Photos by Amelia Goe and Yihyun Jeong
To promote healthy and affordable eating, the Phoenix Green Team and other departments brought the nationwide Food Day celebration downtown Thursday.
Food Day is a grassroots movement created by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The event kicked off at 10 a.m. in the Cesar Chavez Plaza, where attendees could be seen making their ways around booths eating samples and learning about healthy eating lifestyles.
Over 70 vendors, including restaurants, organizations, farmers and more, educated the public about how to make healthier choices in their day-to-day lives and offered free services such as mini take-home gardens provided by the Valley Permaculture Alliance.
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton teamed up with the Executive Chef Dominic Vaccaro of Hyatt Regency Phoenix for a cooking demonstration using local products.
Following the demonstration, Mayor Stanton spoke along with other leaders about what Food Day in Phoenix meant for the community.
District Five Councilman Daniel Valenzuela is involved in health initiatives in the city, including FitPHX, a health and wellness program through the City of Phoenix.
“We endeavor to be the healthiest city in the country,” Valenzuela said.
Another proponent of FitPHX is Phoenix native and Olympic gold medalist Misty Hyman. Hyman encourages all Phoenicians to eat healthier.
“You don’t need to train like an Olympian to eat healthy,” Hyman said.
Dr. Bob England, Director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, said the city can’t only educate the public on health. The responsibility to encourage people to take that education a step further, England said, fell on the city and community.
“I’m really grateful to the city of Phoenix because we’ve never seen such leadership in matters of health,” England said. “The take home point is that it’s not just about individual responsibility. We have to make it possible to easily make healthier choices within (people’s) lives.”
Among the throng of vendors was Walter Cronkite School alumna, Carolyn Goldwater Ross, who was handing out samples of her salsas and other products from her company, Goldwater’s. She started in 1989 with her mother and aunt and said she was looking forward to sharing her food with the community.
“It’s nice to introduce the community to really good specialty foods that are also good for you,” Goldwater Ross said.
Another ASU graduate, Melanie Albert, stood at her booth and taught locals how to incorporate healthy eating into their diets.
Albert wrote a book inspired by her work creating healthy diets for former NFL players and is now launching her second book promoting healthy living.
Albert’s company Experience Nutrition focuses on hands-on education, and after meeting multiple students during the Food Day event she said she is looking forward to promoting nutrition education within the city’s school systems.
“It’s all about education,” Albert said. “It’s all about being hands-on, because people really need to experience (nutrition) … with their own hands.”
Contact the reporter at angoe@asu.edu
