edible education

Berkeley restaurateur Alice Waters planted the seeds long ago. This year's seedlings in edible education initiatives will likely reap bountiful harvest in our current socio-economic predicament. Our culture has deviated from traditional food values and become a culture of convenience. Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation is an antidote for this cultural expedience, hailing programs like the Edible Schoolyard and School Lunch Reform. Created in 1996, her foundation is a powerful tool to educate and empower kids about food, and is currently effective in the entire Berkeley public school system. Water’s ideas are big, yet elegantly basic. Kids learn at school. They learn what’s cool, what’s important and what they like. The Chez Panisse Foundation has instituted food as a curriculum. And along the way students learn about sustainability, science, culture, language— about themselves. I bet very few kids know the feeling of satisfaction from nurturing a seed to a meal. I was fortunate to be raised in a family where food was a centerpiece for togetherness. However, overloaded schedules, fast food and a general disregard for this essential family ritual—for our own wellbeing— have all diluted our culture’s relationship with food. That’s why I love this primordial food education concept. It forces kids to look a food differently, is a legitimate learning tool and might just inspire families to break bread more often. Berkeley has always been a forward thinking place. So I find it especially refreshing that a program is already underway at the small high school I attended in Greensboro, NC. Food for Thought, Imagine that!