What Can You Learn About Food at the Eco-Carnival?

What Can You Learn About Food at the Eco-Carnival?

On Sunday, October 11 the 2nd Annual Green City Challenge Eco-Carnival will be presented at La Plaza Cultural Community Garden on Avenue C and East 9th Street from 12 – 4 pm. This event is open to everyone and is absolutely free!

At the Eco-Carnival, you will learn about recycling, energy, green building, composting and much more. Additionally, you will learn about ways to purchase, prepare and eat food that is environmentally sustainable and healthy for your family.

What is the connection between food and the environment? First of all, industrial agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Not only is industrial agriculture heavily mechanized, but most of the food you buy in the grocery store or in fast food restaurants is produced using a lot of chemical pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and fungicides. In other words, the main ingredient in your food is oil and other fossil fuels! Industrial Agriculture is responsible for a large portion of Greenhouse Gases which cause climate change. Additionally, most processed foods are made with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), which have not been properly tested for safety and do not have to be labelled.
So, you may be wondering, how can you feed your family with good, healthy and environmentally responsible food? In New York City, we are very fortunate to have the Greenmarkets. At the Greenmarkets, local farmers from up to 100 miles away bring their produce to market. Most, if not all the vendors use organic methods to grow their food. When you buy food from a Greenmarket, you not only get fresh, locally grown food, but you also get a wonderful experience of being at a market where everyone is looking for healthy, environmentally responsible ways to grow, prepare and eat food.

At the Eco-Carnival on Sunday, October 11, there will be one or two booths where you can watch demonstrations of how to prepare simple and non-expensive dishes with fresh, healthy, and environmentally responsible ingredients for your family. In addition, the Go Fish Challenge, one of the many fun and interactive activities that will be part of the event, will ask you to differentiate between species of fish and other seafood that is environmentally sustainable or not. Keep in mind that most seafood is not sustainably produced and is often not healthy for you for various reasons.

When you attend the Eco-Carnival on Sunday, October 11 at La Plaza Cultural Community Garden on Avenue C and East 9th Street from 12 – 4 pm, we hope you will be inspired to change the way you eat as well as the way you do other things in order to be more environmentally responsible.