Alice Waters Quotes

One reason we planted the White House vegetable garden was to set an example about what food can mean, but to also begin a broader conversation about how we're feeding our kids, what they know about the food that they eat, how they're taking care of themselves.

I learned how to cook, began reading books on food. I began to understand about nutrition. It never had occurred to me that what you ate could affect how you felt. It could affect your health. It seems obvious now, but at age 23 or 22 or whatever I was, it wasn't obvious at all.

Many kids can tell you about drugs but do not know what celery or courgettes taste like.

I wish I knew in terms of more educated in food when I was younger. Because the importance of it not just in sport but in life too has helped me and I think it'll continue.

I think that allowing the nation to become so ignorant about food has been such a backward step - and to be honest I don't think there should be a School Food Trust. It shouldn't be necessary.

I want to give people a basic education, and to help them think for themselves when it comes to food.

Every kid in every school no matter their background, deserves to learn the basics about food - where it comes from, how to cook it and how it affects their bodies. These life skills are as important as reading and writing, but they've been lost over the past few generations. We need to bring them back and bring up our kids to be streetwise about food.

If kids grow kale, kids eat kale. If they grow tomatoes, they eat tomatoes. But when none of this is presented to them, if they're not shown how food affects the mind and the body, they blindly eat whatever you put in front of them.

A few years ago, kids from poor areas in France were asked to draw items of food. For a chicken, they drew a drumstick. For a fish, they drew a fish stick. Those are extremes, but there is a lot that needs to be done to help children discover good food.

Kids see cooking as a creative outlet now, like soccer and ballet. It gives me hope that things like fast food, childhood obesity and the horrible state of school lunches can be addressed by kids and their parents.

In this country, the health concerns and the environmental concerns are as deep as in Europe. All the surveys show that. But here, we didn't have the cultural dimension. This is a fast-food culture.

One reason that we eat processed foods is the decline of home economics. Restarting home economics classes is one of the key things we could do to get this issue moving.

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.

The key thing is to educate not just kids but adults about what goes into food. You do that in any way you can, bread machine or not.

The most important thing is to teach children to cook at schools. And not only to cook but to understand about where their food comes from.

It should be that every child, when they leave school, can do ten meals, because when they leave home, they've got to be able to eat healthily. Blow the science of it and everything else. They've just got to be able to know what's good for them, how to buy it, and how to make a few dishes that they enjoy and don't cost too much.

Kids today are really so alienated from the source of food. If they are going to nourish themselves properly, if they are going to safeguard this environment we have and the economy that goes with it and world hunger that goes with it, they need to know about food.

I really believe that people don't have to eat healthy; they just have to know what they are eating, and then they'll eat better. That is really the movement we are behind.

Change the food in the schools and we can influence how children think. Change the curriculum and teach them how to garden and how to cook and we can show that growing food and cooking and eating together give lasting richness, meaning, and beauty to our lives.

Imagine a world where children were fed tasty and nutritious, real food at school from the age of 4 to 18. A world where every child was educated about how amazing food is, where it comes from, how it affects the body and how it can save their lives.

We eat as sons and daughters, as families, as communities, as generations, as nations, and increasingly as a globe. We can't stop our eating from radiating influence even if we want to.

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.

As chefs, we work with organizations like Oxfam to enrich their projects with culinary tools, recipes and ideas.

Emeril is a one-in-a-million Renaissance man. In 2002, he established his foundation to support children's educational programs to inspire and mentor young people through culinary arts, school food and nutrition.

We do take seriously our responsibility, and growing ability, to educate people about healthy eating and giving them greater access to nourishing and affordable fresh food.