GRACE Communications Foundation
Dawn Brighid is the Project Manager for the Food Team at GRACE. She has a marketing degree from San Jose State University in California and a certificate in Health Counseling from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York. She shares her interest in health and nutrition with us by attempting to shed light on the confusion around the food we eat, not a simple task in this information heavy environment.
From an unusual (but delicious) restaurant, Dirt Candy, comes an unusual (but innovative) cookbook. This graphic novel (aka cookbook) tells the story of a girl and her restaurant, and all the messy, tell-all details that have made it what it is today - one of the most celebrated vegetarian eateries in NYC.
Spring - it's the eagerly anticipated season of new life and fertility, the transition from a winter slumber to an active, fruitful growing season. The egg symbolizes these notions and is traditionally used across many cultures to celebrate spring.
The Super Bowl... a day for football or a day for friends, family, commercials, halftime shows, puppies and snacks (depending on your interests, not necessarily in that order)? If your focus is food (and whose isn't?) why not upgrade your spread with some locally-grown, sustainably produced food this year? Blindside your guests with tasty and healthy snacks! Clothesline anyone who tries to bring in fast food! Make sure no off-season veggies show up to play!
Tuesday, as an extension of the online conversation, foodies, techies, advocates and consumers converged from around the world on Twitter for a #HackMeat TweetUp to explore the future of meat and discuss its connection to our health and our kitchens.
Food Day, a nationwide event celebrating healthy, affordable and sustainable food, is being held on October 24th - this Wednesday. We're celebrating with a special Food Day Twitter Conference and hope that you will join us!
We are all looking for happiness. Is it possible that it’s as close as the end of our forks? Tyler Graham and Drew Ramsey, MD, whose new book, The Happiness Diet: A Nutritional Prescription for a Sharp Brain, Balanced Mood, and Lean, Energized Body, features with a juicy burger on the cover, say it is. And the good looking burger on the cover of their book - meat, cheese, bun, veggies and all - are part of the prescription.
Cooking Up a Story brings us another amazing video, and being a salt freak, I'm especially excited by this one. Ben Jacobsen drives 170 miles round trip from Portland to the stunningly beautiful Oregon coastline so he can harvest ocean water - to make salt. Jacobsen Salt Co. started as a hobby to benefit family and friends and quickly turned into a thriving business.
In a little-known Hallmark holiday back-story, the disturbing nature of which rivals even Valentine’s Day, the woman who founded Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, actually spent the last years of her life fighting against its commercialization. In the short nine years that it had existed, for Anna, the day lost its meaning. Obviously, she lost her fight against the day’s commercialization; today Mother’s Day has become one of the most financially successful U.S. holidays.
When the 2011 - 2013 class of IATP Food and Community Fellows was chosen, we ran an "Our Heroes" post about them with high hopes that would be stirring up the food justice movement during their two-year stint. In case you missed it, the Fellows are a diverse group of 14 good food advocates, chosen from a pool of almost 600 applicants, working all around the country for a better food future. In this new video project from IATP, Food Justice From The Ground Up, we hear from each of them.
Unless you're in southern California, the farmers' market is certainly sparse these days. Pea shoots and some other early spring favorites are surely right around the corner but for now, at least here in NYC,the pickin’s are slim: we've got meat, dairy, apples (lots of apples!), root vegetables and some good looking sweet potatoes.
Maybe February should be "Child Labor Month." If you read Chris Hunt's blog post "Where's the Love, Hershey? On Chocolate and Labor," or if you're familiar with the atrocities that take place in cocoa fields in the Global South, then you will know that child labor is a reality in the chocolate industry today.
Valentine’s Day is all about love - for our partners, lovers, teachers, families, friends - you might even show some love for your co-workers (note to my fellow Ecocentric bloggers: I'll take some cookies!) on February 14th. But you know who doesn’t get much love on Valentine’s Day? Mother Earth.
Dear McRib, Word on the street is that you have been discontinued, again. Is it true? I've been trying to avoid you, but you are on TV, blogs, websites, newspapers - everywhere. I am a healthy eater, so I'm not interested in you; in fact I'm very afraid of your processed pork-like, rib-shaped patty.
It’s that time of year. The growing season is winding down, but there is still quite an abundance of local fruits and vegetables at all but the northernmost farmers' markets and coops (even here in NYC after Hurricane Irene did so much damage). I'm still eating like it’s summer (well the end of summer) and hoping that it will never end. But there is a way to extend the bounty, even into the cold and snow that will be here before we know it. Preserve, preserve, preserve!
2011 has been a banner year for foodborne illness. Sadly, this most current outbreak, involving Listeria monocytogenes, has been linked to 13 deaths in 18 states. The bacteria can affect people up to 2 months after it has been consumed, so there is a chance that we will see even more illnesses in the near future.
Slow Food’s $5 Challenge is this Saturday, September 17th! Can you take back the "value meal?" We decided to give it a try in advance to let you know what our challenges were and give you, dear Ecocentric reader, some ideas for cheap dishes. The $5 per/person guidelines were a little intimidating to some of us, though others said, "no sweat!" Since this was a potluck, our plan was for each person to create a dish that would feed a small portion to at least 5 people for $5 or less.
