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The local food movement is here to stay, Dan Barber explains in a recent New York Times 

"Today, almost 80 percent of Americans say sustainability is a priority when purchasing food," he wrote. "The promise of this kind of majority is that eating local can reshape landscapes and drive lasting change.

But the movement has had less impact on the large-scale food industry than many have hoped. This is because we still have a grocery-aisle mentality, Barber argues, expecting local farms to supply us with the produce we desire, while ignoring long-term farm health and demands.

Barber joined The Daily Circuit to talk about his book, "The Third Plate," and the future of American food. 

"What we really need to do is upend the culture and the expectation that Americans have for a plate of food," Barber said on The Daily Circuit. 

1. The search for flavor and sustainability are similar.

 and how it changed his idea of the connection between the search for flavor and sustainability:

Chef Dan Barber on flavor, sustainability, heirloom corn by MPR News

"In my quest for truly great flavor, you end up by definition forcing the right kind of farming because you can't get the flavors that you want or that I became introduced to without the right kind of stewardship on the land," he said.

2. We throw out too much produce just because it looks different.

"One of the things that farmers tend not to bring to the markets are those bruised and damaged tomatoes or zucchini," he said. "The farmer looks at it as a sunk cost because no one in their right mind is going to buy a damaged zucchini when there's the abundance of perfectly grown, perfectly looking zucchini."

Barber said farmers throw out or compost 20 to 40 percent of their crop and that loss is calculated into the cost of the food you purchase. 

A caller from Minneapolis said she uses a community garden to help her daughter learn about the challenges of agriculture and appreciating everything you grow:

Minneapolis caller on teaching daughter about food through community gardening by MPR News

3. Supporting sustainable and true local food requires whole food farming.

"If we were to support wheat, for example, we should also be supporting those crops that wheat farmers are required to grow to get the fertility in the soil to grow good wheat," he said.

Wheat also requires farmers to grow crops such as barley, buckwheat, millet and leguminous crops.

4. The red wattle pig is a great example of flavorful meat and a more sustainable production.

"It has the most delicious flavor," he said. "And the interesting thing about that pig is it's a foraging pig. You can't confine a red wattle and feed it corn and soy; it won't work."

The pigs mainly forage and farmers supplement their diet with some corn and soy. 

5. This kind of eating isn't necessarily more expensive for consumers.

"Please address the fact that 75 percent of people cannot afford to eat the foods that he advocates," he wrote.

"The diet I am advocating is the democratization of a diversity and an affordable way of eating that ultimately is a lot cheaper than what we're doing now," he said. "The affordability of a corn, soy bean rotation, for example, is heavily subsidized by your tax dollars... The diet I am advocating is not for lobster and caviar. What we're talking about is really lowly grains that are quite inexpensive to produce. While they are inexpensive to produce and they produce good abundant harvests, they also benefit the soil."

Does the sustainable food movement have farmer's interests in mind? What can be done to better support smaller farms? Leave your comments below.

Environmental News

Chef and author Dan Barber joins us to talk about his new book, "The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food."

What's missing in farm-to-table equation

Jennifer Simonson/MPR News

Book cover courtesy of publisher

Chef Dan Barber joined The Daily Circuit July 23, 2014 to discuss his book "The Third Plate" and the future of food. He told the story of receiving eight row flint corn, celebrated by the Native Americans in the Hudson Valley, and how it created a revelation about the connection between flavor and sustainability. Listen to the full discussion: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/07/23/daily-circuit-dan-barber

Chef Dan Barber joined The Daily Circuit July 23, 2014 to discuss his book "The Third Plate" and the future of food. A caller from Minneapolis explains her use of community gardening to teach her daughter about sustainability and food. Listen to the full discussion: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/07/23/daily-circuit-dan-barber 

Chef Dan Barber on what's missing in the farm-to-table equation

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