ST. PAUL — For over a decade, Renewing the Countryside has curated a food-related, interactive educational exhibit as part of the Minnesota State Fair’s Eco Experience – an award winning exhibit hall that reaches 250,000 – 300,000 visitors annually. This year, our theme for the food portion of the Eco Experience is organic foods and agriculture. As organic food and farming have grown in popularity over the two decades, so has confusion about what the label and practices means for human health, environmental wellbeing, and your pocketbook. This exhibit explores the evidence behind the answers, and aims to educate and empower the public with this information.
Why organic? Organic food has been making inroads onto the shelves of mainstream grocery stores and into the meals of consumers, but what does organic really mean, and how is it different from “natural” or conventional agriculture? What, for example, is the difference between a conventional, cage free, and organic egg? This year’s exhibit informs fairgoers on what they are choosing when they choose organic, and how this choice affects their health and our food system.
Throughout each day, premier local chefs – including Marshall Paulson of Birchwood Café on Thursday, August 31st and Lachelle Cunningham of Break Bread Foods on Sunday, September 3rd – are demonstrating recipes at 11am, 1pm, and 3pm using local and organic foods.
This event is coordinated by Renewing the Countryside, made possible by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and many volunteers, and is sponsored, in part, by Health Partners, Yum Power, Peace Coffee, and Organic Valley.
For more information, visit: http://www.renewingthecountryside.org/mn_state_fair
Contact Grace at 612-520-1675 or grace@rtcinfo.org for more information on Minnesota State Fair Health, Local Food Exhibit.
— Renewing the Countryside
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