Farm Aid Documentary Ingredients and Dinner at Veggie Planet

Last week, I attended a Farm Aid screening of Ingredients at the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square. The documentary was all about knowing your farmer and eating seasonally. It was followed by a stimulating panel discussion headed by Farm Aid's Executive Director Carolyn Mugar. Chef Peter Davis of Henrietta's Table made a great case for sourcing locally farmed produce and locally raised meat. His argument for it was simply that it tastes better (imagine that)! Farmer Ellery Kimball of Blue Heron Organic Farm told us about her realization that women could be farmers and went on and on about how much she loves what she does, even when it means waking up at 5:00 am to save the arugula from high temperatures. And Tim Griffin of the Tufts Friedman School's Agriculture Food and Environment program talked about the policy implications of local vs large scale agriculture. His message? We need balance because local doesn't always work to the scale it needs to in order to feed everyone (at least not yet). I'm glad I took the time to go to the Farm Aid fundraiser and encourage everyone to learn more about Farm Aid's mission to support family farmers here. 


After the documentary, James and I headed over to Veggie Planet for dinner, where I got this delicious rice and bean dish:

Mexican "Pizza" on Brown Rice instead of Pizza Crust

Veggie Planet is one of my favorite places to grab a quick, affordable vegetarian lunch or dinner. Sure, rice and beans topped with cheese and salsa isn't necessarily the healthiest meal or the most local/sustainable dish out there, but it CAN be. I ate about half of that dinner and saved the other half for lunch. It was filling and delicious and it was vegetarian and full of protein and vitamins! 


I love this quote from Veggie Planet's website:

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." —Albert Einstein

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Kelly the Kitchen Kop's Real Food Wednesday