by Valerie Schafer Franklin.

Homemade granola bars and a canteen of coffee fueled approximately 30 lecturegoers who attended Slow Food Portland’s live simulcast of TEDxManhattan’s “Changing the Way We Eat” on Saturday the 21st at Trinity Lutheran Church. The series was split into three sections: Issues, Impact, and Innovation. Due to the time difference, Slow Food Portland tuned in to the Impact and Innovation sections only.

Hosted by Laurie David, the two sections featured 12 different inspiring speakers, and 3 previously filmed videos, designed to broaden the scope of impact of our food systems and inspire with hopeful innovations.

A summary of the lectures that will be eventually put online for viewing by TEDxManhattan.

IMPACT Session:
- the vitality and diversity of living soil by Fred Kirschenmann of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
- a model immigrant farm program resulting 22 family farms run by GrowNYC, presented by Michelle Hughes
- an exploration of the science, and social constructs, of taste by Mitchell Davis of the James Beard Foundation
- the disconnect between America’s love for all animals and the actual treatment of farm animals, by Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society
- an organic gardening therapy program for veterans run by the Center for Veteran’s Issues, by Howard Hinterhuer
- an unforgettably energetic presentation by an inspired teacher in the South Bronx named Stephen Ritz who has worked with is classes to change lives in the poorest Congressional district in America by building green walls for education, food, and careers for kids

INNOVATION Session:
- presentation of a new website called Real Time Farms by Cara Rosaen, which provides transparency for consumers in a map format to show where their food comes from
- introduction to the organization Recirculating Farms Coalition by Marianne Cufone, which educates, advocates, and researches closed-loop aquaculture/hydroponics/aquaponics farms
- an en”gross”ing video following up on TEDx Fellow Stefani Bardin’s first clinical trial comparatively filming the digestion process of processed food meals versus whole foods meals.
- a model program in the Bronx called Green Cart by Kerry McLean, increasing access to fresh food in food deserts and creating job opportunities for low-income and immigrant communities through supported business incubation of mobile produce carts
- a new business model called BrightFarms by Paul Lightfoot which creates commercial hydroponic greenhouses on grocery store rooftops, increasing the quality of produce for the same or better price as conventional produce by cutting out the middle of the supply chain
- a new product called Fenugreen, a spice-infused paper that increases the shelf life of produce, by entrepreneur Kavita Shukla
- presentation of website AmpleHarvest.org by Gary Oppenheimer, connecting gardeners with surplus produce directly with food pantries at designated times to avoid the need for refrigeration logistics, preventing waste in landfills, and increasing the quality of food for the people who need it most

More information and videos about TEDxManhattan are available at tedxmanhattan.org.

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Valerie Schafer Franklin is a food lover, entrepreneur, and sometime freelance writer living in Portland, Oregon.

In the slow food movement, Good is in part an invitation to not only nourish our bodies through food, but also our spirits with each meal enjoyed.

But how big of a challenge is it for today’s busy parents to actually enjoy a slow food meal when trying to get their little ones to eat their vegetables? Steve Holt’s latest article “Slow food, redefined: Trying not to rush the family meal” talks exactly about that.

In our family, we do cook a good number of our meals from scratch, make an effort to sit around the table together to dine, and try to have actual conversations while eating. We buy locally grown food when we can and practice a number of “slow food” principles: purchasing locally grown food when we can, patronizing farmers’ markets, belonging to a local CSA, and generally attempting to enjoy both the taste of the foods we eat and the experience of eating them.

But I’m afraid we’ve still fallen into the speed-eating trap, and we’re bringing our four-year-old along for the ride. It’s a shame, too, since we often end up cutting short his spontaneous songs or stories in an effort to move the meal along. And for what? So we can accomplish another task? So we can stick to a schedule? What happened to appreciating the entire mealtime process, savoring each bite and each other along the way?

Click here to read the full article.

Inspired by the vision of Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing As If Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered, published in 2009, the Slow Money Alliance is bringing people together around a new conversation about money that is too fast, about finance that is disconnected from people and place, about how we can begin fixing our economy from the ground up… starting with food.

Since mid-2010, local Slow Money chapters have emerged in roughly a dozen locales around the country. Some are hosting local entrepreneur showcases. Many have begun investing. In Portland, a Slow Money founding member has made a $40,000 loan and is seeking to develop an 80-acre agricultural parcel into a new farm incubator.

Slow Money by Robin Fladebo

Would you use a factory to raise a pig?
Would you design a system that nets only nine cents of every food dollar to the farmer?
Would you allow topsoil to wash down the Mississippi River, replete with pesticides and fertilizer residue, creating a dead zone the size of Rhode Island in the Gulf of Mexico?
Would you use 57 calories of petroleum-energy to produce one calorie of food energy?

Of course not! But all of these statements describe our current food system. No one sat down to consciously design this system. Yet this is the technology-heavy, extractive food system we now have, and that many people feel we need to remediate and reform.

In 2008, venture capital investor and entrepreneur Woody Tasch authored a book called, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered. The Slow Money Alliance is a network of organizations that have created a vision around the ideas included in Tasch’s book. Members of the Slow Money Alliance are trying out new ways of thinking about the relationship between food, money and soil.

How does “Slow Money” relate to “Slow Food”? “Slow Food” is a global, grassroots organization with the goal of linking the pleasure of good food with a commitment to local communities and the environment. The Slow Food philosophy is that everyone has a fundamental right to the pleasure of good food and consequently, the responsibility to protect the heritage of food, and the tradition and culture that make this pleasure possible. The “Slow Money movement” seeks to create capital flows to support “slow food” enterprises. That is, Slow Money’s mission is to find ways to raise and allocate capital to support diverse, small scale agriculture. Only 0.01% of investment in agriculture goes to anything other than industrial agriculture—and Slow Money advocates wants to change that. It takes hundreds of years to build an inch of soil, but less than 40 years to strip an inch of soil by farming in ways that are focused on maximizing current yield, as we currently do.

Technologically advanced nations have been “mining” the soil by removing its organic content without replacing it, compromising future productivity for the sake of enormous harvests today. Some people refer to this as the “Peak Soil” crisis, which suggests the exhaustion of a resource – soil fertility– that is ultimately more vital to civilization than oil. Slow Money is built around the idea of organizing food markets from the ground up, based on the long term health of the soil.

Small food enterprises that are dedicated to using sustainable agricultural practices are too big for micro-finance, much too small for venture capital, and not easy candidates for equity capital. It’s very difficult for small food enterprises to get the capital they need to grow their businesses. Tasch, the “slow money” advocate, says we must connect investors to the places where they live, creating vital relationships and new sources of capital for small food enterprises. He thinks we can do this by devising a new form of financial intermediation that favors a large number of small, independent local-first food enterprises. The audacious goal of the Slow Money Alliance is to get one million people to invest 1% of their money in local food enterprises, within a decade.

The challenge of reintegrating social and environmental concerns into the financing of our food system is a mirror of the challenge we face in broader capital markets. There has been a thousands-fold increase in the number of shares traded since the 1960s, and a proliferation of increasingly complex financial instruments. Trillions of dollars a day zoom around planet. Is it any wonder that we don’t know what our money is doing if it’s moving so fast and complexity is out of control? Slow money is the opposite of this very fast money. The speed of financial markets and the short term thinking that fast money breeds in CEOs and investors is both a reflection of and a cause of dislocation in our culture at large.

Suppose we could catalyze the emergence of the nurture capital industry? Nurture capital would finance entrepreneurs who are doing things that support soil fertility, that honor carrying capacity, have a sense of place, honor cultural and ecological diversity, and are nonviolent. Suppose we could create an economy that does less harm than our current one, based on fair trade, with a living wage and basic benefits for everyone? Suppose we set about rebuilding trust and reconnecting to one another and the places where we live? Suppose we pulled some of our money out of fast-moving financial markets, with their complexity and abstraction, and put it to work near where we live, in things that we understand, starting with food? We could create a “Main Street Exchange”, populated by small, independent, locally-rooted companies that are reimagining business as a tool for rebuilding communities and bioregions. The companies participating in the Main Street Exchange will develop around appropriate corporate scale – they won’t be too big or too fast! These are the ideas behind “slow money”.

Will you take a few minutes today to reflect on three questions from the Slow Money Alliance?

– What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets within 50 miles of where we live?

– What if there was a new generation of companies that gave away 50% of their profits?

– What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?

[1] Adapted from Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered by Woody Tasch (2008).

[1] Ibid

On September 17th, Slow Food members and friends across the country will gather to share good, clean, fair and affordable meals. The goal is to Take Back the Value Meal by cooking fresh, simple meals for under $5 per person – about the cost of a fast food meal.

Slow Food Portland is working with community groups and neighborhood residents to organize a community potluck in the Cully neighborhood. Join us, or take the challenge in your home, school, worksite, a neighborhood park – anywhere you can eat! Share a healthy, delicious meal that costs less than $5 per person. You can cook slow food for yourself and your family for less than $5 per person. You can host a potluck where nothing costs more than $5. You can cook for a crowd and charge $5 or less at the door. Together, we can take back the value meal - because, it should be easier and cheaper to buy fresh, healthy food than fast food!

Every meal counts. Take the challenge here.

In Portland: Cully Community Potluck

Time: September 17, 5:00-7:30
Location: Trinity Lutheran Church, 5520 Northeast Killingsworth Street
Cost: FREE; bring a dish to share – no contribution is too small, and there will be plenty of fresh food available for all to eat!
RSVP: Visit the Day of Action Site and our Facebook event page.

As part of the Day of Action, Slow Food Portland is working with community members and organizations in the Cully Neighborhood to plan the Cully Community Potluck, an event to celebrate ongoing efforts to increase fresh, healthy and affordable foods in Cully, and to find new ways to work for a just food system for all. How can Slow Food be a partner to communities around Portland, like Cully, that are faced with fast food swamps and real food deserts? We’ll start the conversation over a meal.

Raise the Roof: Volunteer to Help Build the CAPACES Leadership Institute

Last September, members and friends of Slow Food Portland spent a day shoveling gravel and moving dirt – helping to prepare the site of the CAPACES Leadership Institute, a project of PCUN that is destined to build leadership capacity and political consciousness in the Oregon farmworker movement. The walls of the Institute are now standing, but volunteers – especially skilled carpenters – are needed to finish construction and get the roof on by October. To learn more about volunteer opportunities or sign up for a Saturday volunteer brigade, contact Javier Lara.

Thank you for being part of our community. We reached 2000 friends on Facebook and we couldn’t be more excited!

As a “thank you” for your support, we are giving away two FREE tickets to our upcoming July 27 happy hour. If you are new to Slow Food, this would be a wonderful time to meet with like-minded people, and if you’ve been part of the movement for a while, it’s a great excuse to come mingle and engage.

For a chance to win a ticket, simply answer these three questions about Slow Food correctly in the comments section by Sunday, July 24 (one entry per person, please). We’ll draw two winners using random.org. You’ll get an email if you are a lucky winner. Enter to win now!

Here you go…

• The international Slow Food movement was founded in…
  1969 or 1989
• Slow Food USA headquarters are in…
  New York or Washington DC
• The three Slow Food principles are Good, Clean and…
  Fair or Local

Good luck to all and thanks again for being such great supporters!

What is Slow Food up to?

Please join Slow Food Portland at The Bent Brick for a Happy Hour filled with conversation and information.

Katherine Deumling, Slow Food USA Board member and erstwhile Slow Food Portland chair, will begin with some highlights of Slow Food’s current work and exciting plans. The National Day of Action on September 17th will be the focus and we’ll hear about opportunities to get involved. The Day of Action will bring attention to the cost and access of good, clean, and fair food; a perfect introduction to Slow Food’s comprehensive Farm Bill campaign that is in the making.

When: Wednesday, July 27, 2011, 5:45 PM to 7:00 PM
Where: The Bent Brick, 1639 NW Marshall Street, Portland OR 97209  map
Who: Slow Food members and friends
Cost: $5/member, $8/non-member
RSVP: rsvp@slowfoodportland.com, tickets at door

Bring your questions, ideas, and friends. Light appetizers provided. No-host beverages available.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Last Thursday, June 23, at the Harvesting Hope screening, the Farmworker Housing Development Corporation (FHDC) honored Slow Food Portland with their 2011 Community Partner Award.

Jaime Arredondo, FHDC Director of Fund Development, mentioned how the partnership began when Slow Food Portland members toured farmworker housing, including on-farm camps and FHDC communities in May of 2009, and since has grown into numerous presentations and volunteer days.

Accepting the award were current chair Cheryl Brock and immediate past chair Amanda Peden. Brock thanked FHDC for their inspiring work in assisting farmerworkers and their families. She noted that FHDC has helped Slow Food Portland address the “fair” in the Slow Food mission of supporting food that is “good, clean and fair.”

Attending the event were other past leaders of Slow Food Portland including Katherine Deumling, Peter De Garmo, Pat de Garmo, Patrick Leonard, and Cynthia Winter. “The evening was my proudest moment as a member of Slow Food,” said founding Slow Food Portland member Peter de Garmo.

About FHDC
Farmworker Housing Development Corporation is a community-based non-profit organization dedicated to serving mid-Willamette Valley farmworkers and their families. FHDC was established in 1990 when Oregon Legal Services, Salud Medical Center, PCUN (Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United), Farmworker Ministries, and a number of individuals joined forces to establish a single agency for the development of affordable housing for low-income farmworkers.

Quick facts (source FHDC website):

• The average life expectancy for migrant farmworkers is 49 years, compared to 73 for the general U.S. population (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
• Oregon produces some 220 crops and livestock commodities -a greater variety than any state except Florida and California. The value of these crops and commodities totals more than four billion dollars each year.
• There are approximately four million migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the U.S. today, with Oregon agricultural industries and farms reliant upon up to 90,000 each year.
• There are at least 7 different languages spoken in FHDC’s housing communities.
• The median household income for FHDC residents is under$16,000.
• Recent research shows 14% of FHDC residents went hungry at some point last year (2008) and 40% were “food insecure.”
• Recent research shows 76% of FHDC residens don’t have health insurance and have limited access to health care providers.

To learn more about FHDC and see how you can help, visit their website www.fhdc.org.

Join Slow Food Portland and Portland State University for a panel discussion to learn how our food system creates injustice, and how people in Portland and around the country are helping to change that. Add your voice to the discussion as we explore the challenges and opportunities to developing a fair food system for all.

Building a Fair Food System offers an in-depth discussion with Anupama Joshi, Robert Gottlieb, and Portland food activists as they explore current issues in food justice and offer insight into how we can work toward a more equitable food system for all.

Food justice means food that is healthy, clean, and affordable for all, produced with respect for the land and the people who work it. Today’s broken food system leaves too many of us without access to good food – through high food costs and low wages, lack of available fresh foods in many neighborhoods, and a system that rewards the production of highly processed and packaged foods.

Those of us who work in the fields and factories often face harsh working conditions, low wages, and extreme health risks. Those who farm the land and put food on our tables are barely able to make a living wage. Our most vulnerable communities, like children and immigrants, are some of the most impacted by the rising obesity crisis. It’s time to build a new, fair food system.

Join us on Wednesday, May 18th from 6-8pm at the Smith Memorial Student Union, Vanport Room, Room 338, Portland State University. View on Facebook. This event is FREE (suggested donation $5). We look forward to seeing you there!

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About the Presenters
Anupama Joshi and Robert Gottlieb, food systems scholars and co-authors of the new book, “Food Justice,” will lead the panel discussion, joined by food justice advocates from the Portland area.

“Food Justice is about who grows our food, how it is grown, where it is grown, who gets to eat it, and the pleasure and celebration of eating food that is good food, clean food, fair food. Food Justice tells us that growing and eating food are political acts that challenge a system that is neither good, nor clean, nor fair. Read it!”
- Carlo Petrini, founder, Slow Food International

Robert Gottlieb is Professor of Urban & Environmental Policy and the Director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Anupama Joshi is Director of the National Farm to School Program based at the Center for Food and Justice, a division of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College.

Stacey Sobell serves as Farm-to-School Program Manager for Ecotrust, and will address connections between immigrant farmers and childcare centers.

Javier Lara is the Community Organizer for PCUN (Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United). He will speak to issues of farmworker rights.

A Word from our Chair

Food Justice offers a comprehensive look at our food system, one overrun by industrialized agriculture and mega-corporations that result in a lack of good food for many and often inequity for those producing our food. Yet the book also showcases individuals and organizations that are successfully taking control of food production, quality and access for their families, schools and communities in small, large, and sometimes surprising ways. As Slow Food advocates for consumers to become co-producers in what we eat and in all aspects of the process — this book is an inspiration.

I look forward to the May 18 event and the discussion generated by authors Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi as we continue to address “fair” in the Slow Food manifesto of “supporting good, clean and fair food.”

Cheryl Brock, Chair
Slow Food Portland

The Food for Thought conference is in full swing at the University of Portland and tomorrow night Michael Polan will do the keynote address. We are so excited that this is happening in our city that we want to celebrate with a book giveaway on Facebook.

TWO WAYS TO WIN
If you already LIKE us on Facebook…

…and you are going to Michael Polan’s talk:  leave a comment on our Facebook page with a takeaway thought from his talk

…and you didn’t make it to the talk, write on our wall and tell us what is your favorite Michael Polan’s book and why

Then go out and get some votes! Ask your Facebook friends to “Like” your comment. The comment with the most “Likes” wins!

If you don’t LIKE us on Facebook yet…

…go to www.facebook.com/SlowFoodPDX and click “LIKE.” All new “Likes” to our page will be entered to win as well.

DEADLINE
Only new likes and posted comments from 5pm on Saturday April 16 through noon on Monday April 18 will be considered for the giveaway.

THE PRIZE
We are giving away two copies of Kim Boyce’s  “Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours,” recently nominated for a James Beard Award.

One copy goes to the post with most likes and another to a randomly selected new page Like.

Good luck and see you on Facebook!

The Food For Thought conference is happening in Portland this weekend at the University of Portland campus. Topics range from meat production to social justice and sustainability. The conference ends with a keynote address by Michael Polan.

Stop by the Slow Food table and say hi on Saturday night  on your way to Polan’s talk.

Hope to see you there.