It was 20 years ago when then-President George H.W. Bush stunned farmers and nutritionists with his anti-broccoli declaration.
“I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it,” he admitted. “And I’m President of the United States and I’m not going to eat anymore broccoli.” The president never touched the green stuff again, even after California farmers delivered 10 tons of broccoli to the White House.
Generations of Americans can relate. Remember mom imploring you to “eat your vegetables” as you sat staring at plate of uneaten greens. This aversion has come with a price in America: an alarming rate of obesity and chronic diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer. Despite this disturbing trend, Americans aren’t flocking to the salad bar.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports only one in three Americans eat the daily-recommended amount of two servings of fruit and just 27 percent eat three servings of vegetables. The picture is even worse for high school students: 32 percent eat enough fruit for the day; 13 percent for vegetables.
Getting Americans to eat more fruits and veggies won’t come overnight.
“We’re talking about changing habits that have been formed over generations,” First Lady Michelle Obama said during a recent nationwide online chat promoting her campaign against childhood obesity. “It’s not going to be easy, but it is possible.”
Winning the dietary revolution will take vision, courage and innovation. Family farmers certainly will help lead the charge. They’ve done it before.
For more than 30 years, the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) has helped growers become a driving force behind the local food movement. They are delivering tons of fresh, local fruits and vegetables directly to families and consumers, to school cafeterias and classrooms, hospitals, restaurants and inner-city farmers markets. They are visiting classrooms, hosting farm tours and sponsoring fruit tastings. At the same time, they are growing food while pioneering eco-friendly farming practices aimed at keeping their operations profitable and preventing toxic pesticides from polluting the air and water.
CAFF has assembled a special 12-member advisory council to help broaden its mission and develop a roadmap for growers to meet tomorrow’s challenges. The council is comprised of prominent leaders in the local food movement, including best-selling author and UC Berkeley Professor Michael Pollan and Alice Waters, the celebrated cookbook author and co-owner Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Each member brings a diversity of expertise in food and agriculture. All have a pulse on the growing local food movement.
For example, John Diener, a San Joaquin Valley grower, earned the 2009 Leopold Conservation Award in California for his innovative conservation tillage and irrigation practices. There’s Bill Fujimoto, an accomplished businessman and produce expert who formerly ran the popular family-owned Monterey Market in Berkeley. And across the bay, there’s Bi-Rite Market owner Sam Mogannam, who founded 18 Reasons, a unique food- and art-focused community center.
The council will provide invaluable ideas and advice to CAFF, its farmers and its food artisans as we join the war on obesity. We envision the day when fresh, local fruit and vegetables are readily available in more communities and in neighborhoods that don’t have access to them now. More importantly, we’ll see Americans embrace a mindset that encourages future presidents to develop a healthy appetite for broccoli.