Many of the most prominent voices for change in the food movement and a growing number of health, hunger, and sustainable agriculture groups are taking part in Food Day—a nationwide campaign to change the way Americans eat and think about food. Organized by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Day will encourage people around the country to sponsor or participate in activities that encourage Americans to “eat real” and support healthy, affordable food grown in a sustainable, humane way.

Food Day will be observed on Monday, October 24, 2011, and will include a series of marquee events in Washington, New York City, San Francisco, and other major cities. When I saw the plans for this day starting to take shape across America, I thought, "Well if Lafayette won the BEST FOOD TOWN in Rand McNally's Best of the Road, surely we need to have a big bad celebration for the inaugural celebration of Food Day. " So here we are: Great Harvest Bread Co. is making sure that Lafayette, LA is on the map for Food Day.  We have a full set of activities from 1pm-7pm.  See all the details on our Community Page.  We hope to see you on Monday. 

The national campaign will advocate progress toward five central goals: 

• Reducing diet-related disease by promoting healthy foods.  The American diet is too low in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and too high in fatty meat, soft drinks, and salty packaged and restaurant foods—contributing to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year due to heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer.  SO ON FOOD DAY (MONDAY), you can come fill up on FRESH PRODUCE from LOCAL FARMERS & fill up on WHOLE GRAIN BREAD!

• Supporting sustainable farms and stopping subsidies to agribusiness.  Billions of federal dollars a year would be better spent helping environmentally conscious family farmers than huge agribusiness operations.

• Expanding access to food and alleviating hunger.  Far too many Americans don't know where their next meal is coming from, or have access to fresh produce in their neighborhood.      

• Reforming factory farms to protect animals and the environment.  Farming of animals can and should be done without cruelty, and without degrading the quality of life in rural America.

• Curbing junk-food marketing to kids.  Food companies should not be targeting children with foods that promote tooth decay, obesity, and other health problems.

Click here to ask your Members of Congress to support the Eat Real agenda, which advocates for healthy
foods in schools and for low-income consumers.