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“The program at Yale is the talk of colleges,” Waters says. Many other universities and colleges, including Oberlin, Middlebury and Stanford, are now serving local and organic food at their residential dining halls.

Other California public school districts with organic lunch programs include Santa Monica and Palo Alto. In San Francisco, a private agency offers healthy alternative bag lunches to students in kindergarten through 8th grade.

In Washington, all Olympia grade schools have an organic salad bar, while the Seattle school board has prohibited the sale of all junk food and is working to phase out contracts with carbonated-beverage vendors for “exclusive pouring rights.” The New Jersey state assembly is considering a ban on junk food in schools that would require all vending machines to have whole-grain products, milk, juice and water by 2007.

In 2003, in response to growing interest in healthier school lunches, New Hampshire-based organic yogurt company Stonyfield Farm started a “Menu for Change” vending machine program, which includes organic juices, snacks and their yogurt products. To date, about a dozen machines have been placed in schools in four states (California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island) — and a 600-school waiting list continues to grow. “We are not in the vending business, so we didn’t solicit anyone for this,” says Carmelle Druchniak, a Stonyfield spokeswoman. “The demand was an eye-opener.”

For more information on Waters’ school initiatives, visit www.chezpanissefoundation.org or www.edibleschoolyard.org.— Umut Newbury

Cows, Pigs and Chickens Are Going Back to the Pasture

A safer, healthier alternative to factory-farm meats is emerging: the back-to-the-pasture movement. In September, more than 650 ranchers and 1,400 consumers converged in Montgomery, Ala., to take part in GrazeFest Alabama, the first national celebration of the back-to-the-pasture movement. The turnout showed that pasture-based ranching is being rediscovered by farmers and consumers; four years ago, fewer than 100 ranchers were selling grass-fed products directly to the public. Today, more than 2,000 are in the business, and demand continues to exceed supply.

Pasture-based ranchers raise their animals on grass and stored forage. They do not ship their animals to feedlots, treat them with antibiotics or hormones, or speed up their growth by feeding them grain — organic or otherwise. The animals are never given byproducts of any kind, so there is virtually no risk of mad cow disease.

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