Ellen Gustafson Quotes

For me, creating a supply chain of what we should be eating is incredibly complicated. It's complicated to figure out how to change the food system in America.

The time has come to recognize that food, how we produce it, process it, package it, sell it, cook it and eat it, is as important as any other issue.

People in Slow Food understand that food is an environmental issue.

We undervalue food in this country, yet Britain has beautiful food and beautiful growing conditions. It is astonishing the range we can grow.

I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food.

There are a lot of great things about food, but it's something that's an eternal struggle in our contemporary society, where and how food is made, where it's coming from, how much to consume. There are so many layers to it.

Supermarkets don't really sustain a community, and they completely remove people from the food chain.

I have a generally optimistic temperament and am thrilled by what I see as a rapidly growing food movement, especially among young people who care about how food is produced and what it does to their health and the environment.

I cannot wait to see the day that one day we will have a chef that will become the secretary of food of the United States of America.

We've been so disconnected agriculturally and culturally from food. We spend more time on dieting than on cooking.

The biggest thing you can do is understand that every time you're going to the grocery store, you're voting with your dollars. Support your farmers' market. Support local food. Really learn to cook.

Those of us who care about food and where it comes from will miss both Obama and Michelle. Even though Obama failed to do many things he indicated he would do around food, Michelle Obama has done a lot to shine a light on the link between diet and health, which is really important.

Federal policy tells us to fill 50 percent of our plates with fruits and vegetables. At the same time, federal farm subsidies focus on financing the production of corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, dairy and livestock.

Science, innovation, safety and affordability. Who could oppose United States food policy based on these core principles? Unfortunately, this idea has become unnecessarily controversial in agriculture.

I want to reshape fast food in America.

My goal is to go from the industrial food system toward a real food system where you understand what you are eating.

As a chef and activist, I'm particularly concerned with food politics issues such as the farm bill.

Right now my favorite book is 'Omnivores Dilemma.'

When we are trying to come up with new health laws, you bring doctors, you bring experts in medicine. In urban planning, you bring the best architects. How it is possible that when we are talking about the way we are going to feed America, no chef shows up in the room?

To be interested in food but not in food production is clearly absurd.

I want to know where my food comes from and the conditions in which it's grown. I also want to embrace traditional British produce, and seasonality.

Local and regional food systems are about opportunity.

All schools should teach children basic cooking skills. Every school should be able to buy sustainable, good quality food wherever possible from local sources. Every school should include food-growing in the curriculum. For some, that will mean twinning with willing farms. For others, it will mean literally building their own small farms.

Now you can get artisanal everything - pickles, coffees, house-cured meats, mustard. The pendulum has swung back to this kind of food, and it gives me the greatest hope for the future, especially because we're living in a time with issues like polluted Gulf Coast seafood and food labeled organic that may not really be organic.

One thing that makes me very happy is to see the growing activism among chefs in America. Chefs like Tom Colicchio, Bill Telepan, and Rachel Ray and food writers like Michael Pollan have gone to Congress, indeed sometimes even have testified before Congress, have lent this support to Mrs. Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity.