In the dizzying array of ever-evolving studies about which foods are healthiest, eating more fruits and vegetables is one fundamental piece of advice that health experts all agree is important in preventing chronic disease and living a vibrant, healthy life.
Articles by Diane Conners
Northwest Michigan’s Farm to School Program Thrives
In Northern Michigan Kids news, schools across northwest Michigan have been serving up local food experiences in cafeterias, classrooms, and school gardens, and we’ll be sharing some of those stories each month. It’s a concerted effort to get kids excited about eating healthy food. And, wow, does it show.
Rebuilding ‘foodshed’ and community resilience
“Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, and Secure Food Systems,” by farmer and university professor Philip Ackerman-Leist, is the third book in the Bob Russell Resilience Reading Project. He discusses how we came to the largely industrial food system that we have today, where it’s often easier for a school in our region to purchase lettuce from California, for example, rather than from farmers right down the road.
Ten Cents a Meal program is expanding
If you are a northwest Michigan farmer who grows fruits or vegetables and you like the idea of local school children eating the food you grow-or you just want more sales-now is the time to explore those new markets. The Michigan Land Use Institute and Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District are launching an expanded two-year pilot project that could mean up to $200,000 in sales of local agricultural products to schools in eight districts in four counties.
Network advances local food at institutions
A new Michigan Farm to Institution Network is helping schools, hospitals, day care centers, senior living and other institutions ramp up their purchases of locally grown food.
Cooked’: We all need to get back in the kitchen
If you read “Cooked,” you’ll salivate. You’ll learn interesting history and science and anthropology and philosophy. Cooked, in many regards, is about getting back to the enjoyment inherent in preparing our own meals, and the sense of self-sufficiency that comes when we know how. It’s about realizing how important cooking has been in our evolution as humans, and what we might lose as a culture if we continue our trend of “outsourcing” our cooking to industrial food companies.