The farmers’ market is the place to go for fresh, seasonal, local produce. But it’s not just about the produce, it’s about the people. At the farmers market, you get a chance to support your local economy. Farmers who sell locally create roughly thirteen jobs for every $1 million in revenue, in comparison to the three jobs created by those who don’t sell locally. And those farmers? They are the true stewards of the land, growing diversified crops instead of engaging in environmentally degrading monocropping.

But you know what else you get at the farmers market? Human interaction. Shopping at the farmers market results in three times more social interactions than shopping at a grocery store. While this may sound panic-inducing for some (hello introverts), we have to admit that in this age of digital everything, there’s a special magic—and real community-building—that can only come from those increasingly rare face-to-face interactions.

If you’re not convinced, check out these great videos from our friends at the California Alliance for Farmers Markets. Live in California? Find your local market at FMFinder.org.

Header photo by Caleb Stokes/Unsplash

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by Anna Lappé

As we begin to sort through the post-election rubble, it’s worth taking a close look at what happened with soda taxes at the ballot box.

This year, Big Soda spent nearly $39 million to stop taxes on sugary beverages in five U.S. cities. They filled mailboxes and flooded the airways with misleading ads, they engaged lawyers in legal battles, and padded the pockets of local progressives to try to turn them against the tax all to convince people to vote against a penny per fluid ounce tax—in the case of Boulder, Colorado, a two-cent per fluid ounce tax—on the distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages.

But it’s too late: The cultural tipping point on soda is already here. Philadelphia passed a tax in June. And yesterday, three Northern California cities—San Francisco, Oakland, and Albany, which borders Berkeley to the north—and Boulder all passed taxes with sizable margins.

“Despite the billions spent on marketing and more than $30 million in deceitful campaign ads, voters saw the truth and sent a clear message that their families’ health comes first,” said Jim Krieger of Healthy Food America.

These wins are proof that the conversation about soda is changing. It’s a conversation backed by solid science. We now know that liquid sugar is the single largest source of added sugars in our diets and is a leading cause of heart disease, liver disease, and Type 2 diabetes. We know regularly consuming just one or two sugary drinks a day will increase your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Soda and other sweet beverages are also the main cause of cavities and dental decay. What’s more, consuming liquid sugar doesn’t send the same signals of fullness to our minds, so we don’t register these drinks’ calories in the same way we do as when we eat calories.

With these wins, ballot measures taking on soda taxes could be “the new normal for Big Soda,” said Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in a statement. Today, Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago, will vote on a similar tax on sugary drinks; other municipalities nationwide are exploring soda tax ballot measures as well. [Editor’s note: Cook County, with 5.2 million residents, today became the largest region in the nation to put in place a soda tax.]

In its recent Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s clearest recommendation was for governments to implement a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. As Dr. Margaret Chan, director of the WHO, said in a speech last month, “Diabetes is one of the biggest global health crises of the 21st century… The interest of the public must be prioritized over those of corporations.”

While some of the research is still taking shape around the benefits of soda taxes, we know they work for several reasons: First, they decrease consumption, which translates into lives saved and health care costs diverted. In Mexico, where a soda tax passed in 2014, consumption dropped by 12 percent in the first year.

They also help raise awareness about the harms of these products, including energy drinks and “flavored waters,” like VitaminWater. Many of these drinks have just as much sugar as a classic soda or more. For instance, a 20-ounce Power-C Vitamin Water contains 32 grams of sugar, nearly as much as a 12-ounce Coke. Meanwhile, an Orange-Mango Nantucket Nectar has 58 grams of sugar and an Odwalla Vanilla Protein Shake has 43 grams. (To put those figures in perspective, the American Heart Association recommends that women consume 24 grams of added sugar a day.)

Another reason soda taxes work is because they raise revenue that can tip the scale back toward health equity. Berkeley’s soda tax revenue has topped $1.4 million a year and is funding programs like a popular gardening program in the city’s public schools, hydration stations at the public high school, and health outreach in communities of color, where diabetes rates are the highest.

Research from Healthy Food America estimates that the three soda taxes in the Bay Area will raise $22 million annually for health programs and diabetes prevention. In Boulder, the soda tax there will dedicate revenue raised to address health inequities, including helping to make clean water, healthy food, and sports accessible and affordable for the people who can least afford it.

But while these taxes are proving to be popular with voters, the battle over soda taxes has also revealed that Big Soda will pull out all the stops to thwart them. All told, since 2009, Big Soda has spent $94 million fighting these taxes and other measures to decrease soda consumption, according to CSPI. As New York University nutrition professor and author Marion Nestle explains in her latest book, Soda Politics, these companies are taking a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. The soda industry is fighting hard against any regulation, whether limits to marketing to kids, warning labels on sugary drinks, or taxes popping up worldwide.

In leaked internal strategy documents from Coca-Cola Europe, for example, that soda taxes are the policy that would have the biggest impact on their sales and were the most likely to materialize. There’s little doubt of similar projections in North America.

Two years ago, when Berkeley became the first American city to pass a soda tax, the industry portrayed the win as an aberration. Those of us following the movement nationally believed it was a bellwether. We were right. We’ll have to wait and see whether under the Trump presidency there are attempts to preempt any of these policies. But in the meantime, there are more soda tax battles on the horizon. 

Originally Published in Civil Eats

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When asked to picture a typical school lunch, most of us think of sad-looking chicken nuggets or soggy french fries. For many of the millions of public school students, that’s not far off mark. To transform what’s on kids’ plates, parents, teachers and administrators have been working for years, battling entrenched industry interests and paltry school budgets. Now advocates have a powerful tool to help them: a new procurement policy that helps put core values at the center of school food purchasing.

On May 24, the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Trustees is poised to pass the Good Food Purchasing policy to help usher in a new era for school meals, expanding on and codifying the transformational work already under way. The district would be, after Los Angeles Unified, only the second in the nation to do so.

Looking at the policy’s effect in Los Angeles, it’s clear to see the changes it has helped spark. When the district passed the policy, one of its largest suppliers, Gold Star Foods Inc., was inspired to ask tougher questions of its of bread, produce and poultry suppliers. As Gold Star CEO Sean Leer explained: “The way most school districts purchase, lowest price wins, but it should be more thoughtful. Buying food isn’t like buying toilet paper.” Leer is now able to attribute real worth to the suppliers who align with five values of sustainability, nutrition, local economies, animal welfare and worker rights.

Leer also started looking with fresh eyes at his supply chain: What could he localize that wasn’t already? How could he improve the food they offered to students? One answer was produce — and sourcing more of it locally: Before the policy, roughly 10 percent of the produce served in L.A. schools was sourced within 200 miles of the district. Today, from 50 to 72 percent is, depending on the season. That works out to a roughly $12 million redirection of resources to the local economy.

Leer found another answer in wheat. Gold Star had been sourcing out-of-state wheat for its 45 million to 55 million annual servings of bread and rolls. Leer discovered Shepherd’s Grain, a company with growers in Central California. “I committed to turning our entire bread and roll line over to Shepherd’s Grain,” he said.

Understandably, the bakery Gold Star worked with was hesitant to change a key ingredient like flour, but the bakery made the leap. Today, nearly all of the L.A. school district’s bread and rolls are made from wheat grown in Central California, milled in downtown Los Angeles. Compare that with pre-policy wheat: grown in the Dakotas, trucked to Denver, milled there and shipped to California. “The policy gave us a chance to make this huge change,” explained Leer. “And it didn’t cost any more. In fact, we’ve kept the prices the same for the last three years.”

The policy, originally developed by the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, also puts workers at the heart of purchasing decisions — from farmers to delivery workers. Shaun Martinez from the Teamsters union, said: “In school food, margins are extremely thin. Having a policy like this creates a market for people who do good things to actually survive.”

The policy has been used to review relationships, too. In 2015, the five-year, $60 million contract with chicken processor Tyson was up for renewal. Before, the contract always went to the lowest bidder. Now the district was seeking poultry suppliers that didn’t employ practices like the unsustainable use of antibiotics. Gold Star received a $20 million contract to provide the district with chicken raised without the routine use of antibiotics.

All this sounds so promising, but what arguably matters most is what the kids think. Perhaps that’s best summed up by Maylin Brunall, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles: “School — it’s my fancy restaurant now,” she said, with a big smile. “It’s local. It’s fresh. Everyone is treated fairly, and everyone is happy.”

San Francisco has a chance to continue to prove itself as a national leader in school-food reform. The school board trustees can pave the way by approving the new policy.

Originally published in The San Francisco Chronicle 

Photo by Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

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