This week in the New York Times’ Dining & Style section: “When Chocolate and  Chakras Collide,” an examination of the intersection of mind-body wellness and gastronomy. David Romanelli of Exhale Spa is interested in exploring the fluidity of this relationship in his “Yoga For Foodies” series, which offers a three-course meal after an intensive yoga class. Clean Plates-approved Candle Cafe, a vegan restaurant, provided the meal for the first session.

What does eating have to do with yoga? Yoga teacher Mary Taylor explains the connection between earthly pleasure and higher consciousness as described in the sacred Hindu text the Upanishads: “Until you appreciate the fullest taste of a vegetable, you don’t know the truth of it,” she said. “And you bring out that truth by cooking it, making it beautiful and delicious and appealing to the senses.”

Read more on the New York Times website.

From the heart of Brooklyn comes Eat Well Guide’s latest video: Learn how a community in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn is fighting to keep their farm, a former neighborhood garbage dump that they’ve transformed into an urban oasis producing over 7,000 lbs of fresh food every year, and helping to feed more than 4,000 people a month through the Brooklyn Rescue Mission. The residents are in danger of losing it to development, and the video speaks beautifully to the value of the Farm and points visitors to a petition to save it. Help spread the word!

blog.eatwellguide.org/2009/11/a-farm-in-danger-help-save-bed-stuy-farm

Economy got you down? Craving a healthy, delicious, mindfully-prepared meal out but afraid to break the bank? We’re pleased to announce that a number of Clean Plates-approved restaurants are participating in NYC Restaurant Week®, a chance to enjoy artful and succulent three-course prix fixe meals for $24.07 (lunch) or $35 (dinner). This is a great chance to try out some of the Clean Plates-approved restaurants you’ve been curious about, at a GREAT price.

Participating Clean Plates restaurants include:
Gotham Bar & Grill (12 E. 12th Street @ 5th Avenue)
Lupa (170 Thompson Street @ Houston)
Rouge Tomate (10 E. 60th Street @ Madison Avenue)
Tabla (11 Madison Avenue @ 25th Street)
Telepan (72 W. 69th Street @ Columbus)

For more information, visit the NYC Restaurant Week® website at nycgo.com/restaurantweek.

This Thursday, the Interfaith Experience, in partnership with Mercy Corps’ Action Center to End World Hunger, will present the Academy Award-nominated documentary Food, Inc., along with a discussion of food and faith with wellness advisor Dhrumil Purohit, and a book signing with Clean Plates‘ own Jared Koch.

About Food, Inc.
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising and often shocking truths about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Food, Inc. Screening and Discussion
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Discussion at 6:30 pm, screening at 7:00 pm
Action Center to End World Hunger
6 River Terrace
Battery Park City
New York, NY 10282
Tickets $10 from Brown Paper Tickets or call 800-838-3006
For more information, please visit theinterfaithexperience.blogspot.com

All proceeds will be shared between the Temple of Understanding and the Mercy Corps Action Center to End World Hunger.

“Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms generated in the guts of pigs in the Iowa countryside don’t stay on the farm,” says Margaret Mellon, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists Food and Environment. The danger reaches as far as our plates, we learn.

From Frankenstein, Missouri (appropriately), comes the story of farmer Russ Kremer, one among many thousand people each year who have been affected by drug-resistant infections, his due to exposure to an antibiotic-riddled boar. Kremer’s case helps us to understand the dangers of feeding antibiotics to livestock, an issue that has recently enjoyed much attention in the press, but which still may fail to motivate many diners to change the way they eat meat. A recent article from Yahoo News helps to lay out the many reasons to adjust our diets toward drug-free meat, and clarifies the confusion around this hot topic.

Read more on Yahoo News.

On Sunday, January 24th and Monday, January 25th, a network of over 40 restaurants in New York and nationwide will participate in the Dine Out for Haiti call to action whereby they will donate up to 10% of all sales to Haitian relief efforts. We are proud to announce that Clean Plates-approved restaurants Babbo (Sunday), Lupa (Sunday), and Rouge Tomate (Monday) will all participate. We hope you’ll make your reservations now, and encourage friends to do the same.

Learn more at www.dineoutforhaiti.org.

We’re thrilled to announce that Clean Plates was featured on the front page of today’s New York edition of The Huffington Post! Says author Nancy Marks, “Weight gain often occurs when we eat too much processed food; because our body is not getting the nutrients it needs, we develop various cravings and an inability to feel sated. This constant hunger makes us feel out of control and guilty rather than relaxed when it’s time to refuel and eat…Clean Plates suggests ways to eat organic so your body gets what it needs to function optimally and then you can throw that nasty tyrant out of your head and onto the street.” Cheers to that!

Read the full text on The Huffington Post website.

Many thanks to all who came out last night to learn more about Clean Plates at Barnes & Noble in Lincoln Triangle in New York. It’s always a pleasure to meet and get to know you, and learn how we can better serve your needs! Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions or comments that you weren’t able to have answered at the event. We are grateful for your support.

Today on New York City’s NPR affiliate WNYC, The Leonard Lopate Show featured cookbook author and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman, chef Bill Telepan (of Clean Plates-approved restaurant Telepan), and chef Jorge Collazo (executive chef for the NYC public school system).

Bittman, who writes The Minimalist column for the New York Times, identifies obesity as among the most important issues facing global foodways today, and advocates for a shift away from animal products and processed food and toward more plant-based whole foods. “Beef is the big damaging thing in terms of global warming, in terms of rainforest, biodiversity, and land destruction,” he warns. Bittman personally restricts himself to a vegan diet before 6 pm each day as a way to improve his health and reduce his carbon footprint. He mentions Clean-Plates approved restaurant chain Chipotle as making a move in the right direction, toward offering fast food in a healthy way. The question, he asserts, is how do you minimize your own environmental impact, and live in peace on the planet? “It sounds corny,” he admits, “but it’s a big question.”

Chefs Telepan and Collazo are part of a movement to improve the quality of public school meals, along with celebrity chefs like Alice Waters and Jamie Oliver. Telepan and Collazo describe the challenge of working with the meager $1 per student per meal allocated for school lunch, but note that the size of the system affords them leverage to purchase good produce and whole foods. Telepan himself has an eight year old in a New York public school whose kitchen contains just two convection ovens and a steamer, with which he has been able to creatively produce nutritious dishes like chili and steamed vegetables. He reports that children have responded “tremendously” to efforts to promote salad bars in schools – “adults don’t give kids enough credit for understanding what’s good for them,” says Collazo. Regarding the trend toward local produce and higher quality, seasonal ingredients in popular restaurants, Telepan notes, “It’s all happening now, with the current administration in the White House. There’s always been a lot of attention toward making this happen. The timing’s right. We’re in New York City – this is the best restaurant city in the world. There’s no reason why kids shouldn’t have that available to them.”