AMERICA IS BACK TO THE GARDEN TO FIGHT OBESITY AND THE CRISIS: FROM THE FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA AT THE WHITE HOUSE TO BIG COMPANIES (TOYOTA, PEPSI, GOOGLE, YAHOO!) EMPLOYEES GROW VEGETABLES

The First Lady Michelle Obama was the first one to drive a real crusade against obesity, one of the social ills plaguing the U.S. The first step she took was to be photographed with her daughters in the White House garden, while tending the vegetables they grow for their meals. The second step in the fight against junk food came a few days ago: the “manifesto” published by Michelle, “White House task force on childhood obesity”. This initiative, strongly desired by her, launched the ambitious challenge to greatly reduce the percentage of obese children in the U.S.: now 20%, to reach 5% by 2030. To achieve this goal, there are 70 recommendations covering five areas: pregnancy, preparing new parents about proper nutrition for children, improving school food supplies and access to healthy foods in poorer neighborhoods and rural areas. Vegetable gardening activities and a growing trend of physical activity for children are also included. But the U.S.A. also sees the vegetable garden as an ally against the economic crisis. Many large companies that can no longer afford to pay employees increases, bonuses or travel incentives, have invented a new benefit to raise their employees’ morale: the orchard business.
So, the headquarters of Toyota in Georgetown, Kentucky, is equipped with a huge garden full of tomatoes and zucchini, while Pepsi has created a “corporate garden” strictly organically grown by the employees. At the end of the day they come home with bags full of fruits and vegetables. And, if up until now garden-mania was limited to an elite group of progressive companies like Google, Yahoo and Sunset Magazine (all in Silicon Valley) now hundreds of companies give their employees special permits to work in the company vegetable garden during office hours. The obvious advantage is they bring home fresh vegetables to eat, but it is also a valuable exercise to keep fit. And the garden, as well as being an educational place for children, will be the focus of “The tour of the garden”, the WineNews conference to be held on May 22nd in Montalcino.