KNOW EDUCATION – KNOW FARMERS – KNOW FOODS
Food Trends are constantly changing. As the the rest of the world becomes more highly sophisticated with rapidly moving technologies the culinary world is moving in the opposite direction; “Back to Basics”. During the 1980’s the farming industries increased productivity through over processing foods, the introduction of growth hormones, dye injected fish farming, chemical pesticides, unhealthy sugar substitutes, and antibiotic injected fish and animals. This is referred to as second hand nutrition, inject growth hormones into a cow then eat a steak and you are ingesting the same growth hormones as the cow.
As cancer rates skyrocketed, US consumers demanded more natural and organic farming methods and standards be implemented by the USDA, thus the “Farm to Table” movement began. Now-a-days with high rise buildings adding rooftop organic gardens, hugely popular nationwide farmers markets and organic farms delivering directly to restaurants. This omits the middleman and eliminates several extra days of refrigerated food storage. Even fast food restaurants are required to post nutritional facts on their menus.
These trends are why continued education is absolutely necessary. Superfoods, Genetic Plant Engineering, Microbiotic Organisms, GMO’s are just a few of the modern day terminologies used. Twenty years ago they introduced 2% milk, skim milk now days we have Lactose Free Milk, Soy Milk, Rice Milk, Almond Milk etc. Now were these products developed by chefs, culinarians or scientist? Quite possible a combination of all three.
Education is Knowledge / Knowledge is Priceless
Chef Jimmy Nadell