When I emerged from the NYC Food and Climate Summit onto Washington Square Park last Saturday, I was astonished to see  hundred of Santas hovering near the great arch.

At first I thought it was silly, this gathering of raucus, red-jacketed folks chanting “ho, ho, ho,” and “we love Santa.” I learned afterwards that this annual SantaCon gathered 1,000 pounds of food to NYC food banks last year and was aiming to double that amount this year.

In an even broader sense, I like to think of this celebration of a folk hero who gives, gives, and gives some more as a metaphor for this moment, when a burgeoning number of people feel compelled to look beyond their next of kin and give voice to a more universal Santa.

This voice is compelling us to act upon the urgent messages heard loudly and clearly at the Food and Climate Summit: Feed the Hungry!  Heal the Earth!

Consider expressing your inner green Santa by sending bounty to one or more of these worthy causes.

Great last-minute gifts and no angst of crowded malls.  Just a simple click, and you can learn more about their healing missions and make donations or buy sustainable, sustaining gifts on line.

Heifer International: With gifts of livestock and training, Heiffer helps families improve their nutrition and generate income in sustainable ways. They refer to the animals as “living loans” because in exchange for livestock and training, families agree to give one of the animal’s offspring to another family in need. It’s called Passing on the Gift because it creates an ever-expanding network of hope and peace.

Seed Savers Exchange:   This member-supported organization is the largest non-governmental seed bank in the United States.  It maintains the seeds of more than 25,000 endangered vegetable varieties, most having been brought to North America by members’ ancestors who immigrated from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and other parts of the world.  Members have distributed an estimated 1 million samples of rare garden seeds over the past 35 years.

Palms for Life Fund:  Palm in palm with the poor around the world, this organization works with local NGO’s and uses microfinancing to alleviate hunger, support education, adult literacy, and health care for mothers and children.

The Smile Train:  You’ve probably seen the heart-breaking ads of children with cleft palates.  This organization trains local doctors to perform a 45-minute surgery to reconstruct their faces.  The surgery costs as little as $250 and gives each child their birthright:  the ability to smile.

Global Goods Partners:  Creates sustainable livelihoods for women by offering a wide selection of fair trade products including jewelry, home decor, toys, bags and accessories handmade by female artisans.  You can either buy last-minute gifts or make a donation.

Just Food:   Trains urban community members to start and manage Community Supported Agriculture projects in partnership with their farmers.  Also teaches people in under-served neighborhoods to grow and cook their own food.

You’re invited to a summit for civic leaders, family farmers, community gardeners, concerned citizens, activists, advocates, parents, food experts, policy makers, environmentalists, nutritionists, educators, urban planners, urban designers, community, business leaders, family farmers, educators, advocates, elected officials and city government leaders. The goal of this Summit is to increase awareness engagement and action around our food system’s role in climate problems and solutions. Featured speakers include Anna Lappé, Marion Nestle and US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

December 12, 2009
8:30a.m.-5:00p.m.

New York University
Jack H. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 LaGuardia Place, NY, NY 10012

For more details and online registration go to
www.nyu.edu/foodandclimatesummit

TICKETS ARE GOING QUICKLY!

I haven’t got much in common with Whitney Houston; I’m not tall or thin, and I can’t belt out show-stoppers. Oh, and I’m white. But, like Whitney, I believe that children are our future. We all agree — whatever size, shape or color we may be — that it’s in everyone’s interests to feed our children well.

“Good nutrition is essential to good learning,” as President Lyndon B. Johnson stated when he signed the Child Nutrition Act into law in 1966.

Kids need fresh, wholesome, nutrient-dense foods to ensure proper brain development; talk about a no-brainer! You can’t nourish children on a steady diet of processed foods full of fatty, empty carbs and sugary soda or juice.

And yet, we’ve been trying to do just that for the past few decades. Heat ‘n’ serve convenience foods have replaced made-from-scratch meals in cafeterias and kitchens all over the country. As Michael Pollan points out in Food, Inc., “the way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000.”

The result? Obesity rates among children have doubled in the last 10 years and tripled for adolescents, according to onetray.org, a national campaign dedicated to promoting “more healthful, more sustainably produced and regionally sourced school food that can improve the health of kids, develop new marketing opportunities for farmers, and support the local economy.” Sounds like a win-win-win to me.

We know that fruits and vegetables are packed with all kinds of nutrients and fiber and other key ingredients that keep us healthy. And yet, only 2% of children get enough fruits and vegetables to meet the USDA’s Food Guide
Pyramid serving recommendations. An entire generation is missing out on the pleasures of home-cooked meals made with freshly harvested foods.

But there’s a growing movement to reclaim our food chain and give our children the tools they need to achieve kitchen literacy. It begins with feeding them real food, but it doesn’t stop there; programs are flourishing all over the country dedicated to teaching kids how to grow food and cook it, too.

Campaigns like One Tray At A Time and Slow Food’s Time For Lunch are galvanizing support for better school food.
Chef Ann Cooper, the “renegade lunch lady,” has launched a new website, The Lunch Box, whose motto is “healthy tools to help all schools”. Family Cook Productions, has been a pioneer in the development of programs that provide families, schools, and corporations with the skills to “bring families together around delicious, fresh food”. Lynn Fredericks, the founder of Family Cook Productions, is also the author of Cooking Time Is Family Time: Cooking Together, Eating Together, and Spending Time Together, an ahead-of-its-time guide that shows parents how to make mealtime a fun, family-centered activity that kids of all ages can participate in.

Meatless Monday is getting ready to launch its own contribution to this real food renaissance, Kids Cook Monday. We’ll be featuring kid- friendly recipes, how-to videos, materials for teachers, and other resources to inspire kids and parents everywhere to start each week off by make eating right a family night.

By Kerry Trueman

I climb on the coattails, eager to make a good impression. “Mine, too,” I proudly announce, ceramic vessel proffered; it’s a mug, not so grassrootsy-looking as a jar, nor as capacious. I reassure myself by noting that at least it’s clean.

Colin Beavan, the self-described “guilty liberal who attempted to save the world” with a year-long, high-profile foray into extreme green living, begins to extol the myriad virtues of the screwcap jar – it’s light, it seals tightly and doesn’t leak, it’s more conspicuous than a coffee mug, you can see what’s inside it, it’s attractive in a sort of homegrown way, it can also serve as Tupperware. I begin to regret my lowly mug, and make a mental note that next time, I will bring the gnarliest, most salvaged-looking jar I can find.

Since that fragmented moment in the No Impact journey wedged between blog posts, deadlines and press appearances, Colin and his No Impact family have metamorphosed while the world watched – on the Colbert Report, Good Morning America, in The New York Times (and the Green Fork!). And since his book, titled No Impact Man, debuted on September 1st, their lives have fallen under even greater scrutiny – magnified by this coming Friday’s theatrical release of the No Impact Man documentary. And have they ever risen to the occasion! With nation-wide appearances and book signings on the docket, Colin Beavan and Michelle Conlin (and little Isabella and four-footed Frankie, of course) have carried the mantle of sustainability with enthusiasm, inspiration and grace. Together they create a compelling vision of good green living – and all the quirks and hiccups along the road to getting there.

Want to get a look inside their year of No Impact? Find a screening of the No Impact movie near you (or host one!)! New Yorkers – join Kerry Trueman and me at the Angelika theater on September 15th at 5:00, where we’ll field your questions about sustainable food and how it fits into a low-impact lifestyle.

To keep current with Colin, follow his No Impact blog; to find out how you can change the world and even yourself, check out www.noimpactproject.org, a new nonprofit project aimed at enabling a sustainable way of life that makes us happier, healthier and more balanced citizens of the planet.

And now, I’m off to refill my gnarly pickled herring jar, which previously held lingonberry jam made by my friend’s grandmother in Poland, and which has a fish on the lid. Take that, No Impact Man!

The day Julia Child flipped her potato pancake onto the stove on her live show The French Chef was a key moment in culinary history. It reminded viewers that mistakes happen; it took some of the fear out of cooking. In this summer’s box office hit Julie and Julia, Meryl Streep plays Child and muses after the faux-pas, “I didn’t have the courage to do it the way I should have.” Healthy Monday, on surveying the current crop of cooking shows, wonders whether they have Julia’s courage – not just to teach us how to cook, but in a new era of food awareness, how to cook mindfully and healthfully.

Best-selling food author Michael Pollan, a big supporter of Meatless Monday, points out that Americans now spend an average of 27 minutes cooking per day, less than half that of Julia Child’s era. People today are cooking less but – witness the rise of The Food Network – are actually watching cooking shows more! Here’s a key qualifier, though: these “cooking shows” are not much more than “food entertainment.” They value effect over end product, efficiency over quality, time-saving tips over detailed instruction.

Child’s The French Chef, which ran from 1963-1973, aired unedited and showcased not just Julia’s recipes and techniques – the flips and the flops – but her famous passion for food and chiefly joie de vivre. Today’s hyper-slick cooking shows like Top Chef and Iron Chef America, by comparison, are more about competition than preparing real food in an actual kitchen. And the Rachel Rays and Emeril Lagasses, while they proffer recipes and tips, seem more interested in furthering their brand (and their products).

The good news is, there has been a slowly building backlash. Just as celebrity chefs on television have become more removed from their audiences, viewers are seeking out new outlets and talent for guidance and inspiration. And the short attention spans that spawned (or were spawned by) the mega-hit cooking shows have resulted in a demand for immediate interactivity. Enter the Internet age – where both budding and accomplished cooks are turning to websites, blogs and YouTube for practical advice and demonstrations, and “less-packaged” food advisers. They are searching for their own Julia, in an instant.

Meatless Monday’s very own video blogger Kinzie, like the character Julie Powell in Julie and Julia, transformed her passion for cooking into something that can help others. Both women joined the food blogosphere, creating articles, recipes and video they send out over the Internet for anyone to use, and receiving feedback, praise and popularity in return – not the mention of satisfaction of sharing something they love.

“Cooking can be a little overwhelming,” says Kinzie. “Taking people out of their comfort zone, and asking them to prepare a meatless meal can seem daunting. I want to help change that in my small way.”

Everyone here at Healthy Monday feels the same. By preparing the food you eat, when it’s your force behind the knife, or your hands in the dough, you develop a deeper understanding of what you’re eating. You tend to think more about the health consequences – good and bad – of what you’re eating.

So this Monday, have the courage to step away from the TV, explore cooking videos online and give a new meatless recipe a try. Let the plethora of cooking resources excite you to embark on a new cooking adventure. In the time-honored words of Julia Child: “Do not be afraid!”

Here are a few must-see blogs that demonstrate the range of bounty:

Depression Cooking with Clara is full of 93 year-old Clara Cannucciari’s recipes and childhood memories from the Great Depression.

Rockin’ The Stove, with Chef Shirle combines a love of food with a kick @#$% sensibility.

Crash Test Kitchen captures two Aussie’s in a kitchen making food and making mistakes.

And don’t forget to check out Meatless Monday’s own Kinzie!

American teenagers live a fast paced life surrounded by modern technology. They spend their time talking and texting on cell phones, studying and surfing the web and grabbing fast food while driving between home, work, school and social activities. The Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) explains the environmental dangers of this lifestyle by performing entertaining high school assemblies. Teenagers in turn learn simple, incremental changes they can incorporate into their Monday routine.

Many young adults don’t realize they’re adding to the already dire condition of the environment. Those who do are overwhelmed by the amount of organization and action needed to affect change. ACE provides free presentations explaining current, accurate climate science in an engaging and age appropriate manner. These auditorium assemblies use animation and live educators to relate the science behind global warming, its consequences and possible solutions.

Meat consumption is something ACE is very concerned about. Cows produce methane gasses, which are 26 times more detrimental to the environment than carbon dioxide. These kid-friendly presentations make it perfectly clear that the more meat we eat, the more methane is released into the atmosphere.
Ultimately, ACE is empowering the leaders of tomorrow by showing them how to combat climate change today – and for that, they earn our total support. We’re deeply impressed that ACE provides scholarships for students who coordinate community projects to aid the environment.

We can all take action to reduce our carbon footprint. Why not start this week? Here are some of ACE’s eco-friendly habits you can incorporate into your Monday routine.

1) Unplug Energy Vampires - Electronics continue to draw energy even when you turn them off! Unplug appliances and chargers you’re not using. Not only will you reduce carbon dioxide emissions, you’ll reduce your electric bill!

2) Buy Smart – Natural resources and fossil fuels go into every item you buy. Choose items made in your area to decrease the fuel used in transit. Buy used goods when you can (vintage fashion looks great and saves resources!).

3) Join an Environmental Network – The more people band together to reduce climate change, the more impact we’ll have! Encourage others to participate by starting a blog or joining a social networking site. Gather together to plant a garden or hold a forum. ACE has scheduled events and project ideas on their website. Or join the growing number of people going meatless on Monday! Whichever way you choose, you’ll be helping make the world a better place for all of us!

Like all domestic goddesses born in the midst of the Green Revolution, my mom has a complex grocery shopping technique that has never been adequately summed up by her explanation, “whatever looks best.” It incorporates all five senses (much to the embarrassment of my twelve-year-old self, when she routinely sniffed the stem-ends of a dozen Costco cantaloupes), and is even synced with the artificial thundershowers in the vegetable section. Dewy, jewel-toned and blemishless, her picture-perfect produce always seemed to have just arrived from some seasonless supermarket Eden.

Which wasn’t far off, if you figure Eden was probably someplace in Mespotamia.

But some ancestral agrarian wisdom – residue of her Tennessee farmgirl past – also nudged her to adhere to the occasional seasonal law: asparagus in spring, summer strawberries, Christmas clementines. These items were dinner table treasures, redolent with rarity…if not always with flavor.

Because it turns out that, according to the new online shopping tool Global Grocer, there’s still a 75% chance that supermarket asparagus was imported from Peru or Mexico, even in springtime. In our supersaturated, season-free food culture, US food imports are rising at dramatic rates (importation of agricultural products has increased 50% since 2004 alone) and decimating domestic family farmers, local economies, the environment, and sometimes our health.

Developed by Food & Water Watch, Global Grocer is an interactive guide to your food and where it might be coming from. Browse the noisy animated aisles, pick your produce item (fresh, frozen or processed), and read the rundown on its origins, including top exporters and the probability that it was imported. Fill up your virtual cart, proceed to checkout, and find out how likely it is that you’ve selected imported fruits and veggies; the array of countries they came from; and how many pounds of jet-setting produce you probably purchase per year.

If these numbers alarm you – and they should – Global Grocer has some advice: shop at outlets that sell local food, and tell your supermarket that you demand country-of-origin labeling.

Though seemingly vestigial in the contemporary supermarket, seasonal impulses like my mom’s could help save small farms and the planet – but only if they’re supported by adequate origin labeling, so shoppers can distinguish between good, local, seasonal food and over-traveled, chemically ripened, unseasonable food.

Any locavore will tell you that embracing rarity, far from being an altruistic sacrifice, is actually a deliciously hedonistic adventure; my mother and I discovered that together – in the garden we learned to grow. But Americans can’t reclaim rarity as a cultural value until we are able make educated decisions about not just what to buy, but where to buy it from – and consequently, when.

Click here to embed the Global Grocer widget on your website.

Not sure what’s in season? Consult Eat Well’s Seasonal Food Map.

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Kate Croft is a dedicated food activist and new member of the Eat Well Team. To find out more about Kate’s passion for local food, check out her photos and signature recipes on her (languishing) blog, Pie in the Sky.