Whole Foods Cooking Studio

On October 12th, Hilary Cooley and I attended a class on "Learning to Live Green" at the Whole Foods Cooking Studio.

While we listened to several speakers, Chef Chris Clarke prepared a great lunch, which included "Manna from Heaven", which is a baked cornbread french toast with the consistency of bread pudding. It was absolutely delicious! Also served was braised kale with bacon, and and apple and onion dish. Yum!

The first speaker was Christina, a team leader at Whole Foods Market. She discussed Whole Foods' commitment to being green. It was interesting to know that they started out slowly and have now gotten other businesses in their area involved. I loved her comment, "You have to be willing to sort through the trash". Whole Foods actually does trash audits to check for correct sorting of their trash. It must pay off, the Overland Park store has diverted 295K pounds of trash in the last 2 years!

Our second speaker was Katherine Kelly, from KCCUA. She asked the group, "What would a sustainable environment in Kansas City look like?" The group offered their ideas, we all seemed to know WHAT we need, but not HOW we would achieve it. Katherine suggested the following:
... Is it good for my body?
... Was it grown fairly?
... Support your local farmers
... Grow more farmers
... Keep the vision of what a sustainable K.C. should look like, and work backwards

Our last speaker was Rebecca Miller from Whole Foods. Rebecca discussed many environmental topics, but her focus was on making your events "greener".
Her ideas included:
... Use 3 colors of trash cans
......... Green - compostables including cardboard, paper napkins, paper plates and cups
......... Blue - recycleables including glass, aluminum, and numbered plastics
......... Red - paper trash that is clean
Rebecca suggested either posting signs depicting what goes where, or even stationing people by the trash cans to show what goes where.

Other event suggestions were:
... Buy organic, if not wash thoroughly
... Use paper plates and cups
... Use silverware, not plastic
* Corn-based silverware could contain genetically modified corn so Whole Foods will not use it
... Think about your food choices; buy on sale, use smaller portions
... Consider 5 gallon jugs of water to avoid plastic bottles

We got some great handouts in class. One of my favorites is the class schedule for the Whole Foods Market Metcalf Cooking School. The prices are reasonable and the subjects are interesting. Check them out at www.wholefoodsmarket.com/metcalf-cs

It was a great "green" day!
Christine