Friday, November 2, 2018

Exploring Sustainability: An Interview with JWU Professor Douglas Stuchel and owner of f Doug's Ducks

Exploring Sustainability: An Interview with Douglas Stuchel

It can be a complex topic, for sure. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, sustainability means “to create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations.” One of the ways you can maintain sustainability is by eating local.
Raised in a rural farming community outside of Pittsburgh, Stuchel was as close to his food source as you can get. “I grew up with that sense of, you eat what you grow, you eat what is local,” he says.
He became interested in the environmental aspect of sustainability when he was a JWU student and studied abroad in Costa Rica. “That opened up my eyes,” he says. “When the country underwent rapid development and deforestation, it started losing tourism dollars. They immediately saw that this was their lifeblood, so they jumped on the sustainability bandwagon. Costa Rica is now ranked as one of the most sustainable countries in the world.”
Connecting Students to Sustainability
To introduce his hospitality students to the concept of sustainability, on their first day of class he talks about how he is raising Welsh Harlequin ducks on his property in rural West Greenwich. It allows him to start a discussion about global food issues, he says.

“Some students are fascinated at the fact that I’m raising an animal because they’ve never had that connection growing up. I can see that when I talk to them about the real cost of food.”
The true cost of food involves not only how the food is transported and the effect on the environment, but how that food is produced, he says. “When I tell students I sell duck eggs for seven dollars a dozen, they say, ‘I can buy chicken eggs at Walmart for $1.55.’ Well, you have to think of how the chicken is treated. They are in crates and even when it’s labeled cage-free eggs, that doesn’t mean they’re not all confined in a small little space. They’re just not in a cage.”
And if you’re voting for a sustainable world with your food dollar, you need to consider where your food is coming from. When you shop at the supermarket or Walmart, you probably don’t know that many products are imported from China, he says. “Because of labeling laws, you can take a product from China ship it to South America and then to the U.S. and the label could legally say it’s a product of the United States, even though it originally came from China.”
That’s why the restaurant industry is seeing more people choosing to eat less meat."
Stuchel has served two terms on the Rhode Island Food Policy Council, where he worked on the New England 50 by 60 plan, which is an agreement where the New England states will try to produce 50 percent of all the food to support the region by the year 2060. “It’s very lofty goal in New England when you only have a short growing season. But the way we can achieve that is by using the ocean more, taking advantage of not only the fish but of the seaweed and kelp.” Rhode Island only produces one percent of its food right now, importing 99 percent from other states and beyond, so reaching that goal will be challenging.
“Everything is a balance. It seems that we’ve tilted the pendulum to one end and we’re trying to go back to the other end,” says Stuchel. “When I tell students in class that the farm to table movement is not sustainable in the restaurant industry because in a region like New England you can’t get everything you need locally, we talk about the whole concept of local. Does it mean within 50 miles? 100 miles? There’s no definition and it’s kind of a good thing because if we said local meant 100 miles, if you live in Wyoming, you might not have anything for 20-30 miles.”
Stuchel sees a disparity right now between the affluent and not-so-affluent. “If you have the disposable income, you can afford to buy what you consider more ethical and healthier for you. But the average American right now has trouble affording that price, especially if you have kids,” he says. “That’s why the restaurant industry is seeing more people choosing to eat less meat, and why people are serving more meatless meals at home.”
If you really want to buy local, you need to shop more often, he says. “We waste so much because we buy bulk. Both parents have to work and we’re so busy with the kids, it’s easier for families to just shop once a week. But no one has any idea of what’s in the refrigerator and what’s going bad or what’s about to go bad, so it’s a dilemma. I don’t see it changing anytime soon.”

Friday, April 20, 2018

Raising Pilgrim Geese- ReBlog of Pretending to Farm One inner city couple's experiences of moving to the country and trying our hand at farming, homesteading and self sufficiency

Occasionally, I find myself reading a great blog that fits right into my sustainable beliefs and changing our food system to more local, less big ag, pesticides etc.

Today I stumbled across Pretending to Farm - One inner city couple's experiences of moving to the country and trying our hand at farming, homesteading and self sufficiency 

While trying to look up some information about others raising Pilgrim Geese I found there blog and thought it was a great blog to re-blog..  Hope you enjoy their blog as well...


Thursday, January 11, 2018

JWU Heads to the NY Produce Show- by Madeline Balassie, on 1/11/18 10:18 AM



 The JWU Providence team at the NY Produce Show


Each year, College of Hospitality Management Associate Professor Douglas Stuchel takes his students to the annual NY Produce Show. This year, 4 Food Service Management students — Daniel Cartagena, Janghoon Ji, Yinyan Shao and Madeline Balassie — attended the show, which is an annual trade convention celebrating fresh produce, and also took part in the team challenge. Madeline wrote about her amazing experience at the show:
The NYC Produce Show is a time for producers, sellers, buyers, and educators to get together and share their goods and knowledge with each other. Attendees sample different products from the 600+ exhibitors. They give out raw goods and also cook various dishes to show the public how they can use the different products.
The number one goal of the trade show is to network. Sharing knowledge and culture are the top priorities of the trade show. In addition to that, buyers are always looking to start contracts for their restaurants, retail spaces, or wholesale distribution companies, and this is a great place for them to do that.
Walking through the show, we could not believe how lucky we were to be surrounded by such bright, colorful produce. Everyone was excited to share what they had to offer, and all companies had something different to bring to the table.
We learned a lot as a team, both during the challenge + in talking with the different produce companies.”
Most years, there is a student competition to craft produce-centric dishes along a particular theme. The theme of this year’s trade show was ethnically-inspired cuisine, so each course was to emulate that in a different way. Since there were only two schools participating (JWU and the 4-person Culinary Institute of Michigan team), the Produce Show judges deemed this a “challenge.” In that way, it fostered conversations between our two schools, as we had time to taste each other’s dishes and discuss our respective inspirations for what we made.
As a team, we were told beforehand that we would have to prepare 3 dishes for the culinary challenge: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast had to be Italian-inspired, lunch Asian-inspired, and dinner Indian-inspired. Although we were able to brainstorm different ideas prior to our arrival on site, we knew that we couldn’t plan ahead 100%, because we weren’t sure what would be available. Also, the dishes were recommended to be vegetarian or vegan, as there most likely would not be meat available — the focus was on produce, obviously!
Our original idea for breakfast was to do a frittata, as we expected to have eggs available to us. However, when we arrived, there was no dairy. So, we decided to make an Italian-inspired breakfast hash, featuring mini potatoes from Tasteful Selections. We served it over a celery root salad. We added a sun-dried tomato paste with garlic and olive oil, and served the dish inside a gorgeous purple radicchio leaf.
Lunch went more as planned. For our Asian-inspired dish, we made a Korean tofu cabbage wrap with a quick kimchi, Brussels sprouts, and a Thai chile hot sauce. We had a great discovery for a garnish: macho cilantro. The purveyor described it to us as “cilantro on steroids.” He couldn’t have described its intense flavor more accurately — in hindsight, we should have used it more in our dish. It was a beautiful ingredient that we were lucky to try.
For our Indian dinner, we made coconut milk curried vegetables, served with a mint-cucumber yogurt sauce and mango chutney — a very colorful dish.
The judges had extremely helpful feedback. They helped us zero in on the flavors we should focus on the most, and how we could make each dish more cohesive (rather than having separate components). These were all great pieces of advice, and we left the produce show with a clearer picture on how to put a produce-centered dish together. We learned how to make vegetables the stars of the dish, rather than protein. We learned a lot as a team, both during the challenge and in talking with all of the different produce companies.
The day after the trade show, we sat in on many different presentations and discussions concerning increasing produce consumption for children, innovation with produce, and how to ensure profitability while purchasing and serving the highest-quality produce. We were inspired by all of the Produce Show representatives, and learned a lot about new ingredients and different ways to use them. This was truly a unique experience that the 4 of us felt very lucky to take part in.
TOP: THE JWU TEAM AT THE NY PRODUCE SHOW, L-R: MADELINE BALASSIE, JANGHOON JI, YINYAN SHAO + DANIEL CARTAGENA. BOTTOM: COCONUT CURRY ROOT VEGETABLES WITH CUCUMBER MINT SAUCE + MANGO CHUTNEY (L) AND KOREAN-INSPIRED CABBAGE-TOFU WRAP (R). // Photos by the students + Doug Stuchel.
Dishes by the JWU team

https://blogs.jwu.edu/culinarynow/jwu-students-take-part-in-ny-produce-challenge