Meet Me At the Table
My goal with this blog is to bring you perspectives from my past, peppered with insights and facts on the future of food, farming and health – providing “food for thought, action and personal responsibility.” As a registered dietitian and a sixth generation farm owner in Kentucky, the connection of farm to plate is part of my DNA. I have spent my career navigating the connections between food, health, agriculture and consumer behavior. Together, we will dig into the complex and ever-changing story of who grows our food, what’s in our food, and how food affects our health and ultimately our lives.
When Did Food Waste Become the Norm?
“Six garbage trucks of food are lost every second” “Farmers, Consumers Lose $15 Billion to Food Waste” “If food waste was its own country, it would be the third largest country, behind China and the U.S.” Every week, new stories, studies or presentations are cited,...
What Will This Decade be Known For? Feeding the World Without Fear?
Consumer trends, insights and questions of “where do we go from here?” populate numerous media sources when a new year rolls around and this year especially, with the arrival of a new decade, the lists abound! News about sustainability, climate change and plant-based...
Unwrapping the Package – What Does Health Have to Do With It?
It’s the time of the year when fingers are flying across the keyboards and glazed-eyed shoppers are staring at tables of presents in the quest for the “perfect gift” for family and friends. Perhaps our seasonal quest is not all that different from our search for the...
Honoring the Family Farm Tradition Across the Globe…with Gratitude and Respect
Traditions, family, friends, and most of all, food are “center stage” as we gather to celebrate Thanksgiving this week. We may consider the holiday “American,” but as the History Chanel.com states, “Thanksgiving falls under a category of festivals that spans cultures,...
Antibiotics — Cure or Curse?
When we walk into a grocery store to buy a package of chicken breast, pork or ground meat, we may search for an “antibiotic-free” label to confirm our comfort level of buying the best quality for our family. When we walk into a hospital for surgery, we hope the...
Committed to the Core: Farmers, Food & Our Future
Crisp colored leaves, pumpkins on the doorstep, apple orchards blazed in shades of red, vegetable soup on the stove…all signs of our idealistic fall scenario enjoyed with little thought of the challenges endured by farmers to produce these fall harvest delights....
Back to the Table: The Art of Enjoying Food
When I think about some of the most memorable and fun times over the past few months, I smile remembering the birthday dinner preparation with my niece and sister-in-law, the dinner and conversation around our table with long-time friends, the fishing experience with...
Is Milk by Any Other Name Still Milk?
When I grew up, the term “milk” meant it was from a cow (our cows) and my only decision was whether to drink “whole” milk direct from the Holstein herd or buy "our processor" skim milk from the grocery store (which did not sit well with my father). Luckily, none of...
Sustainability – More than a Trend
How many times do you see or use the word “sustainability”? We talk about sustainable diets, sustainable agriculture, eating sustainably, sustainable buildings, sustainable environment, and the list goes on and on. But what does it mean? For a word that is so overly...
Water: The “Juice of Life…and a Peach”
We’re in the middle of the summer harvest of fruits and vegetables all across the United States and one of the stars of the season is peaches! For those of us from the southern part of the U.S., we may argue that peaches from Georgia and surrounding states are the...