See the full episode at http://video.pbs.org/video/2214315175 Meet the ordinary people who bring food production back to basics in this clip from AMERICA REVEALED "Food Machine." New four-part series premieres Wednesday, April 11, 10/9c on PBS.
FOODIE NEWS A top chef school in Houston: Gracie Cavnar's RecipeHouse offers cooking classes from masters BY SARAH RUFCA 02.15.12 | 11:31 am Houston may not be dense, but it can be quite good at hiding gems just out of sight. So when I was invited to a cooking class to celebrate the opening of RecipeHouse, an extension of Gracie Cavnar's Recipe 4 Success, I was stunned to learn that the organization, keeps its headquarters just a few steps from my front door in Montrose.
Sunday, February 5, 2012 by Allan Turner, The Houston Chronicle City&State section
"As an oasis in one of Houston's sprawling "food deserts," the little grocery store wasn't much. Wilted mustard greens, pocked tomatoes and past-their-prime cantaloupes filled the produce bins. Soft drinks, candy and salty snacks lurked tantalizingly nearby." Read the whole story here.
"On January 18, 2012 Mayor Annise Parker's & Recipe for Success Foundation's Rolling Green Market initiative earned $25,000 and a second place finish at the U.S. Conference of Mayors' 2012 Childhood Obesity Prevention Awards." See the press release issued by Mayor Parker here: http://www.houstongovnewsroom.org/go/doc/2155/1283095/
Imagine this scenario: A beautifully painted vehicle rolls down your street every Tuesday, music playing and bells ringing. It reminds you of when the ice cream truck used to roam this neighborhood, but it's the Hope Farms Rolling Green Market.
It parks on the corner, a half dozen young people jump out, and within minutes it is transformed into the most bountiful Farmers Market stand you have ever seen. Under a striped awning, crates of fresh produce cover tables. The vegetables you don't recognize are accessorized with recipe cards for delicious, affordable family meals. A chef holds court in one corner doing a cooking class--ratatouille--he even lets your 5-year-old help. And a smiling young woman is offering tasting samples. "Try before you buy!" she encourages your neighbors. When you look at the blackboard pricelist, you can't believe your eyes! The summer squash is only 50¢ a pound! At these prices, you can make that ratatouille for your whole family for just a couple of dollars--even less than getting everyone a 99¢ value meal at the fast food joint on the corner. And they take WICS, too. You look forward to Tuesdays all week long. The arrival of the Hope Farms Rolling Green Market every Tuesday afternoon has become a defacto neighborhood gathering, which is so much fun. But it has also been a lifesaver for you and your whole family. It is your only resource for fresh produce . . . it has changed your life.
We must raise an additional $200,000 to get the Hope Farms Green Market Rolling.Will you help us?Donate any amount today.
Our goal for the Hope Farms Rolling Green Market is to alleviate serious health risk and promote good nutrition by delivering significantly reduced-priced, fresh fruits and vegetables directly to families who are now marooned in identified Houston neighborhoods that are known as food deserts or who are otherwise considered to be suffering from nutritional insecurity, thereby empowering caregivers to provide a healthy diet to Houston's children. The secondary goals of Hope Farms Rolling Green Market Are: To promote the increased consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables and good nutrition to all Houstonians, and to be a national roll model that inspires similar initiatives throughout the country.
The Hope Farms Rolling Green Market vehicle will be fabricated from a used Mercedes Freightliner stepvan. It will have a fully refrigerated cargo area with added coolers, a vegetable prep and washing station, a portable cooking station, a pop-open window, a fully retractable side awning and all the tables, chairs and equipment required to transform it into an impromptu farmers market stand and cooking demonstration area. It will be 100% wrapped in graphics, which will transform it into a fulltime rolling billboard for fresh food.
The day-to-day business operation of the Hope Farms Rolling Green Market will be undertaken by our city's youth--a team of five 16-24 year old interns selected through a highly competitive process for a one-year internship as a member of the Rolling Green Team. Each intern will receive an annual stipend of $5,000 minimum. The Rolling Green Team will actively participate in a career development program focused on expanding their job skills and preparing them for the workforce, with the support of selected mentors and advisors. The Team will be responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with food donors, collection of produce, community outreach and customer development, sales and distribution of produce, collection of payments, and submitting detailed reports, and will be mentored and managed by a member of the Recipe for Success Foundation professional staff--the Director of Rolling Green.
The Hope Farms Rolling Green Market will operate on a regular timetable Monday through Sunday, circulating throughout Houston's most critically at-risk neighborhoods - the ones marooned in food deserts. In a pending agreement with the City of Houston Heath Department and Harris County Health Department, it may also make frequently scheduled appearances at the neighborhood clinics.
Gracie Cavnar laughs with Chef Garth Blackburn, who led her Board of Directors through a hands-on cooking class to prepare an impressive 3-course meal at RecipeHouse.
Read the full story by Molly Glentzer for The Houston Chronicle, here.
First Lady Michelle Obama, catalyst and creator of the "Let's Move" campaign (focused on eliminating childhood obesity epidemic within a generation) and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack just announced the first big changes to school lunches in 15 years.
"Improving the quality of the school meals is a critical step in building a healthy future for our kids," Secretary Vilsack.
Recipe For Success Foundation's mission statement - combating childhood obesity by changing the way children understand, appreciate and eat their food- is firmly aligned with the new USDA ruling. Both campaig for those who do not yet have the power to advocate for themselves: children.
The rule - which phases in changes so as to allow all children (grades K-12), schools and food supply chains to adapt- will require most schools to "increase the availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free and low-fat fluid milk and reduce the levels of sodium, saturated fat and trans fat" (Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, Vol. 77, No. 17).
The government ruling, although widely praised and long sought after, isn't necessarily a "eureka" kind of moment for many; the results of the ruling - largely based on recommendations and backed by research issued by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science- outline changes that could be viewed simply as common sense, describing a simpler diet with an emphasis on vegetables and fruits rather than processed foods high in saturated fat and sugar. While this seemingly novel diet may be relatively easy to achieve on an individual level, it is a mammoth of a task to accomplish on a national level, especially in a sector where the consumer (in this case, schoolchildren) gains most of his or her food knowledge and eating habits from a very limited environment - the school lunchroom.
With public figures such as First Lady Michelle Obama and celebrity chefs from Alice Waters to Rachel Ray crusading for this national cause, a glimmer of hope - in the form of brightly colored veggies and fruits - seems to be peeking through the obscurity that was once a mound of colorless mystery meat.
A lot of children - especially those who qualify for school meal programs- eat two meals a day in the school lunchroom. In Houston ISD alone that means 80% of our students (or 161,600 children) will benefit. This mostly untapped corner of the education world can have a major impact on a child's relationship with food, introducing healthier dishes in a familiar setting, but the 16,000 children who have participated in RFS Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education™ program in the last six years will be ready. They already love their veggies!
The school cafeteria will soon become an extension of our RFS classrooms.
If you watch cooking shows, browse bookstores or stand in the checkout line at grocery stores, you most likely know of celebrity chef Paula Deen. Dubbed as "The Butter Queen," Deen is known for her southern charm and her southern (high fat, high sugar) recipes; she has been a Food Network staple for nine years, starring in her own cooking show, "Paula's Home Cooking," showcasing stick-to-your-gullet, down home southern comfort recipes. Deen has announced that she has had Type 2 Diabetes for three years. Normally, how a person deals with his or her health issues is a personal matter, but when the health issue involves a public figure whose empire was built on the very foods that factored into her illness, then it's a different story. Her diabetes announcement coincided with another, even more surprising announcement: she will now be the official (paid) spokesperson for the diabetes medication Novo Nordisk.
Deen's endorsement of a diabetes drug only reinforces the already-engrained American mindset that we can eat however we want - no matter how unhealthy and no matter how much - as long as there is a pill that we can take to alleviate some of the damage. Why not take a preemptive approach and simply employ common sense and moderation when it comes to diet? Type 2 Diabetes is a chronic disease that can be avoided or at the very least managed with factors that are in our own (and not the pharmaceutical industry's) hands. Although anyone can get Type 2 Diabetes, the first factor is most often listed as being overweight or obese.
In addition to promoting the diabetes drug, Deen is also promoting - on a new website entitled "diabetes in a new light"- southern style dishes that are on the "lighter" side, more exercise, less stress and more doctor/patient partnering to manage the disease. The public and her fellow TV star-chefs, are not buying it. The Huffington Post continues to publish stories about the continuing backlash: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/paula-deen-diabetes-announcement-celebrity-chefs-support_n_1224454.html
Although the media frenzy surrounding Deen's declaration is focused on adults with the chronic disease, there is another section of the population - albeit surprising and disconcerting - that needs our attention: children. Although just a few years ago it was rare to hear of a child with Type 2 Diabetes, those numbers - in conjunction with children's weight- are steadily increasing. Type 2 Diabetes is a direct result of obesity. This is a very serious problem across the country, especially in Houston where it is estimated that 28% of fourth graders, 16.7% of adolescents, 15-18 years of age, and 29.1% of adults are obese. With this generation's fast-paced lifestyle, children (and adults) are eating out more and exercising less, paying more attention to the immediacy of food than to the health benefits of food.
Recipe for Success Foundation - with our focus on changing the way children understand, appreciate and east their food - continues to advocate for improvements in the food world; and with each change, whether incremental or immense, we get closer to fulfilling a promise for healthier children.
The top 100 vote-getters in this year's Chase community Giving program will each receive $25,000and be in the running for as much as $100,000. You can help us make the list through your Facebook account. Follow this link, and vote today!
The U.S. Senate recently voted to block the USDA proposal to update the nutrition standards for school meals. They want the USDA to toss out its proposed standards and start over. What?
The new standards include more vegetables, fruits and whole grains and limit salt, unhealthy fats, and calories. Thousands of schools across the country are already proving these healthy changes can be made at reasonable costs.
Please demand that your U.S. Representative and Senators support the USDA's standards -- not block them -- so that all children have access to healthy school meals.
