July 26, 2017
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Volume 38, No. 11
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10 Takeaways From Menu’s of Change Conference BY: Mike Feist, BBA Food Business Management
corporate chefs, researchers, and university professors to come together to share and discuss how we can change food to improve people’s diets and decrease our environmental damage. Although many topics were discussed, there were ten clear takeaways.
Sonic makes a presentation at Menus of Change conference. photo courtesy: Dennis O’Clair
The Culinary Institute of America’s fifth Menus of Change Conference wrapped up on June 22, concluding a three-day extravaganza of talks by brilliant food professionals. It included whole-audience presentations
and panels, smaller breakout sessions, as well as sit-down lunches, reception breaks with vendor booths, action-station meals and tastings, cocktail receptions, coffee, and breakfast breaks. The CIA organized this Menus of Change
conference in collaboration with the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and drew in 400 people. The Menus of Change conference is a rare and valuable opportunity for restaurateurs,
1. Sodium, sugar, red meat, and dairy in excess are the biggest problems in health. Too much salt, sugar, red meat, and dairy intake is the biggest health problem in our country. We should reduce red meat consumption significantly, replacing it with nuts, which have healthy fats, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Walter Willet, professor of nutrition and medicine at Harvard, insisted on focusing far less on clean labels and instead on these dangerous foods in excess. He recommends thinking of red meat like many other countries do: a rare and indulgent treat. 2. Food fraud is a much larger
issue than most people realize. Food fraud is defined as secretly altering or mislabeling food to raise profits. It is a much larger issue than most people realize. According to presenter Dr. Russell Walker, the profit from food fraud in the US is about $50 million, larger than that of illicit arms trade. 3. Corporate cooking is not to be looked down upon. Corporate chefs should not be seen in a lower light. CIA grad Dan Coudreaut explains that chefs despise fast food for tasting bad and being unhealthy, but if good chefs aren’t willing to work in the industry to fix that, nothing will ever change. Coudreaut became Executive Chef and Vice President of McDonald’s in 2004. There he and a team including PhD professionals have overhauled the menu to include a wide variety of healthy options,
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A Visit To Stone Barns BY: Alison Sprong, AOS Culinary
About an hour south of The Culinary Institute of America, is the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. This piece of farmland belonged to the Rockefeller family and in the 1900s they started cultivating the land to be a working farm. In 2003, in memory of Peggy Rockefeller, the family donated the farm to the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. Later that year, the Stone Barn founder’s invited Dan Barber, the chef and owner of Blue Hill, as well as his two business partners Lauren and David Barber invited the restaurant to be their onsite restaurant partner. In April of 2004, the restaurant opened their doors to the diners of the Hudson Valley. Blue Hill at Stone Barns has so many accolades its hard to keep track. The restaurant made the 50 best restaurant list, was named best restaurant in America by Eater, received a James Beard award for Outstanding
Restaurant in 2015, was nominated for Outstanding Service in 2016, Outstanding Restaurant Design and Best New Restaurant in 2005 and was recently nominated for yet another James Beard award this year for Outstanding Service. These countless recognitions are earned in part because of the impressive and talented chefs behind the line. The other contributor to the success is the lush and bountiful farmland that is taken care of by the members of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. The Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture is open to the public with a variety of different tours. Recently, I was fortunate enough to visit Stone Barns during their Warm – Weather Weekend Admission. This type of tour runs every Saturday and Sunday from April to November. They offered a full schedule of drop in tours from 10 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. My day began with meeting the honeybees in the apiary.
“Campus” July News Letter
“Feature” Menus of Change
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View of the farm house at Stone Barns photo courtesy: Jason Hong
Two of the beekeepers explained how the bees worked with them on the farm to pollinate and help support good growth. Each “bee box” held anywhere from 40,000
to 60,000 bees, and the apiary held about 7 bee boxes. After we learned about the queen bees, and their Game of Thrones style of leadership, we were able
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“Feature” Backyard Birds Tasting
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to sample fresh from the hive honey. Next was the egg harvest in the front pasture. As many
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“Graduation”
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“Graduation” Bachelor’s Graduation