Synopses & Reviews
Small steps can create big changes in your community’s food quality and food security, helping to get more healthy food to more people and support a better food system. Ali Berlow shows you dozens of things that anyone can do, from creating a neighborhood kitchen for preserving fresh food to mapping farmland, connecting food pantries with food producers, starting a school garden, and organizing a community composting initiative. Every action you take can help keep farmers on the land and family farms intact, keep money in the local economy, reduce the carbon footprint associated with food transportation, and preserve local landscapes. If you’ve had enough of E. coli scares, disappearing farmland, pesticide problems, and hunger in your community, this inspiring book will show you exactly how one person really can make a difference.
Synopsis
One person really can make a difference. From starting neighborhood kitchens to connecting food pantries with local family farms, Ali Berlow offers a variety of simple and practical strategies for improving your community s food quality and security. Learn how your actions can keep money in the local economy, reduce the carbon footprint associated with food transportation, and preserve local landscapes. The Food Activist Handbook gives you the know-how and inspiration to create a better world, one meal at a time.
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Synopsis
FRESH FOOD FOR ALL
"Our food sytem has reached a crisis point, and we need to make it healthy again," writes Ali Berlow. The place to start is in our own communities, where even small steps can make a big difference.
Berlow provides a wealth of tools and solutions to help you energize and organize your local food system and create better access to healthy food for everyone. Full of inspiring stories and practical advice from the vibrant community of food activists, this is your playbook for bringing the food movement home.
About the Author
Ali Berlow founded Island Grown Initiative in 2006 as a non-profit to support local farmers on Martha’s Vineyard. She was instrumental in bringing the first mobile poultry slaughterhouse to the island as a way to help farmers slaughter and process their chickens as humanely as possible. Berlow is the editor of Edible Vineyard and has been a food writer for the last ten years. She wrote the NPR essay series “A Cook’s Notebook” and blogs about food for the Huffington Post. She lives in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Alice Randall
Introduction
Chapter 1: Start
- Know your Local Food Community
- Hold a Potluck with a Purpose
- Find Your Issues
- Host a Farmers' Dinner
Chapter 2: Educate
- Start a Farm to School Program
- Institute Best Practices at Your School Garden
- Get Certified
- Have a Fun-Raiser
- Go to a Conference
- Connect Athletics to Healthy Eating
- Restrict Food and Beverage Advertising in Schools
- Start a Harvest of the Month Program
- Collect Data
- Make Over McDonald's
- Visit Your School Cafeteria
- Suspend Judgment
- Start a College Farm
- Join the Food Revolution
- Celebrate Food Day
Chapter 3: Build
- Ask What Is Working
- Practice the Foundations of Just Food Systems
- Learn Your History
- Campaign For Agricultural Workers' Rights
- Build a Healthy Organization
- Implement a Conflict-of-Interest Policy
- Ask for Money (and Use It Well)
- Keep Your Good Name
- Create a Food Hub
- Make a Map
- Use Mapmaking Software
- Organize a Farmers' Market
- Create a Permit Program for Produce Cart Vendors
- Join Farm Hack
- Support Humane Slaughter
- Build a Local Slaughterhouse
- Find a Policy Geek (or Become One)
- Become an Interpreter
- Learn from Those Who Came before You
Chapter 4: Grow
- Make a Farm Succession Plan
- Green Your City Spaces
- Diversify with Ethnic Crops
- Seek Funding for Commercial Aquaponics
- Save Seeds
- Start a Public Seed Library
- Build a Community Garden
- Grow Free Food
- Keep Bees
- Grow a Kitchen Garden
- Organize a Workplace CSA
- Protect Migrant Workers
Chapter 5: Connect
- Mentor Veterans
- Parade Cows Down Main Street
- Throw a Living Local Fest
- Screen a Film
- Plant a Garden at a Jail
- Decolonize Your Diet
- Host Interfaith Discussions about Food
- Bring Together Food and Religion
Chapter 6: Speak
- Be a Witness
- Promote Good Work
- Keep Informed
- Listen
- Learn to Tell Stories
- Hold a Poetry Workshop
- Publish
- Use Media
Chapter 7: Harvest
- Create a Gleaning Network
- Harvest Public Fruit Trees
- Extend the Harvest
- Forage Wild Foods
- Start a Fillet Program
- Choose Fish Wisely
Chapter 8: Feed
- Support a Local Grocery Store
- Start a Food Miles Labeling Program
- Make Food Distribution Efficient
- Become a Food Desert Grocer
- Shop at Your Local Farmer's Market
- Accept SNAP
- Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage
- Start a Campaign to Tax Unhealthy Food
- Start a Food Recovery Program
- Bring Good Food to Hospitals
- Reduce Food Waste at Restaurants
Chapter 9: Cook
- Make Small Changes
- Plan Meals
- Grocery Shop
- Start a Community Kitchen
- Start a Cooking Club
- Go Meatless on Mondays
- Cook for Someone with Cancer
- Host a Dinner-and-a-Movie Potluck
- Host a Grow-Out
- Clean Up
Chapter 10: Engage
- Start from Where the World Is
- Be an Active Citizen
- Serve on a Board or Commission
- Fund Effective Programs
- Connect Food Policy Councils and Town Planners
- Engage with Boards and Commissions
- Know Your Members of Congress
- Speak Out
- #VoteFood
Acknowledgements
Index