Maggie Pleskac, Owner and Chef, Maggie's Vegetarian Cafe

Editor's note: Maggie Pleskac has been vegetarian since 1993, after reading John Robbins' "Diet for a New America." The owner of and chef at Maggie's Vegetarian Cafe, 311 N. 8th St., she's also one of the founders (and current vice-president) of Slow Food Nebraska, on the board of directors for Open Harvest Natural Foods Cooperative Grocery, and a member of Buy Fresh Buy Local Nebraska. In 2007, the University of Nebraska Press published a book she co-authored with Sean Carmichael titled, "Dueling Chefs: A Vegetarian and a Meat Lover Debate the Plate." Pleskac attended Slow Food International's Terra Madre World Meeting of Food Communities conference in Turin, Italy, and agreed to share her experiences with Star City Blog.

By Maggie Pleskac

I’ve just returned from Slow Food’s five-day biennial conference in Turin, Italy, where the importance of eating local, seasonal food is the culture, not just the catch phrase.

This conference, called the Terra Madre, featured delegates from more than 150 countries, representing food communities working towards sustainable production practices and preserving the biodiversity of the food chain. I was among 6,000 food producers, farmers, fisherman, educators, chefs and activists. The passion and resolve to protect our global food supply was vocalized by all in attendance, and translated into nine languages. 

There were so many wonderful workshops offered at the Terra Madre that it was impossible to attend them all. In my own field of passion, I attended a workshop titled "Cooks and Places"  that brought up the importance of the connection between the chef and the farmer. The panel speakers consisted of four chefs/cooks from four continents. The stories that were told by cooks across the globe warmed my heart. They spoke of how they have fostered relationships with the farmers who provide their ingredients, from a make-shift kitchen in Africa to a five-star restaurant in the United States, the importance of knowing your farmer and knowing your food is inseparable.

In this country, our all-too-common outbreaks of salmonella and e-coli could be solved if we knew who was raising our food. But the mask of the multinationals is intentionally multi-layered. Buying local food is not just pro-environment, it's pro-economy. It's better for the people, better for the land, better for the community and better-tasting.

I believe we have a duty to our ancestors to reclaim our food supply. It is being hijacked by multinationals and their irresponsible, irreversible biotechnology.  This bio-piracy is happening on a global scale, and has an effect across the far reaches of this planet. As consumers, we have a right to know what our food is, and genetically altering the DNA of a seed alters what nature intended that plant to be.   

The energy at the opening and closing ceremony brought me to tears. Vandana Shiva of Navdanya, an organization that aids small and marginalized rural farmers with nonviolent, diverse organic farming and fair trade, spoke at the roundtable closing ceremony. She said that “this Terra Madre is the beginning of the end of Monsanto,” a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation and the world's leading producer of genetically engineered seeds, and at her words, my skin came alive with goosebumps of pride and faith.

Monsanto is the mad scientist in the lab, breeding Franken-food. The most dangerous aspect of genetically engineered crops is that once they're released into the environment, they're here to stay.  The cross-pollination of crops by wind, birds and bees is unavoidable. We are opening Pandora’s box. 

Nearly all the corn and soy grown in Nebraska is genetically engineered, having been manufactured not by nature but by a laboratory. These commodity crops are part of a broken food system where the cheap food is the cheap calories. The true cost of food reflects the farmer who grows diverse, unsubsidized crops on land that doesn’t consume more energy than it produces.

It was Wendell Barry who said, “Eating is an agricultural act.”  We can affect change simply by what meals we eat.

The most important thing I gained from this international meeting of food communities is to bring it home. When this global network acts locally, then the efforts of sustaining, protecting and preserving our food chain manifests everywhere. Every drop in the bucket will eventually fill it. Lincoln continues to grow in terms of community supported agriculture projects, but my dream is to see every lawn become a garden! 

It’s a beautiful expression of life to plant a seed, watch it grow, harvest it and return it to the soil.  In my rose-colored glasses, I see our school lunch program incorporating locally grown produce into the cafeterias and gardens at the schools. It’s happening all over this country and abroad - why not in Lincoln? The Healthy School Meals Act (H.R. 4870) is before the U.S. Congress, and now is the time to fight for a change to our current system, which has led to childhood obesity, diabetes and attention deficit disorder.   

If we can get a man on the moon, we can get a freshly harvested carrot on a child’s plate. 

Setting the Record Straight is a series providing a platform for Lincoln community leaders to tell their stories, highlight issues or events they think are under-covered in the media, or share ideas. If you want to nominate someone to write a column, or if you'd like to contribute, contact the editor, Hilary Stohs-Krause, at hilary@starcityblog.com. Setting the Record Straight is published every other Friday.

Related reading: Community CROPS Encourages Growth of Local, Sustainably Produced Foods; A Glimpse Into the Fall Harvest at Regional Vineyards

Comments

[P]

As someone who gives a damn about what I eat, I really enjoyed this article. However, one thing I'm unclear about, which I see often said by people who try to eat locally, is why GMOs are inherently bad. I realize that the largest agent in the GMO market is Monsanto, and they do some pretty evil things. But why are GMOs a bad idea in principle? We shouldn't blame science for one company's improper way of using it.

[Alice Mead]

I too really enjoyed this information, thank you Maggie for spreading the word. In reply to the first comment wondering why GMO's are bad idea. I think the issue is we are not aware of what has been genetically altered & what was is pure since there are no requirements in the United States to label the food you are consuming. So what is bad is that you are not given the choice to avoid it, you are unknowingly consuming it unless you eat organic foods. Support local, biodiversity & help reverse this mad science with your dollar!