Everyone needs to eat but the modern food production system is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers. While the system produces food that is cheap and abundant, it creates major air and water pollution and global warming gases. This explains the trend towards sustainable cuisine.
Sustainable cuisine envisions the farm, ranch, and ocean as ecosystems that need careful and ethical management. It encourages regional food production, land stewardship, and the success of small and medium-sized farms. And sustainable cuisine produces artisanal food that is in great demand at grocers and restaurants from coast to coast.
That’s what attracted the former chief operating officer of McDonalds, Mike Roberts, to open Lyfe Restaurant in Palo Alto. Lyfe features sustainable, organic, and natural foods, while shunning sugar, white flour, hormone-fed meat, trans fats, and genetically modified organisms. The restaurant also utilizes energy-saving cooking technologies and even an ecological dishwashing system. In 2013, Roberts was working to open 500 to 1000 Lyfe franchises across North America. As he explains, “We’re in the middle of the first stage of the food revolution. I’m dreaming of a place where science, medicine, producers, farmers, and restaurateurs meet to say we are on a journey together.”
Whether or not Lyfe is the next Starbucks, Robert’s hopes to take sustainable cuisine to the next level; the large-scale production and sale of wholesome, environmentally friendly food. His concept is part of an expanding, cutting-edge industry that includes restaurant entrepreneurs, chefs, skilled farm workers, food educators, researchers, and analysts.
The future looks bright for those with an Associate Of Applied Science (AAS) degree in Sustainable Cuisine. With a knowledge of organic farming, culinary services, and local and sustainable food systems, they are meeting the needs of the present with an eye cast to the future.