iEat Green with Bhavani

iEat Green -Alison Cohen- Why Hunger

Alison Meares Cohen is the Senior Director of Programs for WhyHunger, a non-profit organization supporting grassroots organizations implementing innovative, community-based solutions to hunger and poverty and participating in movement building. Alison is responsible for helping to develop and steward WhyHunger’s organizational vision and strategy and its implementation through its Grassroots Action Network, Nourish Network for the Right to Food, and Global Movements programs. Prior to joining WhyHunger, Alison served as the Northern Program Manager for Heifer International. From 2001 – 2008 she was responsible for developing partnerships throughout the northeast and midwest regions with local communities and like-minded organizations to build sustainable food systems where limited-resource families, communities and beginner farmers –both rural and urban -- have access to healthy food and income-earning opportunities. Prior to transferring to New York, Alison served as the director of Heifer International's first urban agriculture program based in Chicago, Illinois for five years. Alison has a master's degree in Sociology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a bachelor’s degree in English and French literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For the past twenty-five years she has worked with farmers and communities in West Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada and the United States. Alison lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters, with whom she started the PS 29 Food and Farming Initiative that hosts a school vegetable garden and works to improve the quality of food served in the cafeteria.

iEat Green - Dena Merriam- Global Peace Initiative of Women

Dena Merriam is the Founder and Convener of Global Peace Initiative of Women and author of the new book, “My Journey Through Time;  a spiritual Memoir of Life , Death and Rebirth”. Dena is also a managing  partner and Vice Chairman of Finn Ruder, where she works in cultural marketing, creative services and works for religious and non profit organizations. In her spare time, she serves on the boards of the Interfaith Center of New York, AIM for Seva and Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Association. Dena is a former member of the board of Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy. She was Co-Chair of the Millennium World Peace Summit, the first summit held at the United Nations General Assembly for more than 1500 of the world's religious leaders.

iEat Green - Leonel Perez & Nico Page Student Farmworkers Alliance and Coalition of the Immokalee Workers

Nico Page is Chilean-American and grew up both in Chile and the U.S. As a high schooler in Chile, he got involved with student protests making videos and large-scale art and fell in love with organizing. Now a junior studying Literary Arts at Brown University in Providence, RI, he became involved with the Campaign for Fair Food during the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' March 2018 major action in New York City. He is taking a semester-long leave from Brown to intern with the Alliance for Fair Food in Immokalee, Fl, where he collaborates on student actions, makes videos, supports the community and is learning from the Coalition’s long history of organizing. 

Leonel Perez has been a key leader of the award-winning human rights organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), for over a decade.  Mr. Perez worked for years in the fields of Florida and along the East Coast harvesting tomatoes, watermelon, and other crops.  Today, as a part of the Fair Food Program, Mr. Perez and his colleagues educate tens of thousands of farmworkers’ on their rights in the fields on all farms participating in the Program, including the right to work free of slavery, sexual violence, and health and safety risks.

Mr. Perez also hosts shows on the CIW's community radio station and community communications, and throughout the year facilitates and conducts dozens of popular education trainings for weekly membership meetings.  Finally, Ms. Perez represents the CIW at a national level, speaking publicly on the challenges faced by farmworkers in Florida, both during major actions with thousands of consumers and in dozens of presentations throughout the year.  He has been featured in publications such as CNN’s Freedom Project and best-selling books such as Tomatoland (2017) and I am not a tractor (2018).

 

 

iEat Green - Marion Nestle

Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor and Professor Emerita at NYU,

in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, which she chaired from 1988-2003, and where she recently retired from teaching after 30 years. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in Public Health Nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley. 

From 1986-88, she was senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services and editor of The Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health.  Her research examines scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice, obesity, and food safety, emphasizing the role of food marketing.  She has authored many books, including the James Beard award winning book: Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health; Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety; What to Eat, and Soda Politics, which highlighted Coca Cola’s false messaging about sugars link to health. Her latest book, Unsavory Truth, explores the conflicts of interest behind corporate funding of food studies, and how that influences the foods we eat! 

She writes the Food Matters column for the San Francisco Chronicle, blogs daily (almost) at www.foodpolitics.com, and twitters @marionnestle. In 2011, the University of California School of Public Health at Berkeley named her as Public Health Hero, Time Magazine included her Twitter among its top most influential 140 and its top 10 in health and science.  Writing for Forbes, Michael Pollan ranked her as the #2 most powerful foodie in America (after Michelle Obama), and Mark Bittman ranked her #1 in his list of foodies to be thankful for.

Roasted Stuffed Pumpkin Soup

 

After Thanksgiving, I always have the left over pumpkin from my Stuffed Pumpkin, and it makes a great soup. I scoop out the inside, which is soft and flavorful from the vegetable stew that was baked inside, and puree it with some water.  

Makes 16 cups-

 

1 quart of leftover pumpkin pulp

(freeze any extra for another time)

10 cups water

4 Tbs. fresh minced ginger

3 t. salt

1 cans coconut milk

3 Tbs. maple syrup

1 t. cinnamon

1 Tbs. Cardamom

 

In a large stock pot, combine the pumpkin ginger and the water, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Puree with an immersion blender, until smooth. Add the cinnamon, cardamom, maple syrup and coconut milk, and blend again, until smooth. Return to the stove and continue simmering.  Add the salt and adjust for your taste.

If a chunky soup is desired, you can add some of the leftover pumpkin stew to the soup!

 

iEat Green - Donna Casali - Executive Director of Beautycounter

Donna Casali is an Executive Director & Founding Member of Beautycounter, a B-Corp whose mission is "to get safer products into the hands of everyone." 

 

She describes herself as "a health & wellness educator and advocate whose focus is what you put on your largest organ, your skin”.  She says most people don’t realize that many ingredients that are banned in other countries, like Canada and the EU, are allowed in personal care products here in the U.S. These questionable ingredients are known carcinogens and hormone disruptors that can impact our overall health, fertility, and lead to reproductive and developmental issues.  

 

Donna has attended meetings with lawmakers locally and in Washington, D.C. to lobby for better safety standards in personal care products.  She is excited to share resources and tips on how to read a product label for "ingredients to avoid” in order to minimize your risk of exposure to toxins.

 

Stuffed Heirloom Pumpkin

1 Large Round Organic Pumpkin

1 ½ lbs seitan, homemade or store bought (white wave or Ray’s brands are good), cut into chunks- OR  substitute tofu or tempeh

1 onion, chopped

4 carrots, cut into wedges

1 pound mushrooms, sliced (can use shitake, portabella etc.)

2 yellow squash

1 butternut squash

1 sweet potato, cut into chunks

2 red or yellow peppers

1 head broccoli, cut up

4 parsnips

½ small napa cabbage

2 baby bok choy

¼ cup tamari

4 cloves garlic

2” piece of ginger, grated

2 Tbs. aji mirin (sweet rice wine)

2 Tbs tahini mixed with 1 cup water

1 package frozen peas

1 lbs potatoes, cut into chunks

2 sprigs rosemary

2 sprigs thyme

 

Cut out a circle on the top of pumpkin, scrape out seeds and replace top of pumpkin. Place pumpkin in shallow baking pan with a little water in bottom of pan. Make an aluminum tent over pumpkin with tin foil (to prevent burning) and bake the pumpkin in a 300’degree oven until soft (1 ½ hour-2 hours).

 

Meanwhile, sauté onions, carrots, butternut squash, parsnips, potatoes and sweet potato in stockpot with a little olive oil. Add garlic and ginger. Cook for 10 minutes on low. Add broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, yellow squash, bok choy, cabbage, herbs and any other veggies you want. Add tahini and water mixture. Add mirin, tamari and frozen peas. Add seitan and cook for 20 more minutes.

 

When pumpkin is soft, fill the pumpkin with the vegetable stew and return to oven for 30 minutes, to allow flavors to meld together. Serve right out of the pumpkin.

 

iEat Green - Jon Chin: Founder of Share Meals - 11.08.18

Jon Chin is an educator, poet, software engineer, 2nd dan blackbelt, and social entrepreneur.

 

He is the founder of Share Meals, an organization dedicated to ending hunger and isolation among students. His greatest concern is how to leverage breakthrough technology to address the human condition in new, disarming ways. His classrooms are often attended by laughter, sometimes so much so, that they're asked to pipe down.

He is currently researching the intersection of English Education, natural language processing, and machine learning, to support better language learning in the classroom.

Roasted Curried Eggplant & Cauliflower

 

Ingredients

2 cups diced organic baby Asian eggplant

1 lg. organic onion, large dice

1 medium Cauliflower (about two pounds), cut into florets

1 cup diced organic assorted peppers

1 ½ cups chickpeas (1 can, drained and rinsed)

2/3 cup olive oil

¼ cup red wine vinegar

1 ½ tsp double concentrated tomato paste

1 ½ tsp kosher salt

2 ½ tsp curry powder

½ tsp smoked paprika

1 pinch cayenne pepper

1/3 cup cilantro leaves, chopped

 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F
2. Put cauliflower florets, eggplant, peppers, onion and chickpeas in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, tomato paste, curry powder, paprika, cayenne, and salt. Pour dressing over vegetables. Toss to coat everything thoroughly.
4. Next, spread vegetables out in a single layer on a sheet pan.
5. Roast vegetables until tender and golden. Stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes.
6. Taste vegetables and add salt if needed. Mix in fresh cilantro and serve

iEat Green - Malik Yakini: Detroit Black Community Food Security Network - 11.01.18

​Malik Kenyatta Yakini is co-founder and the executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN).  DBCFSN operates D-Town Farm, a seven-acre farm in Detroit that grows more than 30 different fruits, vegetables and herbs.  The organization is also spearheading the opening of the Detroit Food Commons and the Detroit People’s Food Co-op in Detroit’s North End.  Yakini views the “good food revolution” as part of the larger movement for freedom, justice and equity. He has an intense interest in contributing to the development of an international food sovereignty movement that embraces Blacks communities in the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa.  

 

Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Cashew Lime Crema

Filling

10 Large Peppers for stuffing

1 onion, chopped

4 small elongated red peppers, diced

2 habanera peppers, diced small

2 cups cherry tomatoes

8 oz. baby Portobello mushrooms, sliced

2 cups chopped kale

2 Tbs. chopped garlic

1-½  t. salt

½ t. pepper

1 can black beans

1 cup frozen organic corn

Cashew Lime Crema

3 cups cashews, soaked 3 hours or more, then drained

2  cups water

juice of 1 lime, plus 3 Tbs. Lime juice

1 t. chipotle powder

1  t. salt

2 cups cooked brown rice

1 t. cumin Crumb Topping

1 t. chipotle powder ½ cup unsweetend organic corn flakes, crushed

½ t. smoked paprika ½ cup crushed tortilla chips

chopped parsley or cilantro for garnish

 

Procedure

1. For Crema- Blend all ingredients in blender or food processor until smooth. Adjust to taste.

 

For the Filling;

1. Sauté the onion in olive oil until translucent. Add the garlic and peppers and cook for a few more minutes. Add the spices, salt & pepper, along with the mushrooms and kale and cook for 5 minutes, until they are soft. Add the cherry tomatoes and continue cooking, until all the tomatoes have broken down. Add the beans and frozen corn and the brown rice and continue cooking for a few minutes, letting the flavors come together.

 

Stuff the Peppers;

1. Cut the peppers in half and scoop out the seeds and ribs from the peppers. Lay them out in a single layer in a baking dish or roasting pan. Fill each pepper with the filling.  Pour half of the Cashew Crema over the peppers, and sprinkle with the crushed crumb topping .

 

1. Bake in 350 oven for 40 minutes, until peppers are soft.
2. Serve with remaining cashew lime crema on the side and enjoy!

iEat Green - Mary Mattingly- SWALE

​Mary Mattingly is a visual artist living and working in NYC. Most of her art is centered on environmental, food, and water related issues. One of her most recent projects is "Swale", a collaborative floating food forest for New York. Swale is dedicated to rethinking and challenging New York City's connection to our environment. Built on a 130-foot by 40-foot floating platform, Swale contains an edible forest garden open to the public. Functioning as both a sculpture and a tool, Swale provides free healthy food at the intersection of public art and service.

 

Mattingly grew up in an agricultural town where the drinking water was polluted. That framed her understanding of water as a precious resource that needed to be protected. Swale came out of a need to connect with New York's waterways and public land in order to better care for it, and by proximity each other. Swale is a tool to advocate for policy change, because not everyone in NYC has access to healthy food. Since marine common law is different from New York City's public land laws, Swale can pave a pathway to create public food in a public space.

 

In 2015, she completed a two-part sculpture, “Pull” for the International Havana Biennial with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Habana and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Mary Mattingly’s work has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, the Seoul Art Center, the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and the Palais de Tokyo. With the U.S. Department of State and Bronx Museum of the Arts she participated in the smARTpower project, traveling to Manila. In 2009, Mattingly founded the Waterpod Project, a barge-based public space and self-sufficient habitat that hosted over 200,000 visitors in New York. In 2014, Mattingly participated in an artist residency on the water called WetLand, launched in Philadelphia and being utilized by the University of Pennsylvania’s environmental humanities program.

 

Tempeh Puttanesca with Fire Roasted Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Capers, and Olives

 

2- 8 oz. packages of Tempeh, cut in half, then in quarters, then sliced horizontally to make each quarter   

thinner  (you should have 8 pieces from each 8 oz pk)

1 organic onion, cut in half, then sliced into crescent moons

1 lbs. organic baby portabella mushrooms, sliced

1 can organic fire roasted tomatoes

2 cups assorted cherry tomatoes

¼ cup small capers

¼ t. red chili flakes, optional

1 cup organic calamata olives, sliced

2 Tbs chopped garlic,

¼ cup, chopped Italian parsley, stems removed

Fresh herbs, oregano, sage, rosemary, thyme and basil

¼ cup white wine

Salt and Pepper to taste

Olive oil

Cover the bottom of wok with olive oil. When oil is hot, add the onions, and cook for 5 minutes until translucent. Add the garlic and mushrooms, and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated.  

Meanwhile, steam the tempeh for 10 minutes, and then transfer to a cookie sheet, lined with parchment paper and sprayed with olive oil. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes until light golden brown.

While the tempeh is cooking, add the can of fire roasted tomatoes to the wok. Then add the cherry tomatoes and white wine. Add the red pepper flakes, if desired.

Add the herbs. I used 3 sprigs of thyme, 2 small sprigs of rosemary, 6 sage leaves, ¼ cup of fresh basil, and 2 Tbs. of fresh oregano. Cook at high heat for a few minutes, allowing some of the liquid to evaporate and flavors to meld, then reduce the heat and add the olives and capers. Season with salt and pepper.  Remove the sprigs of thyme and rosemary. Add the chopped parsley and cook for a few more minutes to bring the flavors together. Serve with your favorite grain.

iEat Green - Lacey Gaechter- Founder and President of Simple Foods & Center for a Livable Future Fellow at John Hopkins University - 10.18.18

Lacey Gaechter is the Development & Communications Manager for Waterkeepers Chesapeake as well as President and founder of Simple Foods, an organization whose mission is to promote a diet that is healthy for people, animals, and the planet. They use education, outreach, and advocacy to encourage action on a personal level, one individual at a time. She is currently pursuing her Doctor of Public Health degree in Environmental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health - where she is a Center for A Livable Future - Lerner Fellow. Her professional background is primarily with environmental nonprofits, and she most recently worked on renewable energy projects on Native American reservations, especially in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. She has her Master's in Kinesiology & Health from the University of Wyoming. Her studies focus on the similarities and differences between the tactics used by "Big Tobacco" and "Big Ag," and the best ways to combat these tactics. She strives to advocate for an ethnical food system.

 

Vanilla Chia Pudding

Ingredients
¼ cup chia seeds
1 tbsp pure organic maple syrup
1 cup unsweetened organic coconut milk
(you can substitute your favorite non-dairy
milk)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
a sprinkle of cinnamon
a sprinkle of cardamom
Optional Toppings and Add-On’s
Berries: raspberries, blueberries,
blackberries
Nuts: pecans, walnuts, almonds
Dried Fruit: raisins, cranberries, blueberries
1 Tbsp Peanut Butter
Sliced Banana
1 Tbsp Cacao
Directions
1. Pour the unsweetened organic coconut milk into a large measuring cup, add the
pure organic maple syrup, pure vanilla extract, pinch of salt, and shake of
cinnamon and cardamom.
2. Blend the mixture together lightly with a hand blender, to make sure the fats from
the coconut milk have combined with the other ingredients to make a smooth
mixture.
3. Pour this mixture over the chia seeds in a small mixing bowl. Stir as you go.
4. Once the mixture has been mixed together well, put a lid or covering on top of the
bowl and place in the fridge to set for 30 minutes. Remove from fridge and give it
a stir. The chia seeds will have gelled and created a thicker mixture, more like a
pudding.
5. Put it back in the fridge for at least 30 more minutes or overnight, stirring on
occasion. After the additional 30 minutes, you can adjust the flavor of the pudding
by adding more maple syrup, cinnamon, or cardamom if necessary.

6. Once the chia pudding has set, you can add your choice of toppings. Add any
additional spices to taste.
Optional: If you would like to experiment with other flavors, you can mash some berries
in a bowl and add them to the pudding, or cacao, or banana, or peanut butter. Have fun
with it!

iEat Green - Mark Kastel- Founder of Cornucopia Institute - 10.11.18

Mark Kastel is co-founder of The Cornucopia Institute, a farm policy research group based in Wisconsin and acts as its Senior Farm Policy Analyst and Co-Director. He directs its Organic Integrity Project.

For almost 20 years prior to Cornucopia’s launch he was president of M. A. Kastel and Associates, Inc. His professional practice included political consulting, lobbying on behalf of family farm groups, and business development work benefiting family-scale farmers. Mr. Kastel has played a key role in a number of cooperative ventures designed to empower farmers in the marketplace. His development work has focused on creating sustainable farmer-owned businesses with an emphasis on dairy production and marketing.

Kastel played a key role in the farm community’s response to the introduction of rBGH. His watershed research, published while doing policy work for the Farmers Union, brought great media scrutiny when he revealed the fact that cows were dying and whole herds were suffering from serious illnesses soon after they were injected. He has been intimately involved at numerous stages during development of the bill to regulate organic farming in Congress, as part of the 1990 farm bill, and the subsequent rule making process at the USDA. He continues to be closely involved in monitoring the seriously flawed management of the National Organic Program at the USDA.

Kastel, who worked for agribusiness giants International Harvester, J.I. Case and FMC before making the paradigm shift to sustainable farming, lives on a 160-acre organic farm in the rugged hills of southwestern Wisconsin, near the tiny burg of Rockton.

 

 

Vegan Cashew Pesto Lasagna

Preheat oven to 350°

Vegan Pesto

4 cups Basil leaves

8 cloves garlic

¾ cups toasted pine nuts

1 cup Olive Oil

¾ teaspoon salt

¼ t. pepper

In food processor, pulse the basil until finely chopped. Add garlic

cloves, salt, pepper and pine nuts. Pulse some more, scrapping down sides to incorporate all of the mixture. When fully pureed, add the olive oil while the food processor is running. The mixture will become thick.

 

Filling

3 cups cashews, soaked for 2-3 hours

3 cups water

1 Tb apple cider vinegar

½ cup nutritional yeast

¼ t. salt

vegan pesto from recipe above (approx 2 cups)

 

Spinach

1 cup sautéed chopped onions

1 lb frozen spinach, defrosted, drained, and water squeezed out

1 Tbs. chopped garlic

 

Sauce

1- 32 oz. Jar  Marinara Sauce ( you can add sautéed veggies, garlic and white wine, optional)

1- box  organic whole wheat or rice lasagna noodles

¼ cup chopped parsley

 

1 lb of your favorite vegan Mozzarella type cheese- optional

chopped parsley for garnish

 

Directions

Make pesto according to directions above.  

For sauce, sauté an onion, garlic and yellow or green pepper in olive oil. When soft, add ¼ cup white wine. Cook for 5 minutes, then add marinara sauce and ¼ cup chopped parsley.

Meanwhile, in food processor, pulse the cashews, water, vinegar, and salt. When completely smooth and creamy, add the pesto. Pulse again until fully incorporated into cashew cream.

In cast iron pan, sauté the onions in olive oil until translucent, add the garlic and spinach, and cook for 3 minutes. add a sprinkle of salt.

 

Layering

Cover bottom of Lasagna pan with sauce. Add a layer of noodles, then spread ½ of cashew pesto cream evenly over noodles, and ½ of spinach mixture. Add ½ of vegan mozzarella, and then cover with sauce. Repeat with noodles, cashew pesto cream, and then spinach, but end with another layer of noodles and then a generous layer of sauce on top. Cover with tin foil and bake for 45minutes. Remove from oven, uncover and top with remaining vegan mozzarella cheese. Return pan to oven and bake for another 15 minutes, until a fork pierced into noodles are soft, and cheese is melted. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley.