to their communities. We set those priorities. We make those decisions. And even if it doesn’t feel like we’re in charge, we are.”

The First Lady called for a return to a time of “moderation and perspective.” It’s very similar to President Obama calling for personal responsibility to drive decisions from Wall Street bankers, and from the executives who run health insurance firms. President Obama has been quick to call names–referring publicly to Wall Street execs as “Fat Cats”–but Mrs. Obama is equally quick to let parents off the hook for poor decisions. It’s not parents’ fault that healthy and affordable food is not easily available, it’s not parents’ fault that food labels are confusing. It’s not parents’ fault that school meals are loaded with sugar, fat and salt.

The campaign is a complicated commingling of politics, political will, personal will, and government action–on the federal level, on the state level, and on the local level. It’s heroic that Mrs. Obama has been willing to put herself at the center of the action. It’s enormously risky. It’s unprecedented. It’s working, so far, because Mrs. Obama has enormously high popularity poll ratings, and she’s phrased much of the campaign from the perspective of a very worried Mother In Chief. So far, Mrs. Obama has received more support than criticism–though there has been plenty of criticism–from those who accuse her of violating the civil liberties of fat people to those who worry that Let’s Move is more government intervention, gone amok. Conservative commentators Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh have led the charge in this area.

As she praised the Governors for steps already taken to combat obesity, and urged them to get on board her campaign bandwagon, Mrs. Obama also pointed out that the federal government will not be intervening in state activities.

“Comprehensive and coordinated doesn’t mean centralized,” Mrs. Obama said. “I’ve spoken to so many experts on this issue and not a single one of them has said that the solution is for the federal government to tell people what to do. That doesn’t work.”

But the government will, obviously, be offering support: The President created a Child Obesity Task Force two weeks ago. There’s the Let’s Move website, that’s intended to be an information clearing house for parents who want to make healthy food choices. On Friday, Mrs. Obama visited Philadelphia to launch the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a government fund that offers incentives for building healthy food outlets in underserved urban and rural areas. Each is one branch of the ambitious Let’s Move solution to the complicated problem of child obesity; Mrs. Obama told the Governors that different states must have different solutions, and that there is no one-size-fits all model. That thinking is in line with all the most recent studies on improving food access and food security; solutions must be culturally specific, and tweaked to fit local populations and local action. Nebraska will have a different solution than Hawaii. This is also, of course, an argument for local foodsheds, left unsaid. Because Let’s Move also has a number of shadow agendas: Re-localizing food sheds, demolishing decades of racially biased food access problems, gradually getting food companies to truly (voluntarily!) alter their offerings. Join, or die.

Mrs. Obama also raised the economic costs of child obesity, something the federal government is struggling with, as are the state governments. The primary focus of the Governors’ meeting is figuring out strategies to combat ballooning healthcare costs on the state level.

“If we think our health care costs are high now, just wait until 10 years from now,” Mrs. Obama told the Governors. “Think about the many billions we’re going to be spending then. Think about how high those premiums are going to be when our kids are old enough to have families of their own and businesses of their own.”

But while claiming that there will be no impinging on states’ rights, Mrs. Obama also told the Governors about the upcoming reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, the federally funded school lunch program that’s in schools in every state of the union. A pillar of Let’s Move is a major revamp of the food standards for the program, to make these far healthier, as a way of hitting a child population of about 31 million, which encompasses many children who are obese or at risk for obesity. The program exists in those most basic and local of government institutions, public schools. The federal school lunch program is, at the end of the day, a critical component of healthcare reform, as well as food system reform. Now, and for future generations. Mrs. Obama has gotten agreements from the major school food providers–Chartwell, Aramark and Sodexho–to dramatically improve their offerings, and incorporate more fresh produce, more whole grains, low fat dairy products, and to reduce sugar, fat, and salt content. Some critics have dubbed the time frame for this as too long–between five and ten years–but these are large conglomerates. They’re the food world equivalent of Fat Cats (perhaps quite literally).

There were some light moments during Mrs. Obama’s remarks. She had two amusing bits of information to offer the Governors: President Obama is very bad at the popular video game Dance, Dance Revolution, which he’s tried and failed at while vacationing at Camp David….and eliminating child obesity is a conservation issue that Teddy Roosevelt would approve of.

It remains to be seen if conserving our nation’s youth is something that will, actually, happen, and whether or not the states aggressively join the campaign.

Originally published on Obamafoodorama

CBS Evening News’ Katie Couric spoke with former FDA Commissioner and author of The End of Overeating, Dr. David Kessler, and Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser for her online discussion this week, called @KatieCouric. The topics ranged from portion sizes to school food, the push back from industry on Couric’s segment last week on non-therapeutic antibiotic use in agriculture, and to other issues of food policy and food safety. The discussion is nearly fifty minutes long, and well worth watching. Here are a few highlights:

Couric confesses to complete ignorance about GMOs, asking Kessler and Schlosser to explain the basics. After each of them break down crossing the gene barrier and uncertainty around novel proteins, Schlosser had this to say about GMOs and cloning:

There is the whole issue is informed consent. If you know this is a radical new medicine, a genetically modified medicine, you have the choice whether you will take it or not. My real opposition to genetically modified organisms in agriculture is that its been introduced on a wide scale without any real public debate, and without any labeling…the GMO companies like Monsanto have fought tooth and nail against labeling. The same is true for cloned animals which are now just entering the food supply… if these are such wonderful things, you’d think they’d want to label it.

He later circled back around to this subject, adding:

Ultimately we should be following a precautionary principle. If you are going to introduce new technologies into our food system, particularly if you are not going to label it, the burden of proof that its safe should be on you, the company that is doing it… One of the things that I find most disturbing about genetically modified foods is the farmers who buy, for example, Monsanto seeds, have to sign a document when they do that they will not allow these seeds to be handed over for independent research. There is almost no independent research being done on these genetically modified seeds. I’m not saying that they’re dangerous, I’m not saying that people are going to be getting sick as a result. But we need much more research on the health impacts of these new technologies, and the research should not be done by the companies that are manufacturing them and profiting from them.

Dr. Kessler spoke about the change in the way people are viewing food in this country:

I think there is a movement afoot, and its not fully here, and I think it’s evolving. But I think we realize that understanding where our food is from, making sure its real food, that its not highly processed, I think those are values that will serve us well, not only with regard to obesity, but also what tastes good and what we can enjoy.

Couric’s last question was about realistic solutions to changing the American relationship to food. Schlosser responded by saying, “I’d like to think that getting these food companies on board, and giving them the incentive to produce healthier food, could speed the process up… its not putting [food companies] out of business, its changing their food practices.”

Couric then asked about what incentives they have, and Kessler said, “They’ll change when we change, and when we make known what we want.”

Kudos to Couric for asking basic questions and getting experts on who can explain these very important issues to the general public.

You can watch it all here:

This week, Jamie Oliver received a prize of $100,000 from TED, a non-profit about spreading ideas, for his efforts in bringing attention to the obesity crisis. He also gave a talk at the TED conference, which is famous for their twenty-minute videos. His talk focused on obesity in America, specifically on what kids are eating in schools. After he demonstrated how much sugar a child will consume from drinking milk alone during the elementary school years–using a wheelbarrow–he gave his ideas on improving our food system, saying “We need to re-boot.” Here are Oliver’s points of entry for change, followed by the talk:

Jamie Oliver’s ideas for changing the food system:

• Put food “ambassadors” in supermarkets to inform buyers about cooking and to help consumers make good choices

• Big brands should put food education at the heart of their business

• Fast food should be part of the solution by working with government to help wean people off excess fat, salt and sugar

• Better labeling

• Fresh food should be cooked on site at schools

• Every child should learn how to cook ten simple recipes by the time they leave school

• Corporate responsibility should include a plan for making sure employees are fed well

• Cooking should be passed on in the home as a vital philosophy

• Re-instate local institutions like community kitchens that teach cooking lessons

• Identify the experts and “angels” already doing this work and help them get access to resources

• Businesses in America should support what First Lady Obama is doing at the White House

Here is the talk:

Part of winning the TED prize is the development of a “wish” for changing to world. TED actually seeks to help prize winners organize around their wish, and the audience (virtual and real) were mobilized to begin to connect a willing team of participants on all fronts, including publicity, finding office space, developing campaigns, building a website, etc.

Here is his wish:

I wish for everyone to help create a strong sustainable movement to educate every child about food, to inspire families to cook again and to empower people everywhere to fight obesity.