April Events

There is a lot going on this month! For more details, look at our calendar.

• Wednesday, April 7th - Slow Food BU Potluck in Sargent College (635 Commonwealth Ave.), Room 218
• Throughout April - Sustainable Food Films: free film screenings throughout April thanks to Whole Foods.
• April 9-11th - Down:2:Earth - Sustainable Living Expo at the Hynes Convention Center
• Wednesday, April 14th - Screening of "The Garden" thanks to the Harvard Food Literacy Project
• Saturday, April 17th - Slow Food Founder Carlo Petrini at Tufts School of Nutrition *CANCELLED and to be rescheduled*
• Sunday, April 18th - Slow Food Founder Carlo Petrini at Harvard University *CANCELLED and to be rescheduled*
• April 19th-23rd - Earth Week at BU, with various events sponsored by us, BU, and BU's Green Groups
• April 23rd-24th - SlowFest. Check out the local food vendors that will be present.

"Two Angry Moms" with Slow Food Boston

Last week, Slow Food BU hosted a film screening of Two Angry Moms with Slow Food Boston.

Two Angry Moms is a documentary following filmmaker and mother Amy Kalafa, who searches for schools that offer healthier school lunches. Susan Rubin of Better School Food is the other "angry mom" in the documentary, and the film shows the efforts of Susan and other leaders in the movement to improve school lunches. The film offers steps for those interested in improving the quality of food in children's schools, such as:

1. Have lunch with your child in the school cafeteria
2. Join a committee or coalition
3. Survey your district
4. Read your contracts
5. Market your new program

Read the more detailed action plan here.

After the film, Alex Loud of Slow Food Boston spoke about Slow Food's Time for Lunch Campaign. The Child Nutrition Act is a federal law that was created in order to help meet the nutritional needs of children in the National School Lunch Program. Because the Child Nutrition Act is reauthorized every five years and is planned to be reviewed by Congress in early 2010, it is the perfect time and opportunity to make change. Currently, Congress allots $2.68 per school lunch, with $1 allotted towards ingredients. Only 20¢ of that $1 is devoted to fruits and vegetables, which simply isn't enough to provide children the real food that they need. If you are concerned about this issue or would like to become more involved, look at Slow Food's Time for Lunch Campaign.

A panel discussion followed, featuring JJ Gonson of Cuisine en Locale, Claire Kozower of Waltham Fields Community Farm, and Kim Szeto of the Farm to School Initiative.

Claire discussed some of her previous involvement with the Farm to School Initiative in Somerville. In Somerville, children only have 12 minutes to eat lunch. 12 minutes is hardly enough time to eat lunch, much less enjoy it. It is because of this short lunch time that they found that children ate more apples and left less waste when the apples were small- children simply do not have enough time to eat a large apple during lunch. These small apples are now provided to the public schools in Somerville, Cambridge, and Boston, and are locally sourced from Lanni Orchards based in Lunenburg, MA.

Kim is involved with the Farm to School Initiative in the Boston Public Schools. Despite the mere 20¢ devoted to fruits and vegetables per meal in school lunch, they have found that buying local is sometimes cheaper, and they have been able to serve local and seasonal produce including corn on the cob, collard greens, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash.

JJ, involved in Cambridge's Healthy Service Task Force Food Advisory Board, provided a parent's perspective on the issue.

• Because the 12 Cambridge schools feed thousands of kids a day, commodity products are extremely important in controlling costs. Commodity products are provided for free to schools, because they are excess products available from the government as a result of agribusiness subsidies. However, one needs to question the health implications of these commodity products, such as tuna, which poses health risks for children due to the mercury levels in tuna and the potential health risks from the can linings.
• The classic yet deceptively innocent PB & J sandwich has its health implications as well. The bread and peanut butter contain hydrogenated oils, the peanut butter and jelly contain high fructose corn syrup, and the jelly contains unnatural colorings.
• Schools are not allowed to serve water because it has "no nutritional value." Schools typically only offer milk, chocolate milk, and apple juice.
  
• Read more about what JJ has to say on school lunches here.

All three acknowledged how significant Lanni Orchards has been in providing local produce to public schools within the area.

Although there is a lot that needs to change in the school food system, there are many ways to become more informed and to become more involved. Here are a few resources to get you started:

• Find more ways to become active at the Two Angry Moms site and review their action plan
  
• Better School Food
• Slow Food's Time for Lunch Campaign
• The School Nutrition Bill (H2092) and the Local Farm Products Bill (H2107/S1437) were recently passed by the House of Representatives in MA. However, these bills still need to be passed by the Senate. Read the article on the passage of these bills, and keep updated and find out more about what you can do through the Massachusetts Public Health Association

For another recap of this event, read Slow Food Boston's followup.

HomeGrown Film Screening with Slow Food Boston

Slow Food BU kicked off the semester with a film screening of HomeGrown in a collaboration with Slow Food Boston.

HomeGrown explores the urban, organic farm Path to Freedom run by the Dervaes family in Pasadena, California. Although the family of four began the farm in order to feed themselves, they were doing so well that they began to sell their produce. Now, the Dervaes produce over 6,000 pounds of produce annually in less than a quarter of an acre! The family also produces their own biodiesel, power their computers using solar panels, use non-electric appliances such as those from Lehman's (hand-cranked blender, anyone?), and more. If you missed the film screening, we highly recommend watching the documentary and reading more about the urban homstead on their website and on their blog.

Following the film screening was a discussion panel featuring Jess Liborio from The Food Project, Lisa Gross from the Urban Homesteaders' League, and Nathan Phillips from BU (previously featured in the Boston Globe for his carbon neutral office!), moderated by Willow Blish from Slow Food Boston.

Panelists Jess Liborio, Lisa Gross and Nathan Phillips

The audience asked good questions for a lively and engaging discussion. We learned that there are many ways to incorporate growing your own food in urban areas with or without a backyard. If you live in an apartment, you may consider sprouting, growing herbs, or growing microgreens in your kitchen or on your windowsill. Or if you live in Boston and have a backyard, The Food Project may help you to build your very own raised bed through their Build-a-Garden program! Meanwhile, Green City Growers in Somerville installs raised beds, and even helps to maintain them for you. In addition, farmers markets now abound, more people are signing up for local CSA's (community supported agriculture), and more winter farmers markets are cropping up!

If you want to get your urban homestead on, you may consider joining the Meetup Group The Urban Homsteaders' League. Run by Lisa Gross, the UHL hosts and sponsors various urban homesteading events around the Cambridge area, and we will be co-sponsoring our next event with them, a No-Knead Bread Making Workshop, on January 31! (Our apologies, but this workshop is full! E-mail us if you want to join the waiting list).

Thanks to all the volunteers and speakers who helped to make this event happen!

If you missed HomeGrown, this was only part one of Slow Food Boston's 3rd Annual Film Series! Watch Two Angry Moms with Slow Food BU and Slow Food Boston on February 21, or join Slow Food Boston at Tufts for film screenings of The End of the Line and Bullshit. More details can be found here.