Organic Noodles Go To School

What comes to mind when you think of school lunches?

Once a week the cooks in my high school cafeteria served fresh cinnamon rolls baked onsite, as well as a lusciously gooey mac'n'cheese that can still make me drool when I think of it. That was before school kitchens were disassembled and preparation was centralized in an attempt to cut labor and food costs. Those of a certain age might remember when then-President Ronald Reagan's USDA attempted to (unsuccessfully) classify ketchup as a vegetable on children's lunch trays, and most of us probably think that low quality, commodity foods are still a common feature of school cafeterias.

Umi Noodle Day poster.

Dr. Betty Izumi, a registered dietitian and a professor in the School of Public Health at Portland State University, gets frustrated when she hears Portlanders talk about how gross school lunch is. “They are perpetuating a stereotype that is not true," she said. "I ask them, ‘How do you know? Have you ever eaten it?’ ”

In point of fact, for several years Portland Public Schools (PPS) has been working to make its lunches healthier and incorporate local food in its menus. Those efforts have benefited from state legislation that gives Oregon schools money to buy local food and create garden and farm education opportunities.*

Umi Organic's Lola Milholland.

As part of this funding, on Tuesday, May 14, PPS students will be served locally produced Umi Organic yakisoba stir-fry noodles for lunch as part of a traditional Japanese meal of fresh roasted cabbage, carrots and noodles in yakisoba sauce (with or without chicken), in all of the city's public schools. The noodles, made with 50 percent organic whole grains—Edison and durum wheat, to be specific—sourced from Camas Country Mill in Junction City, Oregon, were developed specifically for schools in cooperation with PPS nutrition directors.

Lola Milholland, co-founder and CEO of Umi Organic, studied Japanese language and culture since kindergarten in PPS. After college she worked at Ecotrust, where she focused on supporting the first Farm to School Bill in 2011. “To work with both PPS and the Farm to School Bill as a business is a dream come true and feels very full circle for me,” Milholland said. "We worked very hard to find the right flour mix to create a great, chewy yakisoba but without the typical preservatives, food dyes, and unidentifiable ingredients."

If these noodles are a hit with the kids, they will be featured regularly next year. What can we say but "Itadakimasu!" (The equivalent of "bon appetit" in Japanese.)

* The Oregon legislature is voting to renew funding for the Farm to School program later this month. House Bill 2579 would provide $5 million for Oregon schools to buy and serve Oregon foods, and districts and partner organizations to provide agriculture, nutrition, and garden-based educational activities. The bill renews the existing $4.5 million program and $500,000 in additional funding to serve more schools and students, and evaluate results. Let your Congressperson know how important it is for our children to have access to healthy, locally produced food. Find your legislator here.

Photos from Umi Organic.

The Future of Our Food: Building Infrastructure for a Regional Food System

This series interviews farmers, food activists, politicians and policy wonks to try to get a handle on the seismic shift in our local food landscape due to the change of administrations in Washington.

As Vice President of Food & Farms at Ecotrust, Amanda Oborne leads a team seeking to revolutionize and regionalize our food system. By harnessing the purchasing power of schools and institutions, empowering local farmers and ranchers, and developing infrastructure to connect the two, Ecotrust is helping build a resilient regional food economy that nourishes communities and renews the resources on which we depend. Recently named one of the "Most Creative People in Business" by Fast Company magazine, Amanda has a master’s degree from Northwestern University, and spent 15 years in private enterprise before joining Ecotrust in 2010. She has recently been featured in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fast Company and Civil Eats, and appeared at the Food Tank 2016 National Summit and the New York Times Live: Future of Food.

What are the critical issues affecting agriculture and our food system a) here in the Northwest and b) in the country as a whole?

Our biggest challenges are shared—our health, economy, environment and culture are intertwined with our food and how we produce and disseminate it. I believe the system we rely on for our food is fundamentally flawed. Our biology makes us highly susceptible to food that is bad for us, and our "always-on" culture keeps us running and distracted—all of which makes it extremely profitable, given the economic structure in which we operate, for corporations to exploit those realities for significant profit but to the collective detriment of our health and humanity.

It is inhumane, in my mind, to propagate a food system that solves for financial profit over human health and wellbeing. People from all walks of life—farmers and ranchers in rural communities, school children, hospital patients, service industry and agricultural workers, people disadvantaged by institutional racism, people living in poverty and even privileged city dwellers like you and me, suffer to varying degrees from a food system that prioritizes profit and efficiency over nutrition, access and resource stewardship.

If we are to have any hope of addressing these core issues, we are going to have to come together. That means not dividing ourselves into factions dedicated to certain types of production (organic vs. GMO vs. no-till vs. pastured, etc.), but collaborating to support restorative agriculture of all kinds, values-based supply chains and regional markets.

Putting on your best prognosticating hat, what are the issues you think are going to be at the top of the list of the new administration, and how do you think it will address them?

This administration appears to be focused on profit-maximization and deregulation, but seems unaware of how its policies, particularly on immigration and trade, would affect agribusiness. In addition to deleting all references to animal welfare from the White House website, the president has signaled a preference for commodity agriculture over "backyard tomato farming,"  which is how he seems to be characterizing non-commodity production and regional supply chains. The reality is, however, that many types of differentiated production have been shown to yield a higher profit per acre, and consumer demand for food free of antibiotics, pesticides, animal cruelty, added sugar and other unnecessary additives is not going away.

What’s more, a growing number of consumers want their food system to reflect their values, including livable wages and fair treatment for both farm workers and service industry employees, equitable access to nutrient-dense food and higher standards for animal welfare. Eaters are going to have to find their voices and speak up. The good news is that because food is so connected to other issues—climate change, children’s health and ability to learn in school, immigration, equity, aging, and many others—speaking up for food has a ripple effect on many other important issues.

What do we as citizens need to be paying attention to? What are the best sources for information on the issues?

If you care about any of these challenges, you would do well to read Civil Eats regularly. The foremost repository of news, thought, analysis and solutions being piloted in regions across the country, Civil Eats carries the pulse of food and restorative agriculture and is completely accessible to eaters of all stripes.

For those actively working or volunteering in food system reform, I can also recommend the Food & Environment Reporting Network and its partner publication, Ag Insider, along with Mother Jones; the weekly newsletter of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition; Food Tank; and Food Tech Connect.

In your opinion, what’s the most effective action citizens can take in the short term? In the long term?

Show up for local, practical, immediate causes. For example, the Oregon Legislature is considering eliminating funding for farm to school in this legislative session. This would be an incredible blow to Oregon children, farmers and processors all in one hit. Research conducted by Ecotrust has shown, without question, that every dollar spent by schools on local food creates an additional dollar of economic activity in our home economy, and creates jobs as well. Parents and supporters can stay tuned to the Facebook pages of Ecotrust and Upstream Public Health for regular updates and calls to action.

What organizations most need our support?

Becoming a monthly Ecotrust giver puts any eater squarely in the fight for an equitable, restorative, prosperous and delicious food system, and the gifts are used locally for the benefit of Oregon farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, as well as children and families facing system disadvantages in food access. Yes, of course I’m biased, but I can certainly vouch for the work!

Read more in The Future of Our Food series.

Top photo by Chloe Aftel.

The Future of Our Food: New York Times Looks West

The New York Times panel described below was held on October 5, 2016, a month before the recent election, but brought out some key insights that I hope to explore in future posts in this series. Installments over the next few months will include interviews with farmers, food activists, plant breeders and policy wonks to try to get a handle on the seismic shift in our local food landscape due to the change of administrations in Washington.

The New York Times has been fascinated with Portland for years now, featuring it as a travel destination, for sure, but mostly focused on watching its food and restaurant scene evolve from a backwater of middle class meh to a powerhouse of groundbreaking local, seasonal, chef-driven cuisine. In its own transition from a national newspaper to a national media corporation, the Times has been expanding its New York-centric, issues-based series called Times Talks to a more national platform.

Recently it brought this form of live journalism to Portland, sending out Times national food correspondent Kim Severson to moderate a panel titled "The Future of Food in Portland.” The panel featured local food notables Piper Davis of Grand Central Bakery; Kanth Gopalpur of the Business Oregon Commission; chef Joshua McFadden of Ava Gene’s and Tusk; and Amanda Oborne, Vice President of Food and Farms at Ecotrust.

In an interview before the event I asked Severson why the Times chose to come to Portland.

"I’m just fascinated with where Portland is going to go now," she said. "Because [the city] got really cute and we all fell in love with it. Portland was like a really attractive 20-year-old college sophomore with a great life. But now what?"

Echoing that question after introducing her panelists, she opened the discussion asking if it wasn't time for Portland to mature a little bit.

"It all goes back to Colin the chicken," Piper Davis answered, referring to a much-joked-about sketch on the TV series "Portlandia" where two foodies pester their server with questions about their entrée. "Those of us who care where our food comes from can no longer ask that question." Instead, she said, the concern has shifted in her mind: Did this food leave the soil in better condition than it started?

"Major problems still need to be solved," she continued, saying that the national perception is that most of the work is done, when in reality people aren't talking about the gaps in the food system when it comes to the environment, sustainability and universal access to good food regardless of income or where a person lives.

Severson then turned to Josh McFadden and asked him about the city's "cheffy culture," asking how its Olympic-level chef game will affect Portland's producer-driven reputation.

Answering that he initially moved back to Portland from stints in San Francisco, Chicago and New York because of the people more than the food scene here, he said he found that "the product is as good or better than anyplace else," and that local farmers like Anthony and Carol Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm and John Eveland and Sally Brewer of Gathering Together Farm are producing innovative crops at the highest level.

Severson herself is no stranger to the Northwest, having lived in the region and worked for newspapers in Seattle, Anchorage and right here in Portland during a short stint at the Oregonian.

In our interview I asked what differentiates the Northwest and its food from that found in the rest of the country. She paused.

"There’s just something about the mix of the ruggedness of the place and the purity of the raw ingredients here," she said. "The most memorable things I’ve eaten come from the Northwest."

She added that when she was working in Alaska she got sick of salmon, referring to it as "the zucchini of Alaska." But having been away for decades now, and with wild-caught salmon a rare thing to find on the East Coast, she had an epiphany.

"Last night [at a Portland restaurant] I had a beautiful, perfectly seared piece of wild salmon," she said. "It was like heaven to me and, especially on the East Coast, the beauty of wild salmon—I know it sounds so cliché and terrible even as I’m saying it—but it’s spectacular."

Bottom line?

"I think your baseline of deliciousness is very high here," Severson said. "Your baseline, how good food that grows around here tastes, I think that’s exceptional. Exceptional."

In the South, where Severson is now based, she said, "There’s some really great produce, but it’s so crazy hot it’s tricky to grow stuff there. But there’s something very clean about it here that other places don’t have. There’s a freshness here that makes it super special to me."

Any Portland cook can tell you that freshness also has a lot to do with the proximity of local farms to the city's core, a point that was brought up by Grand Central's Piper Davis.

"No one talks about the urban growth boundary and food, but it's critically connected," Davis said of the line drawn around the city in 1980 as a land use planning boundary to control urban expansion onto farm and forest lands.

Amanda Oborne of Ecotrust, tasked with developing The Redd, an effort in inner Southeast Portland's former produce district designed to support local food enterprises, said that Portland is a city of innovators and, as with the urban growth boundary in the '80s, is still experimenting with ideas to provide services to make food more accessible and sustainable.

"The Redd is not about the food scene, it's about the food system," she said of what is envisioned as a working hub for the regional food system.

It's an idea that Severson echoed in our interview as a distinguishing characteristic of the city.

"The ability to make things happen in this city, foodwise, the potential [that] if you have an idea you can probably make it happen, is exciting," she said, attributing it to both the city's size and its culture.

"There’s not a lot of people who say no here," Severson mused. "It’s a function of size, of culture and people who are, like, 'Huh, you wanna like have a chicken-powered ancient grain mill and coffee shop? That could be cool.'"

One thing that surprised her, in a city so well known for its food culture, is that there is no food council here to direct, support and develop food policy for Portland, Multnomah County or the metro region. [The now-defunct Portland/Multnomah Food Policy Council served as a citizen-based advisory board to the City of Portland and Multnomah County from 2002-2012 and was dissolved in 2012 due to "lacking relevancy."]

As to the future, Severson seemed of two minds about where the Northwest is headed. "You certainly saw Berkeley get very popular, [but] San Francisco and Northern California cuisine is very hidebound," she said of larger West Coast cities known for innovation in the past but hampered by stagnation and the cost of doing business there. "Maybe Portland can do it differently."

Read the first installment in this series: Post-Election Pondering.

Top photo from The New York Times: (l to r) Josh McFadden, Kanth Gopalpur, Kim Severson, Amanda Oborne, Piper Davis.

Livin' in the Blurbs: April Events, No Foolin'

It's shocking to me that more people don't know about the annual Farm Fest Plowing Competition in McMinnville. For horse lovers young and old it's a no-brainer. For history buffs, it's like stepping back into a piece of Oregon's agricultural past (and more and more, its future). For Trekkies…well, that one's a stretch unless you pretend you're on the holodeck. But really, the chance to have a drive through some gorgeous country, to see these beautiful animals at work and the men and women who train and work with them, is a real privilege. And we're not just talking hobbyists here. Many of the competitors actually plow their farms with these horses and mules and are available for questions and photos. Plus you can take  a tour of the museum, see a quilt show and hear live old-time music. Seriously, it's well worth a couple of hours on a Saturday to see it.

Details: Farm Fest 2013 Plowing Competition. Sat., April 13, 10 am-4 pm; $3 per person, kids 12 and under free. Yamhill Valley Heritage Center, 11275 SW Durham Lane at the intersection of Hwy. 18 and Duram Lane, McMinnville. 503-434-0490.

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Before we remodeled our kitchen we spent a lot of time looking at other people's, gathering ideas and making lists of what worked and didn't, what we wanted and, of course, what we could actually afford. Home tours were a part of that, but the most helpful to us, at least, was the Architectural Heritage Center's Kitchen Revival Tour featuring an array of homes from the 1890s to the 1950s. It's coming around again on April 13, so those considering a remodel at some point in the future, or those of a just-plain-snoopy bent should definitely put it on their calendars.

Details: Architectural Heritage Center Kitchen Revival Tour. Sat., April 13, 10 am-4 pm; $25, tickets available online. 503 231-7264.

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"Going Beyond Happy Farmers & Recipes" should be the title of an upcoming day-long workshop on food journalism and issues. Called the Food + Agriculture Media Project (F+AMP)—I like to think of it as "FoodAmp"—it's being put on by the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) and Ecotrust on April 12. Coordinator Jackleen de la Harpe says that with the increasing interest on the part of consumers about where their food comes from, "it's time to go beyond the 'plate-centric' approach to food writing." She promises reporters, bloggers and writers an engaging exploration of the deeper issues of our food system, including sustainability, climate change, poverty and health disparities. Sounds like a worthwhile way to spend a day!

Details: Food + Agriculture Media Project. Friday, April 12, 8:30 am-3:30 pm; $40 with preregistration online. Event at Ecotrust Building, 721 NW 9th Ave.