Call Me a School Gardens Convert

I have a confession to make. It is hard to publicly admit this but, I think I'm ready and here is goes. I have been skeptical about school gardens. (Gasp! I know). True, I advocate for healthy eating for kids and basically support, any and all strategies to encourage them to eat more fruits and vegetables at school or at home. But I have not been a fan of school gardens (more on that below).  Yet, I have been inspired recently by the work of Stephen Ritz of Green Bronx Machine and by Edible Schoolyard NYC. I dare say I am so impressed that I might become a school garden convert.

(Note: Applications are now being accepted to be an Edible Schoolyard NYC Showcase School. Find more details here. Deadline is soon!) 

School gardens are feel-good stories in the making, for sure. Furthermore, it makes sense that they would make a difference. Gardens provide hand-on lessons that show kids where  carrots come from, "from the earth and not aisle 9 in the grocery store" as Stephen Ritz would say. School gardens provide chances for kids to eat leafy greens that they grew themselves, while learning about science and nature.  And it's hard not to love the images of smiling kids holding up vegetables freshly pulled from the earth, or chomping down on a kale salad for maybe the first time. So what's my issue?

Let it be said that I am a gardener myself, and this maybe why I am skeptical. Gardening is hard, especially in the urban environment with poor soil (often filled with lead and other chemicals) and lack of easy water access. (Water access probably doesn't even cross the minds our suburban garden counterparts.) Gardening can have significant start-up costs. (My grandfather talks about the $300 peach he grew one year. That's how much he invested in caring for the tree that yielded just one fruit.) Gardening, like farming, can be plagued by failure, as it is dependent on so many vagaries in weather and soil that you never know what you are going to get. This is the life of a gardener--thorns as well as roses.

Furthermore, school gardens work against the growing season calendar. Just when the gardens need the most care, school is out for the summer. Just when the plants need the most water, no one is home to water them. In a typical urban schoolyard, the sun beats down on the blacktop and dries up that garden in no time. In my neighborhood in Brooklyn, I have unfortunately seen many a dry and neglected school garden. All these reasons have lead me to be a school garden skeptic.

Recently, at the 2012 TedxManhattan conference,  I learned about a two projects that are restoring my faith in urban school gardening: Green Bronx Machine and Edible Schoolyard NYC.

Stephen Ritz's talk about Green Bronx Machine at TedxManhattan was a true revelation about the power of gardening in young people's lives. If anyone can make you a believer, it is him.  Just watch, enjoy and cheer.




Working in the Bronx, "in the poorest Congressional District in the county," Ritz is not just growing seeds, he is truly growing lives. For him, gardening is a stepping stone to broader skills that the middle and high school students in his school desperately need. I love that his program is not just about "little kids." It is mainly targeted at teenagers who are often overlooked as potential change-agents in their own lives. These are kids that need a break and urban gardening is giving it to them: job skills, math and science skills, the chance to care for something that grows and can be tended for without judgement or fear, and most importantly, an opportunity to see themselves differently. Teenagers are very close to living on their own, making life choices now that will follow them forever, for better or worse. Stephen Ritz's program is showing at-risk kids a path that they perhaps never knew about. They are learning carpentry skills, marketing skills and skills in the kitchen that can help them cook everyday meals for themselves or start a career in culinary arts. Plus these kids, who are at very high risk of dropping out, have an  incentive to come into school everyday because there is something living and growing in that classroom that they care about and are interested in. Plants are not abstract; they are right there, growing in front of you, needing your care. That's a powerful message of hope.

A second project, Edible Schoolyard NYC had caught my attention earlier this year, but I didn't understand the full extent of their programming until recently, when its name came up again and again at TedxManhattan. Based on Alice Waters' famous Edible Schoolyard Project in Berkeley, CA, Edible Schoolyard NYC (@ESNYC) is the first of its kind in New York City and is set in PS216, a Title I elementary school in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Unlike the school graden programs I've seen, Edible Schoolyard doesn't just put in some planters, plant some seeds and call it a day. They have a rich and fully integrated curriculum that teaches kids in an age-appropriate way and incorporates New York State standards of science, math and English. They are in it for the long-haul, setting up a kitchen curriculum, establishing evaluation standards (are kids eating better? are grades improving?) and thinking about how their students will develop from ages 5 to 10, exploring and learning from the garden.


As an advocate of family dinner, Family Cooking Nights and Harvest/Market Days are the parts of the Edible Schoolyard program that excite me the most. It is crucial to connect with parents and get them as excited as the kids are about good food and healthy eating. To truly make a difference, school garden programs must work with parents so that the lessons from school come home. No one wants that kale salad a child enjoyed at school to be the first and last of his life. That salad should be the first of many and part of a long-lasting change for the whole family at mealtimes. School gardens can start a dialogue between parents and kids, spurring the kids ask for vegetables at the grocery store, not just junk food.


Edible Schoolyard NYC is expanding to have showcase schools in all five boroughs of New York and will provide this incredible program at no-cost to the schools. The exciting news is that applications are being accepted now for Title I schools in the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island. If you know a school that could benefit, please pass it on. (My kids' public schools are not eligible as they are in Brooklyn, otherwise I might be keeping this to myself!)

Learn more about the fabulous program at Edible Schoolyard and spread the word about their new grant, deadline February 28, 2012. 

You can support the wonderful work of either Stephen Ritz, Bronx Green Machine by buying a cool T-shirt or Edible Schoolyard NYC with a donation. 

The Power of Parents in "Changing the Way We Eat"

Last Saturday (01.21.12) was the 2nd TEDxManhattan conference: Changing the Way We Eat and I was honored to be in the audience. I learned so much, met many amazing people and, as cliche as it sounds, I was truly inspired. My goal in attending was to try to get a handle on how parents and family dinner can fit into the bigger conversation about changing the food system. It's not too far a stretch, really. Laurie David, noted environmental activist and author of The Family Dinner book was the host again this year. She argued eloquently at last year's event that family dinner can indeed be an important step in the right direction for systemic change. I feel like parents are an untapped resource in the battle for better eating, better nutrition and a better food system.

The TedxManhattan talks were live streamed that day and there were over 4,000 viewing parties all over the world. Twitter followers can find many great quotes from the day under the #TEDxMan hashtag (Here's one compilation from Buckybox on Storify.) The actual talks are set to be posted online within a month or so. In the meantime, over the next few posts, I'm going to share my thoughts and big "take-away" messages.

Big Take-away #1: The Consumer
Many speakers talked about how the consumer could or would lead the way in changing the food system. By demanding high quality food, by being more knowledgeable about where food comes from and by understanding the true costs of food, consumer demand could help "move the market" so that healthier foods would be more available. I totally agree. (Statistics on the growing market for organics alone are here.) Yet, no one came out and talked about who the most powerful consumers in this game are: the parents.

Let's make it clear about who our consumer audience is for the good food movement and reach out accordingly. Families, by and large, spend more money at the grocery store than any other segment and are a huge market. Parents (and kids) are the targets for multi-billion dollar advertising campaigns, mainly pushing overprocessed, unhealthy foods. There is a huge tidal-wave of misinformation that we have to combat. There are many factors in the childhood obesity epidemic, but the proliferation of fast-food, kid-food, and sugary soda and drinks aimed at kids and teens are a huge part of the problem. Parents must be engaged and enlightened on their role in demanding better food choices. Parents should not be the "elephant in the room," but instead empowered to be the first line of defense.

Two people at the conference did talk about parents directly, although one was just on video: Urvashi Rangan from the Consumer Union and Jamie Oliver in his Ted Big Wish Award talk (February 2011).

Urvashi Rangan, a parent herself, made a persuasive and impassioned case for how food labels need to be better regulated. Consumers do read labels and generally want to purchase healthier food, but they are often confused by labels, and rightly so (from Fooducate). As Rangan presented, the term "natural" means nothing, but some parents think it does and even report thinking "natural" is better than "organic." Organic is not a perfect label, she reasoned, but hundreds of pages of federal standards are behind it. We need more clarity.

Update: Urvashi's Rangan's TedxTalk added 2.13.12



So, parents do care, but are easily tricked. (Not to suggest that parents are stupid or uneducated, it's that millions of dollars goes into the "science" of misinformation.)  In my experience, even well-educated parents can fall for the "Pop-Tart" trap. Almost every parent knows that pop-tarts are a "treat" at best. But it's easy to think "Hey the label says 'Made with Real Fruit,' how bad can it be?" Or maybe a parent might think, "Oh, these have been improved and are healthier now." Labels should be helping consumers, not setting them up for a bad-food trap.

I fell in love with Jamie Oliver all over again seeing his talk on the big screen of the TEDx stage, even though I've seen it before. Singing to the choir with me obviously, but it is a pity and a shame that we can't get home-cooking more in favor. Family meals can be at the core of widespread change. "Mums and dads," as Jamies would say, have got to realize they they are part of this change movement. He actually has a movement afoot. If you haven't heard about it, sign up here.

I'll leave you with Jamie's impassioned speech. What do you think about the power of parents in the good food fight?

Family Dinner and "Changing the Way We Eat" TEDxManhattan Conference 2012

I'm honored to have been chosen to participate in the TEDx Manhattan conference "Changing the Way We Eat" this weekend, January 21, 2012. (It's a bit crazy that a "real food" conference would be so popular they have to select who can attend!) I'll just be in the audience, but my goals are to learn, to connect, and to represent the perspective of regular families who are trying to do the best they can.

I firmly believe that the dinner table can be at the center of change, both for your own family and for the world. (I know, grand thinking.) I've written about this before, but today I want to hear from you:  What questions or thoughts would you raise with the audience or presenters of the TEDxManhattan conference if you had the chance? What would you say about the role of parents or educators in improving access to good food or changing viewpoints? How would you "connect the dots" between family dinner and the food system?

I'm taking inspiration from the title of the conference itself: Changing the Way We Eat. Change begins with the way we eat: how and when we eat, preferably around a table at home. This stands alongside the broader issues of changing the food system: what we eat and how it got to our kitchen, our table, our plate, or our take-out bag.

What do you think? Please share in the comments below or join my Facebook page.

You can watch the conference Live-streamed at home or, even better, there are TEDx viewing parties all over the country where you can connect to people in your area and discuss these issues.

How to Change the Food System? One Table at a Time

Yesterday, an important discussion took place on the issues of safe food, sustainability and health of our people and our planet with a conference called "The Future of Food" held in Washington, DC (archive of video highlights here). In February, there was a TEDx Manhattan conference on the food system called "Changing the Way We Eat" (archive here) that touched on related topics and the intermingling of ecology, health, politics, and economics. There are a lot of amazing people who care about food and health that are bringing up hard questions about our current food system and how we can feed the nation and the world without sacrificing individual health, public health or the health of our planet.

At the Future of Food conference, stalwarts of the food movement Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and Prince Charles of Wales (who knew?) gave their perspectives on the long road we have traveled and the long road ahead. On hand were a wide range of advocates (Josh Veritel of Slow Food USA, Laurie David, who is extending her environmental activism to the dinner table and to advocacy against antibiotics in meat, Marion Nestle, leading nutritionist and founder of Food Politics) and journalists (Joe Yonan of The Washington Post, Tom Philpott, Jane Black, and Paula Crossfield and Naomi Starkman of Civil Eats) who called out, via twitter and in person, big food on their arguments about the economic necessity of big-AG techniques and policies all day.

Following along at a distance, the conference was inspiring, enlightening, and, at times, infuriating in the ways that listening to the church choir might be when you are living in the red-light district. How can good food advocates get the message out more broadly that safe, good food is not a luxury, but a necessity? Furthermore, as Eric Schlosser argued in the Washington Post this week, how can we get across that being a "foodie" is not elitist?

The soapbox I stand on is family dinner, but I do believe that the future of the food lies around the family dinner table. Michael Pollan put it simply as "More and more, I realize our food problem is a cooking problem."  Caring about what we put on the table for our families and knowing how to prepare real food are two of the first steps to changing the food system. Caring about getting to the table in the first place may indeed preempt that. We need to embrace a culture where the time spent to shop, cook, and eat together as a family is viewed as essential, not a luxury. Family dinner can consist of two roommates, a single parent and kids, a large brood of multiple generations, or any other configuration you can think of, as long as they are breaking bread together. We need to to value this simple act and get around a table together, if we are to ever change the way we eat.

Agenda and Speakers for The Future of Food Conference, May 2011

Changing the Way We Eat, TEDx Manhattan, Feb 2011

FoodDay.org, an event to celebrate the food movement and inspire families and communities to commit to real food.