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.
Beyond the Table: The Local and Global Commitment of Many
Farmers’ markets, community-supported agriculture, local restaurants and markets remind us that many hands help put food on our table. But the reach and number of those hands extend beyond the local community. Today, our desire for year-round produce and food variety...
Cracking the Case on Eggs Beyond the Plate
Eggs are in the headlines again! It is Easter and the lure of dying eggs and creating egg-centric dishes for holiday meals increases the attention. But it’s the cost that is getting the headlines this year. While we were spoiled for paying less than one dollar per...
When Rain Drives You to Eat Chocolate!
“If everything goes as planned, there would be no story,” my husband often says. It also means that I would not be writing this story! Following our halfway Thanksgiving meeting point in Kona, Hawaii, with our niece (who lives in New Zealand), we headed to Kauai for...
We Can’t Always Get What We Want: The Flavor vs. Fresh Tomato Trade Off
Buying fresh tomatoes in the middle of winter was never an option or even a consideration when growing up on a farm. You just knew fresh tomatoes were the best off the vine in the summertime and relied on home canned tomatoes (or store bought) for winter days. But...
Like Wrapped Packages … Food Label Terms Can Be a Guessing Game
I learned a basic rule while growing up: Don’t get excited about the contents of a package until you opened it! In other words, what was in the box didn’t always match the outside label. My mother was resourceful, so using a box for the second or third time seemed...
2024 Food and Ag Trends — A Little Sweet and Some Heat
"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” This centuries-old statement by Benjamin Franklin resonates equally as well in today’s food and ag trend space. While food trends are not as finite, there are “certain” themes that continue to...
From A Family Farm to Many Tables — The Halverson Family Has a Place at Your Table
The sights and sounds of combines running across soybean and corn fields over the past couple of months signal its harvest time in the Bluegrass state and most of the country. Whether we’re harvesting corn, soybeans, apples or potatoes, most of what is gathered ends...
Five Ways to Make Food Safety the Centerpiece of Holiday Meals
It’s Thanksgiving Week … and our thoughts are turning to food! While the price of the average Thanksgiving meal is almost three dollars cheaper than last year, the meal cost is still 25% higher compared to 2019. With the increased cost of our holiday meals, so should...
The Story Beyond the Plate — A Reflection of Mongolian Culture and Land Intertwined
I learned from my father to pay attention to the land! Even though my father’s travels never extended beyond his tri-state region after World War II, it did not squelch his desire to know the status of agriculture wherever I traveled. During my travels over the years,...
Summer Memories on An Index Card
As it would be no surprise to anyone, I have volumes of recipe books, not to mention my recent addition of a NYT Cooking subscription. But it’s my wooden recipe box of 45+ years filled with dog-eared, ink smeared, and handwritten index cards that hold a lot of summer...