The Ethical Eats
Lecture Series
At FUS, we will aim to be more aware of what we eat, and why and how our food choices affect the planet and its inhabitants. We will celebrate the joyful aspects of eating, and eating in community. We will be catalysts for awareness and change in helping people make daily food choices that are ethical, healthy and a basis for spiritual practice. We will collaborate with other community groups that explore, educate and act around issues of ethical eating.
"Death by Food"
Bill Kurtis
Wednesday, October 7 • 7 p.m. Landmark Auditorium
$5 donation at the door
Acclaimed journalist and rancher Bill Kurtis examines the development of the food industry and its impact on the American diet. From the introduction of high fructose corn syrup to the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics in foods, Kurtis makes a case against over-processed foods and implores his audience to get back to nature when eating their favorite meals. In particular, Kurtis investigates the increased use of corn as cattle feed and its ramifications for the American diet. This program is sure to challenge and provoke much discussion and thought on what we eat and how can we return to a simpler time when foods were raised on the farm and sent fresh to the table.
The former CBS Morning News anchor raises and markets organic grass-fed beef on his 10,000-acre Red Buffalo Ranch in Kansas.
As a documentarian, Kurtis has traveled to the far ends of the earth for the Peabody Award-winning series “The New Explorers,” which aired on the A&E Network. In 1990, he founded Kurtis Productions and began producing programs for A&E, including the award-winning “Investigative Reports” and “Cold Case Files.”
Kurtis is author of The Death Penalty on Trial: Crisis in American Justice (PublicAffairs) and co-author with Michelle M. Martin of The Prairie Table Cookbook (Sourcebooks).
He is the recipient of numerous humanitarian, journalism and broadcasting awards including the Thurgood Marshall Award for an “Investigative Reports” installment about the death penalty. For more: www.billkurtis.com, or www.tallgrassbeef.com.
"The Fifth Season"
Monique Jamet Hooker
Monday, November 2 • 7 p.m.
Atrium Auditorium
$5 donation at the door
Spring, summer, fall, winter. When Monique Hooker of DeSoto refers to “the fifth season,” it is with a determination to fill the entire year with healthful, locally grown food. She believes that proper food preservation techniques make this possible for the average consumer.
“It’s about preserving the food we have in abundance, like we used to in the old days,” she says. “But we’ve lost a generation and need to start the wheels again – educating each other not just about the importance of sustainability but how to make this happen.”
This presentation discusses the principles and possibilities. It is not hands-on training about how to preserve food. Hooker wants everyone to learn how to relax with food as well as experience the joy and satisfaction of preparing meals from fresh ingredients.
Best described as a culinary pioneer, Hooker is a chef, teacher and author with a lifelong enthusiasm for food and travel. Trained in Europe, she moved to New York and worked alongside of chefs such as Jacques Pepin, Pierre Franey, Andre Soltner and Madeleine Kamman.
In the early 1970’s, Hooker moved to Chicago where she operated a successful cooking school, catering company and restaurant (Monique’s Café). She is the author of Cooking With The Seasons, A Year In My Kitchen (Henry Holt & Co) and hosted a TV show called “The Seasonal Kitchen.” For more: www.moniquescuisine.com.
"The Flavor of Wisconsin"
Terese Allen
• Monday, December 14 • 7 p.m.
• Atrium Auditorium
• $5 donation at the door
Eating locally benefits our health, the environment and social justice; it also carries cultural benefits that connect us in important ways to family, community, and region. That’s particularly true in Wisconsin, whose food traditions reflect the richness of a geographically, agriculturally, and ethnically diverse state.
In this presentation, author and food activist Terese Allen of Madison draws from her newly published second edition of The Flavor of Wisconsin: History and Culture Through Recipes (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), a food history with 460 recipes originally penned by Harva Hachten in 1983. Many foodies consider it the definitive word on the state’s food culture and heritage.
The book examines the history of this region, as seen through the lens of food. Allen tracks the magnificent cornucopia of what Wisconsinites have gathered, grown, produced, cooked, and eaten — from wild rice to specialty cheese, Cornish pasties to Hmong egg rolls, fish fry to a double with the works. She reveals the cultural stories that regional recipes tell, and explores the dimensions of meaning and consequence in local foods, past and present. We will sample food made from the book’s recipes during this event.
Allen has written several other books on Wisconsin’s food traditions, including Wisconsin’s Hometown Flavors, Fresh Market Wisconsin, Cafe Wisconsin Cookbook and The Ovens of Brittany Cookbook. She is a food columnist for Madison’s Isthmus newspaper and food editor for Organic Valley, the country’s largest organic farmers’ cooperative.
Allen also chairs southern Wisconsin’s REAP (Research, Education, Action and Policy on) Food Group and is a founding member and past-president of CHEW (Culinary History Enthusiasts of Wisconsin).
For more: www.tereseallen.com, www.wisconsinhistory.org/whspress
Nutrition Facts, Opinions,
and Personal Choices
Susan Nitzke
• Monday, February 8 • 7 p.m.
• Atrium Auditorium
• $5 donation at the door
Are you confused by all of the differing and often contradictory information in the food marketplace? Join Dr. Nitzke as she addresses the current myths, fads, and confusing information we receive about food. Susan Nitzke is a Nutritional Sciences Professor and an Extension Nutrition Specialist. She chairs the Nutritional Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nitzke is a Registered and Certified Dietitian with a Ph.D. in nutritional sciences and a bachelor’s degree in foods. Nitzke is chair of the statewide Wisconsin Partnership for Physical Activity and Nutrition (WI PAN) coalition and she is a member of the Wisconsin Prevention of Obesity and Diabetes (WI POD) partnership group that strives to integrate basic and applied research and education across the UW campus in partnership with the Nutrition and Physical Activity program at DHFS.
She is an active member of the Society for Nutrition Education, the American Dietetic Association, and the American Society for Nutrition. Her research is aimed at improving the effectiveness of community healthy lifestyle interventions and nutrition education programs.
"Growing Power!"
with Will Allen
Tuesday, March 9 • 7 p.m.
Atrium Auditorium
$5 at the door
In 1993, Growing Power was an organization with teens who needed a place to work. Will Allen was a farmer with land.
Will designed a program that offered teens an opportunity to work at his store and renovate the greenhouses to grow food for their community. What started as a simple partnership to change the landscape of the north side of Milwaukee has blossomed into a national and global commitment to sustainable food systems. Since its inception, Growing Power has served as a ”living museum” or “idea factory” for the young, the elderly, farmers, producers, and other professionals ranging from USDA personnel to urban planners.Will believes, “If people can grow safe, healthy, affordable food, if they have access to land and clean water, this is transformative on every level in a community. I believe we cannot have healthy communities without a healthy food system.”
Growing Power is now a national nonprofit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds, and the environments in which they live, by helping to provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food for people in all communities. Growing Power implements this mission by providing hands-on training, on-the-ground demonstration, outreach and technical assistance through the development of Community Food Systems that help people grow, process, market and distribute food in a sustainable manner. You can also read more at www.growingpower.org.
"Eating Organic on a Dime"
Lisa Kivirist
• Monday, April 12 • 7 p.m.
• Atrium Auditorium
• $5 donation at the door
Looking for practical tips for enjoying more sustainable, healthy, and nutritious foods while both saving money and stewarding the environment? Grocery shopping, particularly in today’s economy, requires a toolbox of strategies to eat well on a budget while still making environmentally conscientious purchasing decisions.
Come for a range of simple tips and creative perspectives on rethinking our personal household food budget and approach to eating, while learning how our individual food choices can have an impact on the larger agricultural system. We all eat multiple times every day. Our food choices can be conscious, ethical, healthy and economical, enabling us to do more than just fill the stomach. We can feed our spirit and help transform the world with every bite.
Lisa Kivirist is a national advocate for rural women’s issues and directs the Rural Women’s Project, a venture of the Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service. She is a social and business entrepreneur, an author, and a leader in the growing rural renaissance and sustainable living movement. Kivirist is co-founder of the Rural Renaissance Network, which provides educational resources and information to individuals, families and communities wishing to support more ecologically mindful and socially responsible living in rural communities.
She is the author of Kiss Off Corporate America: A Young Professional’s Guide to Independence (Andrews McMeel) and co-author, with husband John Ivanko, of Rural Renaissance: Renewing the Quest for the Good Life and ECOpreneuring: Putting Purpose and the Planet before Profits (New Society Publishers). The couple run the award-winning Serendipity Bed and Breakfast and Farm near Monroe. For more: www.innserendipty.com.
