Eat well, and save the planet "Read"

At last … it has taken too long, according to Alice Waters, but the message is catching on.
Photo: Stephanie Rausser

Eat well, and save the planet

Healthy food makes for a healthy planet. Sue White talks to the woman who has spread the word.

Eating locally, buying organic and knowing the name of your farmer are all concepts that will appeal to the eco-minded. But for Alice Waters, the highly regarded sustainable foodie, these are more than concepts, they are part of a broader philosophy which links food to the health of our planet.

After spending more than three decades spreading the word at home in the United States and across the globe, Waters says the message is finally taking hold.

"There is an awareness now that the food that we eat is affecting not only our health, but the health of our environment and our culture. I think there was a point where we were beginning to accept the globalisation of food, and now that's changing."

Still, she says: "It's taken too long. Especially in [the United States]."

The Waters phenomenon is so multi-faceted it is hard to believe it has been achieved by just one woman. A long-time proponent of sustainable farming, her work is deemed inspirational in food circles, and she is regularly credited with inspiring restaurants across the US to use organic produce. Some may simply know of her cookbooks (there are eight), or the much lauded Berkeley, California, restaurant Chez Panisse, once acknowledged as the country's best. In the world of Slow Food, Waters's name is also revered; she is an international governor of the movement.

While Chez Panisse's focus on local suppliers and seasonal produce may not sound radical today, it is worth remembering that Waters has been at this since the 1970s. She says people were first convinced by the taste.

"It wasn't a matter of philosophy back then; it was only the pursuit of flavour. It emerged that the best tasting food is grown by people using heritage varieties of fruit and vegetables, who take care of the land, pick things when they are ripe, and bring them to the farmer's market just after they are picked. That's what gives the flavour."

But while Chez Panisse now employs 119 staff, including two head chefs, "so they have time for their families", and boasts alumni who head some of the better known food haunts in California, it is Waters's work in the public education system that keeps her fuelled.

Through what she terms "edible education" she and her Chez Panisse Foundation have spent the past 12 years aiming to change US school lunches for the better. Focusing her work on the Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in Berkeley, Waters has created "The Edible Schoolyard", a cooking and garden program that is now integrated into the school's daily life, with classes in cooking, the origins of food and the principles of ecology.