Bikes and Food

There was a time, a simpler time perhaps, when I could describe Hazon (a Jewish environmental non-profit whose board I chair) as being about Jews, Bikes and Food.

Jews: we do aim to mobilize the Jewish community and Jewish participants, but, as one of our ride taglines puts it, "Jews on Bikes ... and you don't have to be Jewish" ... in fact most Hazon events include Palestinian Muslims (through our partnership with the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies) and other non-Jews regularly join us as well.

Bikes: our series of environmental bike rides, from cross-USA, to the Israel Ride, to the annual NY ride (and others) ... and this area has now expanded to include Hikes and Goat-packing trips in our "Outdoor Adventures" area.

Food: Hazon created and sponsors nearly 20 CSA (community supported agriculture) projects, aka Farm Share schemes, in Jewish community centers, and Synagogues, as well as hosting the leading Jewish Food Conference each year, and publishing curricula for schools and adults.

So imagine my delight when someone else put bikes and food together, and then topped it off with an environmental bike ride. The very beautiful and well written EcoVelo blog yesterday had a great post on CSAs (and why they are related to bikes), and today shouted out to Liza Stoner, a 14 year old planning a long distance ride this summer to promote electric vehicles as good for the environment.

Interestingly, today also saw another of my favorite bloggers taking a detour to discuss CSAs. John Halamka, an ER doc and chief information officer of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center writes a great blog called Geek Doctor, about his life as a healthcare CIO. On Thursdays he blogs about his hobbies and passions, and today he has a post on CSAs and their health benefits.

All this makes me hungry for some local fresh food, and this month our very own Newton Community Farm CSA (of which we have been members each year since its inception in 2006) will begin its weekly distributions, and I can't wait!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

www.localharvest.org is a great site that directs the user to their local CSA (and farm stand which CSA farms usually also have, for those of us who just can't convinced our families to eat all the zucchini, etc. a share in a CSA might bring).