Sustainable White Green House

By Rachel Tanis

This past week President Obama chose a new and somewhat unexpected assistant chef to help run the kitchen in the White House. The chef, Sam Kass, is a 28-year-old Chicagoan who fed the first family when they resided in the Windy City. Kass graduated from the University of Chicago and had some training in Europe before working at a trendy Chicago eatery and then moving on to serve the Obama’s. Kass also runs his own business, Inevitable Table.

Kass is a big believer in the sustainable food movement. He will serve the Obama’s (as well as any other White House guests) meals made with local, sustainable ingredients. Sustainable kitchens have become a big part of the green movement because they incorporate environmental initiatives with just plain great food.

Sustainable kitchens are supplied with fresh vegetables from locally grown gardens (preferably as local as one’s backyard) and local meats that come from real local ranches instead of commercial meat farmers. This cuts down on the amount of shipping that the food must go through before it reaches your cutting board. It also ensures that you know what chemical sprays or additives are or aren’t there.

Commercial farms have certainly changed the way that we eat, and impacted our economy. However, some would argue that commercial farming is detrimental to the average person’s diet as well as the environment. Commercial produce farms grow and harvest crops that are then shipped all over the world.

While it is convenient and nice to enjoy Florida oranges during a Michigan winter or Michigan cherries during a Florida heat wave, it is also costly to the environment. Huge tractors are involved in every facet of farming, which leaves a large carbon footprint. From there, semi-trucks and planes use oil-based fuels to ship the goods where they need to go.

The damage doesn’t just apply to produce. Farm-raised animals are also causing damage. Commercial dairy and meat farms often raise the most animals that can be fit onto a ranch, with little regard to what those close quarters mean to food quality. It is no coincidence that as commercial meat farms have increased, so has mad cow disease.

Many of the highest quality restaurants will only purchase “pasture-raised” animals. That’s a lot like saying “free-range” when talking about chickens. It means that the animals have room to roam and can enjoy many different varieties of vegetation, instead of just the limited diet provided to them. This provides leaner meat on animals that can roam, and tastier milk and meat on those that are aloud to consume different foods.

While it certainly would not be surprising now to see a vegetable garden at the White House, one must wonder if we’ll see chickens running around anytime soon!

For more on the sustainable White House, click on this link to hear or read an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered.

LINK: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98613372

Sources for information featured in this week’s post include:

http://www.startribune.com/politics/38589597.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUsT

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2009/01/30/barack-obama-eating-sustainable-local-food-in-white-house/