Soul Food Cooker

In Kenya Jon Bohmer has created an award winning cardboard cooker that tackles seemingly every one of the most pressing social/environmental problems today. Thank you Jon you demonstrate how as we nurture others we ourselves are taken care of, by your serving up solutions for the poorest among us, all beings are sustained. This philosophy could well benefit economics and governance.

Locavore Locates Local Fresh Food

Image courtesy of Ron1478 Flickr

Enjoymentland » Locavore 1.0 is now available!

Buster McLeod recently released Locavore a "powerful but simple application for iPhone and iPod" that uses built in GPS to find the freshest in season produce nearest to you. This app merges health consciousness, local, and mobile trends with the trend for Real Time Search ensuring access to the freshest information. See also previous post about BakerTweet. It also links in with the Frugality trend.

Locavore partners with LocalHarvest.org, the Natural Resources Defense Council and "will continue to improve and be updated over time."

"Connects users to recipes from Epicurious and links to Wikipedia through a simple to use and intuitive interface... features fruits and vegetables with beautiful full-color images of each."

Some Questions

• How might this app be of use to you? Who else is it assisting? Why?How?
  
• When would you likely use it?
• What other devices could it be integrated with?
• What difference does it make to eat seasonal fruit and vegetables?
  
• Why is 'local' important at this time?
• What is Real Time Search? Why is it significant and why is it trending now?
• What other iPhone app could be useful for Realtime food search?
  

Edible Gardens

Ann Cooper's essential TED Talk for all of the whys to get nutrition into schools, but significantly why gardens need to be a part of the school lunch agenda.

Community food gardens are flourishing as people the world over link food, climate and economic chain reactions, and where better than schools to implement these? For schools 'Edible' gardens are an immersible learning opportunity, linking health, relaxation, community and fun-for life. 'Victory' gardens such as promoted by Michelle Obama recently at the White House, were originally grown by citizens of the USA,UK, Canada and Germany during World Wars I and II.

My own local playgroup have recently successfully won a grant to create a 'sensory' garden for our young children while the neighborhood centre further up the road are also planning a community garden. We're thinking fruit trees including quince (hardy as) and scented herbaceous borders being careful not to attract the bees! But vegies will be a fully sensual experience. We'll start planting May.

• The Department of Education in Tasmania are promoting a series of kitchen/garden workshops for teachers entitled From Seed to Plate.

• Setting up and running a school garden

• Schools 'Kitchen Garden Program'-Run by Australian Chef Stephanie Alexander

• Edible Schoolyard

• video inspiration

ps Here's a link to a couple of gourmet vegetable recipes inspired by Michelle Obama's Victory garden.

Social Site For Food Redistribution

Image courstesy of Jeffrey Beall

Dell Social Innovation Competition

Food2.org

Students from the Universities of UC Berkeley and of Texas have pulled together a team to compete for a $50 000 prize. The competition is being held by Dell in order to reward an innovative social venture model that solves a pressing world problem. Entries must be in by 6th April 2009.

So far the university Food2.org team is a semi finalist.

"Food2.org will close the information gap that prevents fresh nutritious foods from reaching hunger relief organizations.

"Food2.org is an online tool that will match non-profits feeding low-income individuals with the produce from groceries, markets, and farms that would otherwise go to waste."

This solution to food waste and hunger simultaneously tackles climate change as food that ends up in landfills produces methane gas, a major cause of global warming.
You can register to vote for this social venture and ensure its success.

Here's a link to a recent article on this critical issue if you wish to become more proactive. America's Food Banks Shortage. Also review other articles on this blog under Food Activism.

I believe food activism will become incredibly high profile as global warming collides with economic collapse. As a chef I've often grappled with the conundrum of food waste within the hospitality sector. When visiting the kitchen at The Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland I've never forgotten the words of a chef there that there is nothing left in the fridges at the end of the day...I looked! Everything is fresh, no waste.

Some Questions

• What questions come immediately to your mind reading these articles? Write them down.
  
• Find 3 examples of food activism local to your city.
  
• Contact one of these community social activists/groups. With any further questions in mind (listing them beforehand) interview them for a blog post.
• Record it as a podcast and or write your post, being clear to state your questions and their response. Include your personal opinions and any supporting images.
  
• What can you do now to reduce food waste in your own home? Workplace?

Meet the Food You Eat

Prototyping Book

View more presentations from eilidhdickson. (tags: tui design)

Link 35950 - Carbon Footprint Comparisons at lovelearn.wordpress

I located this link on Trendhunter. A design project from 3 students at Copenhagen Institute of Interactive Design models the impact that the foods we eat have on the environment. By placing food on a model scale, observers can see just how many trees are needed to offset that food's carbon footprint.

View the Slideshow 'Prototyping Book' above for visual explanation. Or read for yourself the post from Adam Little, Siddharth Muthyala and Eilidh Dickson at www.lovelearn.wordpress.

Sustainability Food Trends-Fish

Image courtesy of shawdm

Image via Wikipedia

Responsibility of Each Chef

Attending the 2008 International Culinary Food Congress in NY, guest chef Barton Seaver emphasised a chef's responsibility to the oceans, imploring the audience to take the depletion of species seriously. Fellow chef Rick Moonen stated “If we continue our patterns of consumption, most of the species we like to eat will be gone by 2048. And they’re not going to disappear on December 31, 2047… it could be much sooner than that. Certain species could be gone 5 years from now.”