... and Other Things You'll Need to Know About Food in Austin
This past year, I was lucky enough to spend six months working in Texas. That's right, I said lucky. Believe it or not, I think I got in touch with my inner Texan. Before landing a job in Dallas, I would have told you that I don't have an inner Texan (or an outer Texan, or any other kind of Texan). But Texas charmed me. I grew to love it.
The people I met in Texas were, by and large, incredibly warm and friendly, and always eager to remind me that George Bush is from Connecticut! I look forward to introducing everyone to the side of Texas that gave us Jim Hightower, Ann Richards, and Molly Ivins - including Austin's local food (yum!) and a great Austin nonprofit called the Sustainable Food Center.
Also in this diary is the info you'll need to know about this year's food panel. So read on... otherwise you'll be so confused when you get to Austin you won't know whether to scratch your watch or wind your butt. (See? I'm learning to speak Texan!)
(Also - if you missed my announcement, I've got a new Scoop blog at La Vida Locavore)
Contents of this Diary:
- The Food Panel - Fri 10:30am
- Local Food PARTY! - Saturday PM
- The Sustainable Food Center
- The Farmers' Market (Saturday AM, walkable from the Hilton)
- Where to eat in Austin
- How to say bull testicles (I know that's all you clicked on this for)
The Food Panel
Last year we had a successful panel all about food, so this year we're doing it again. It's such a large topic, though, that very little of our discussion this year will be a repeat from last year. You'll find all of the details here.
We were fortunate enough to get all of our first choices for speakers, so I really mean it when I say they are the best of the best. They are:
- Michele Simon (author of Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back)
- Mark Winne (author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty)
- Margaret Krome, nationally recognized policy wonk
- Judith McGeary, farmer, lawyer, and KOSSACK!
I've been writing a lot about Mark Winne lately. The reason is that it seems that every road I go down leads to him. Food policy councils? That's Mark. Feeding the hungry? Mark. Grassroots work promoting local food? Mark again. Oh, and the farm bill? Well, if not exactly Mark, it's the organization he works with, the Community Food Security Coalition.
I suppose the reason is that after devoting most of your life to a particular cause as he has, you tend to become an expert in a number of different areas. Or, very often in his case, a pioneer.
I see Mark and Michele as bookends on two sides of a larger topic. That topic is described by Mark as the food gap - roughly "The poor get diabetes, the rich get local and organic." Michele describes it as follows:
A closer look at how Americans eat gives us some idea of the problem: 51 percent of our calories come from processed foods, 42 percent from meat, eggs, or dairy, and a paltry 7 percent from vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds - foods that prevent disease and are optimum for overall health. By comparison, early humans obtained 65 percent of their food energy from a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Government surveys consistently confirm that Americans aren't eating anywhere near the government's daily recommended five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables. And our favorite "vegetable"? French fries.
Another huge change is our obsession with sugary beverages. Sounds crazy, but humans used to just drink water. The nation's steep increase of sugar consumption directly follows the rise in soft drinks. Soft drinks are the biggest source of calories and provide more than one-third of all refined sugar in the American diet. Over the past sixty years, soft drink production has increase tenfold; consumption has doubled since 1971. Soda provides the average teenage boy with about fifteen teaspoons of refined sugar per day and girls about ten teaspoons.
Note here that a person eating a 2000-calorie per day diet should have no more than about ten teaspoons of added sugar total. The diet described above is a virtual recipe for diabetes. Yet it's how millions of Americans eat every day.
Whereas Mark engages the grassroots, helping cities create bus routes to give the poor access to grocery stores or establishing community gardens, Michele exposes the hypocrisy of what she calls "Big Food" - Kraft, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Nestle, etc - the companies who prey on the people Mark tries to help.
Margaret and Judith address the other side of food - producing it. Judith does so as an organic farmer, although she's also quite a savvy lobbyist with her legal background, and Margaret is one of the nation's top agricultural policy experts. At least, one of the top experts who is pro-sustainable ag. I'm sure the pro-fast food side of the issue has plenty of experts too. We just didn't invite them to speak :)
Hearing Margaret speak will be a special treat for me, as I have been trying to meet up with her to learn from her for several years now. She works at Michael Field's Agricultural Institute in Wisconsin, not far from where I used to live. I had hoped to attend one of her classes before leaving WI for CA but I never did. Better yet, Margaret is excited to learn from us about the role the blogs play in politics and our future potential for collaboration with her and her issues.
Judith does not need me to introduce her. She introduced herself this weekend with a spectacular recommended diary about leaving her current farm for a new farm as suburban sprawl takes over her home. Suffice it to say that if you read The Omnivore's Dilemma and you thought Joel Salatin was cool, you will LOVE Judith.
PARTY!!
Where: Marriott Residence Inn, my suite. 1 block from the Hilton where everyone's staying. I'll know my room # once I check in so either email me or attend the food panel for details, or check in with the IG Publishing table at the Exhibition Hall to find out the exact room # of the party.
When: Saturday, 8pm - whenever
What: Sticky toffee pudding, beer, peaches, pecans, cheese, make-your-own omelets (with local veggies and Judith's amazing eggs), and whatever other local grub we can scrounge up.
Cost: Free - but we are accepting donations from those who have enough to spare (if you're broke, come eat for free and don't think twice about it). Donations will first cover the cost of the food, and all additional money will go to Austin's Sustainable Food Center. If you'd like to give in advance, go here and scroll down.
The Sustainable Food Center
I don't need to tell anyone that there's an obesity epidemic in our country. I probably don't need to say that it disproportionately affects the poor and minorities. There's a lot more to be said than that though.
In many cities, low income areas lack grocery stores, for example. Finding a healthy meal means traveling outside of your neighborhood on inadequate public transportation or on foot. Getting to a grocery store can mean finding a baby sitter or taking your children with you for several hours to wait for the bus, change buses, wait for the second bus, do your shopping, and then do the same thing on the way home except with heavy bags to carry and a cranky child.
Now add in health problems that you can't afford to deal with and two full time low wage jobs. Oh, and Austin's average temperature is above 90 for a third of the year. At least, for an American city, they have good public trans from what I hear.
Fortunately, Austin is also home to the Sustainable Food Center, a non-profit dedicated to improving Austin's community food security. They reach out to the segment of Austin most at risk for obesity and diet-related illnesses through a bilingual program called La Cocina Alegre, or The Happy Kitchen.
La Cocina Alegre is a series of six cooking classes that combine nutritional education with learning healthy recipes. Each week, the class takes on a new part of the Food Pyramid by learning about it and cooking a dish. Then participants each take home a bag of groceries with everything needed to cook the dish at home.
The Sustainable Food Center is smart. They recognize that inviting people to a nutrition class sounds boring... but a cooking class where you can eat is fun! They aren't trying to convert Austin's poorest families into locavores either. Step one is replacing junk foods with whole foods. Organic and local can come later. Maybe way later. (This is in line with nutrition advice I've read: non-organic fruits and veggies are better than no fruits and veggies at all.)
Here's how the Sustainable Food Center describes La Cocina Alegre in their own words:
What really makes The Happy Kitchen/La Cocina Alegre™ successful is its fun, simple, and interactive approach to nourishment. Typically, nutrition and associated issues—i.e. obesity and diet-related diseases—are unnecessarily over-complicated and thought of in a negative or intimidating way. This tends to overwhelm and discourage people from making healthy eating a priority in their life. What is most unfortunate is that, as a result, people often decide to change their harmful habits and improve their lifestyle only after suffering the major life-threatening consequences. The down-to-earth approach of THK goes a long way in captivating participants from all walks of life. The changes are easy to implement and the recipes are delicious, easy to make, and affordable.
The class is a free six week series, with one 90 minute class per week. A class consists of 10-15 participants plus a facilitator. Facilitators are graduates of the class who did well and expressed an interest in facilitating.
The curriculum follows the food pyramid, taking on a new food group in each class: grains, fruits, veggies, protein, and dairy. Examples of recipes are a fruit crisp with fresh strawberries, Mexican rice salad (with brown rice), cornbread, rosemary chicken with cherry tomatoes, tomatillo fish, fresh fruit smoothie, chili popcorn, and crunchy cabbage salad.
Since the class is about learning nutrition as well as learning about cooking, they talk about eating whole grains during the first class (for example, why brown rice is better than white). The dairy class goes over choosing low fat or nonfat milk instead of whole milk (some facilitators have reported losing weight by this switch).
They also talk about other things, like reading nutrition labels, looking for products in the grocery store, and knife skills. Classmates like to share stories, like how to use a favorite veggie or how they got their child to eat a certain food.
In the time they've been teaching the class, the Sustainable Food Center has compiled their recipes into a cookbook. They are also willing to train other organizations (on a contract basis) so that groups around Texas and even outside of Texas can start their own similar programs.
What Participants Say
"...And you know, I think that’s the best part about it. It’s that it’s accessible to everybody. And so many communities don’t have the resources to have nutritional information...or even cooking lessons! And I think it’s just so important for families to have that! So that’s the best thing I think I liked about yall’s mission and the way it was executed, I really, really appreciate that, you know—I really do. I guess coming from a non-profit and knowing how I felt, the kind of families we serve, and where they come from. I mean a lot of families we work with could really benefit from having this kind of education. And I think it’s really neat how a lot of your things, you know, even our kids could do...so when their parents are working, they can still feed themselves, and feed each other... I think that’s really great, that you were able to get that out of me. I really do appreciate that about the way the classes work..., open, you know, being accessible to families, so that they can help each other. I like that."
– Jennifer Rivera, cooking class participant
"...And I liked all of the information, I mean...I didn’t know...I know that there was a food pyramid, because I saw it on the bread. There it said...but that was it! When I went to the class, there they showed it to me, and they explained, and they told me, "If you eat this, here it is. If you eat that, here we have it."
- Claudia Serna, cooking class participant
"...And so now I’m slowly trying to get my daughter that’s here and her two children to eat healthier. So we went to the grocery store, and we went to the bulk yesterday, and bought her some stuff...(laughs)...And then the garden as well, I’m trying to get my OTHER two granddaughters and THEIR mother to get involved with eating better, and just let them experience the feeling, like our generation, what it is to eat natural. Organic—this is the way God designed it."
– Phyllis Kindred, cooking class participant
Saturday Farmers' Market
Time: 9am - 1pm
Place: Guadalupe & 4th St.
To get there, you'll need to walk up 4th til you get to Guadalupe. It's about 6 blocks or so from the Hilton.
Where To Eat
Fortunately, a few previous diaries exist on this topic:
- anotherdemocrat's diary
- Kath25's diary
- My diary
And, last - but NOT least - Texans call their Rocky Mountain Oysters "calf fries." Mmmm.