>>mahealani: food brings ustogether and sustains our bodies and souls. atrestaurant it's and around our tables, we demand that our foodwith fresh and healthy. but do we really know what we'reeating? how can we we become more savvy eaters? coming upon insights on pbs hawaii, do you know what you're eating?>>mahealani: coming up next on insights on pbs hawai'i, do youknow what you're eating? >>mahealani: aloha and welcometo insights on pbs hawai'i. i'm mahealani richardson. asan island state, hawai'i
relies heavily on importedfoods. but locavo are. es and slow food advocates want tomake sure we have more local options everywhere fromfarmer's markets to fine restaurants. how do we knowwhich foods are not only best for our bodies but also bestfor the sustainability of our islands? what should we bedoing here at home to help increase the availability offresh hawai'i-grown edibles? and what can we do to make sureour food is safe, whether it's fresh from a garden or straightout of a kitchen? tonight on
insights, do you know whatyou're eating? we invite to you join our conversation bycalling, e-mailing or tweeting your questions an comments.now to our goests. peter oshiro is the environmentalhealth program manager for the department of health. peteris helping launch hawai'i's new restaurant rating systemwhich will help diners decide where it's safe to eat. kaleoten is a community organizer for kanu hawai'i. kaleo'srole includes leading kanu's grow local campaign. for2014, kanu is challenging
people around the state to eatlocal for the entire year. kasha ho is hawai'i'scommunity and outreach coordinator at the center forfood safety. working with a variety of hawai'iorganizations, kasha helps put fresh local produce into thehands of low income and elderly residents. and danielanthony is a poi pounder for mana ai, family run businessthat offers hand pounded poi and paiai. daniel doesn'tjust make and sell poi. he teaches community members topound taro themselves. what a
great topic. food. what isthe center for food safety? >> center for food safety isactually a national nonprofit ethicacy group. we work onissues on public health, human health and environmentalhealth. especially focused on looking at the destructiveagricultural technologies including geneticmodification and overuse of pesticides. that's whatwe've been involved with here in p hawai'i for the past 10years. we're actually just about to launch or localoffice. i'm one of two of our
first local hawai'i staff.>>mahealani: kaleo, kanu has similar philosophy as thecenter for food safety. how do you differ and where do youstand on things like organic foods and local food.>> local right now is kind of the focus to get people to growtheir own food and eat locally grown food. i like to thinkthat it's about local first an organic when necessary. intothat's right. so when you're in the store, there's so manychoices these days and now, you feel that it's actually betterto eat local as opposed to
organic?>> i would.say it's better to eat local than organic.organic is always going to be, typically a healthier choice.but for the economy, for the community, eating local isgoing to be my option versus imported organic.>>mahealani: daniel, why don't you talk about your quest tospread awareness about poi and paiai.>> poi. traditional product, doesn't require refrigerationpressure. can last for week, months or even yearsunrefrigerated.
>>mahealani: what'sinteresting about that is there was an issue with youactually being able to sell it it in retail. how do you getover there and what was the issue with the department ofhealth. >> we both had the sameintentions. it's about communities health andwell-being. we had two different perspectives that wewere coming from and so we were able, my personal self and ourfamily, were able to learn tremendous about food safety.got just the regulations, with
you how important it is in anytype of eating, whether it's establishment or your home.so we came to understanding that we both had the samemission and we just were using different terminologies.together, we were able to come up with a solution that allowedfor both of our values to remain. their value of thecommunity, recognizing that guess what? fresh handpounded taro does not come out of a certified kitchen and thatyou need to have some risks being which means being aconsumer paying attention.
for us, freedom to be able toshare our artisan craft in such a way that didn't impose uponour culture. so we've been making it like this forthousands of years. we have no shame in telling people,it's not made if a certified kitchen. but yes, eat at yourrisk. >>mahealani: peter, what doyou make of that? >> no. it's great workingwith daniel. educated me so much in the ancient culturalpractices. a lot of it does make sense. you think itwould be counter intuitive,
what he just said about leavingpoi out forever and it's not going bad, but it does have avery definite scientific basis. poi is a starch that asit gets older, the acidity level rises which presreupbtsbacterial growth. once the ph falls below a certain level,the product is essentially nonpotentially hazardous andshelf stable. very interesting talking withdaniel about the ancient practices and what they did anda lot of it didn't extend to us. so we didn't advocate for therule. daniel advocated the
legislature to change the lawswhich was compelled the department to make rules toallow for the sale of paiai, hand pounded poi directly tothe consumers. we're very successful working withdaniel. i think we've set up some kind of guidelines andrules where we're also protecting public health.daniel is one of the most educated or in his industry,he's gone over and above what the regular industry isrequired as far as education where he is food safetycertified. he did take it
very seriously what we weretelling him about personal hygiene, how to introducebacteria into foods and prevent that. we're veryhappy with how he's turned out and his business and the wayhe's operating right no. >>mahealani: department ofhealth is on the verge of a new restaurant rating system.you brought your placards. can you explain what that is.>> big impetus for the rules is 3 fold.we're going to increase fees onto industry to pay for all ofour program enhancements and
staffing. adopt nationwidestandard for food, current scientific thought. thirdthing was restaurant grading system. starting off withthis past placard, during our routine inspection, if youhave one major violation or less, inspector will give youa pass placard. what major violations are are violationsthat are directly related to food borne illnesses. theseare not things like dirty floors walls an ceilings.these are things like attention to personal hygiene,making sure foods are at the
proper temperatures, whetheryou're cooling things enough, and whether you're sanitizingyour dishing, dishwashing practices are proper. onemajor violation or less, if it can be corrected prior to theinspector leaving the establishment. he will issuea pass placard. hung in the most visible place possibleprobably within 5 feet from the entrance where everyonecan see it. >>mahealani: you've got yellowand red placards. red is a major violation. what aboutyellow?
>> what the yellow placard is,this is a conditional pass. during the routine inspection,the restaurant gets two major violations or more, even ifthey can be corrected on the spot, two major violations tous indicates that the firm is going slightly out of kilter.so they do need a reinspection. so this conditional passplacard will be placed up and it's a public notification.there's 6 categories that we basically look at. foodprotection, employee hygiene and personal health,protection from
contamination, foodtemperatures, facility and equipment sanitation, insectrodent control, and unapproved food sources. these are thesix things and various permutations inestablishments that are directly related to food borneillnesses. >>mahealani: kasha, when youlook at restaurants, a lot of them are touting we have localproduce in our menu items. is it any healthier that they'refocusing on local foods now. >> i think local foods havehealth impacts not only for the
individual but also for thecommunity. i think we can definitely say that local fooddoesn't travel as far, right? we're in the middle of thepacific owing. if 85% of our food is imported, it'straveling at least 3,000-miles to get there and those foodswill not need to be picked at the peek of ripeness becausethey won't make that trip over here. local food is treasure,tastes better may be healthier for us. as we talked about, hehealthier for the community. start to build relationshipswith local farming families so
you know exactly where yourfood came from and what kinds of practices were used duringits growing cycle and harvesting and how it got toyour plate. i think that it's really looking at health in amore holistic way of kind of how does it affect ourcommunities, how does it affect our ecosystem.>>mahealani: kaleo, you're trying to educate people aboutgrowing their own food. how realistic is it especiallypeople who live in small one bedroom condos and don't havethe space to grow food?
>> i live in an apartmentbidding myself. i'm growing food in pots. it's an easy asgetting a tomato and squeezing it into from dirt and leave itthere, it's probably going to grow. if you start somewhere,you're doing something. >>mahealani: what about youdaniel, do you actually grow taro in your backyard or wheredo you find the taro to make your poi and paiai.>> we source taro from a variety of farmers fromdifferent islands. we are farming on oahu. one of ourphilosophies is that if you're
not farming taro, you're notreally in the taro game or the taro business. so what we'vebeen searching for for the 7 years on oahu are prime landsto farm taro in a serious manner. we're in the back ofkahaluu where we're storing ancient terraces. due towhere water system is at. we don't run an awai system. werely on rainfall. >>mahealani: you call taro asuper food. why is that. >> you know, if you wereallergic to your mother's breast milk, if you had severeallergy to wheat, gluten, this
is a food that is a source oflife. it has the smallest starch granule, so it makes forof for easy digestion. the beneficial bacterias thatare cultivate the when you have a traditional poi eatingregiment, which is really having a bowl of poi on yourtable, you keep the ph at a certain level and that's sour,but it's safe and very flavorful. so in thatconsistency, for people that have cancer, that are goingthrough chemotherapy, not only are they able to be sustainedfrom it, but those beneficial
bacteria help to regeneratethe bacteria in their gut system. so we're finding thatfood is medicine. when you're medicinal food is the staple ofyour family, it's really has the effects just keep goingoutward. >>mahealani: the department ofhealth has more restaurant inspectors now, peter. whatare they finding out there? i mean, sometimes you read thosereports. they might be pretty gross.>> well, again, when i first started in the program managera few years ago, nine people in
the field that were in chargeof over 6,000 establishments here on oahu. that meantinspections every 2 years, to 2 and a half years. so wecannot expect consistent compliance with food safetyregulations if you're in the facility once every 2 years.fda recommends that we need a staffing level where weinspect the most high risk establishments at least 3times a year. medium risk twice a year smallerfacilities once a year. in order to do that, we hadincrease our staffing levels.
we pay for restaurant permitfees. now at 25 people in the field. we will hire five morepeople this year. we'll have a total of 30 people people.in charge of 6,000 establishments. very much inline with they'llable able to keep up with that restaurant.>>mahealani: what kind of violations have you seen?>> again, most typical for any food safety program throughoutthe united states, number one thing everyone sees ispersonal hygiene. not washing hands frequentlyenough and especially not
washing hands when you're movebetween raw and cooked food. that's a real big hazard that'scommon for much. also temperature controls.refrigerators that are not properly cold enough and hotnot hot enough. very common things.>>mahealani: kasha, kalia from waikiki has this question.she thinks farmers markets are great but ho how can weconsumers of produce from farmer markets knows what kindof pesticides or fungicides are being used on the producewe buy? there's usually no
labeling.it's just all the produce there.>> definitely. one of the really wonderful things abouthaving a face-to-face relationship with where yourfood comes it from. i work at some of the farmer markets.if you have questions about how the food is grown, talk to thefarmer about it. they're very forth come willinging it toldyou what kind of sprays they use what crops thatinformation is available and gives you an opportunity tobuild that relationship.
kind of like a communitybuilding activity as well. >>mahealani: kaye kaleo forfood at the farmer market, all of the produce, do you think italways comes from a small local farm or do you think sometimeslike the big producers somehow get in there?>> well, i don't know for sure. i wouldn't talk about too manypeople. you can look at some of the boxes that are stackedup with the food there. but like kasha said, talk to thefarmer and talk to people selling it and find out what'sgoing on. also depends on
which farmers' market youyou're going to. some are more known for people in thearea growing their food and bringing it to the market.>>mahealani: daniel, how have you seen poi growcommercially, not only culturally, but commercially.there's so many poi products out there.>> we're going to continue to see this as a trend because weneed to find a starch that's suitable to grow in hawai'i.taro is a proven starch, super starch that was establishedwell over 20,000 acres. so if
we want to live in 2014, we'regoing to have to eat paiai pizza or crackers or you knowwhat i mean? the reality is the world is where we drawingredients and inspiration from. so if we can look at ouringredients and see how they fit into the world, then ithink we're going to find that more people want to eat here.>>mahealani: you've created recipes from paiai that looklike just every day things that we might see at a restaurant,pizza, pasta, that sort of thing.>> pizza, pasta, cinna bonds.
we even do a vegan sashimi.>>mahealani: does it taste any good.>> i shared it with hawai'i tourism japan.the ladies were speechless. we aged it and the mold aroundit when you cut it and plate it made it looked seared. whenit sours, it looks pink. looks like sashimi put on aplatter with diced cabbage and wasabi. the flavor andcrunch. yum. >>mahealani: making us hungry.kaleo, you have a goal of having people eat local for anentire year. is that
realistic?>> well, the goal is 10% increase in local foodconsumption for the year. i think it's realistic. goingto the farmer's markets and going out there and just kindof opening up your pallet is going to be kind of part of thesolution. i'm not sure if everyone is eating paiai rightnow, but go out there and try it. and growing some thingsat home definitely going to help. getting green onionscutting it up and putting it inside there and eating that.>>mahealani: kasha, do you
think that we have enough landto totally support local food consumption?>> you know, that's a really good question. i think thatit's one that a lot of folks are trying to answer here inhawai'i. what we do know is that we won't have enough landunless we really prioritize it for food use and foragricultural use. it's challenging for localfarmers to find accessible affordable land in hawai'i.one of the issues is that some of our largest agriculturalinvestigators are being used
not to produce food for localconsumption but being used to produce genetically modifiedseeds for export to the mainland and other placesaround the world. prime agricultural land are notbeing used for food production. some of thoseissues need to come to light to answer that question. can wefeed ourselves. >>mahealani: peter, thomasfrom waikele has an interesting question aboutfood trucks. they're really popular right now. he wantsto know, will the health
department rating system beapplied to food trucks? >> yes. they will. appliedto anyone that currently has a permit with us. so the ofthousand permits we have oahu, 10,000 statewide, haseverything from convenience stores, five star restaurants,lunch wagons, institutional kitchens, schools. anybodythat sells food in any shape or form has a permit with us willbe part of this grading system. >>mahealani: what are youfinding right now in terms of food trucks is these areusually small owners.
mobile. they're not reallylarge operations. do they have more violations than yourtypical restaurant in. >>>>. typically not. pretty much the same as any other foodestablishment that serve it's similar type of menu. nothingmore to fire or be wary of if it is a truck. main thing isto talk to them, ask if they have permits from the healthdepartment and ask to see them. make sure they have them onboard. they are required to have the permits with them andthe permit numbers on the side
of the trucks also.>>mahealani: kasha, the senator for food safety has aninteresting perspective on genetically modified food.very controversial on both sides of the issue. where doyou folks stand on that. >> well, what we're reallyfocusing on right now is our right it now. as consumersand as community members in hawai'i, we're really trywillinging support the efforts of local community groups antindividuals would want to know a, as a consumer, is the foodthat i'm eating genetically
modified. that comes to theissue of labeling. since we don't have labeling right now.federal level, it's been something that's been comingup at a state level here in hawai'i, actually half of thestate, 26 states in the united states last year, introducedlegislation that are really was looking at labelinggenerally ethically modified organisms. as a consumer,that's one issue. as a community member, for thefield trials that are happening, in agriculturallands near our homes and near
our schools, what is it thatthey're growing there and how much and what kinds ofpesticides are they using? so those are some of the issuesthat have been coming up here locally that we've beenfocusing on. >>mahealani: daniel, were youpart of this movement. you were attending rallies againstgmos at one point. now you backed off. why is that?>> you know, really, it's focusing on solutions. it'salso seeing that the movement here is grown and solidified.we don't need every single
voice to shout at the sameproblems. we need to each individually look at what arethose solutions. for me, i believe that i have a clearvision that taro is a solution that taro water takes waterfrom future gmo use. from future agriculturalindustries that are going to be using heavy chemicals andpesticides. we're going to promote a tie of agriculturethat is important for our future, one that doesn'trequire input from out side of hawai'i. when all of ourinputs are made locally. we
need to talk about the future.i'm really happy that kasha has your office has come herebecause we need a much clearer picture. hawai'i for this gmoissue, is such a focal point worldwide. and if everyone inthe world that wanted to fight gmos sent us one dollar, wewould win this year. that's all it comes down to is money.so instead of fighting against money, which i'm more thanhappy to do, but i have to put my sword down and pick up my o'o because planting taro is going to sustain those that arefighting. we are feeding
them. our commitment is toplant taro while they're battling this because thosepeople that are fighting for us, they need food and theyneed support. >>mahealani: let's talk aboutmoney because kaleo, a lot of people they want to eat local.they want to eat organic but it's just really expensive.you go to a health food store and you're going to pay a bigpaycheck for good healthy food. it's a lot cheaper toeat stuff that's processed and not. how do you help peopleeat healthy foods when it's
more expensive?>> yeah, that's the question about health in general too.i mean, how much do we pay for health care? maybe the foodthat we eat can correlate to the price of your health care.if you eat healthier food, maybe you'll be healthier.i'm also not so sure that all food really needs to be cheap.maybe you pay more with your pocketbook, or maybe you paymore with your labor work in the community garden,volunteer. meet one of your neighbors.>> they might have an
experience growing food andhelp them out. and so i'm not so sure that it really needs tobe cheap. let's keep a healthy that going.>>mahealani: peter, there's a lot of questions about therestaurant rating system. people are still trying to findout about it. one person wanted to know, well, foodhandlers and super market-- delis be rated.>> yes. that's going to depend on the super marketitself. it's going to be their choice whether tosegregate each of their
departments or under onepermit. leave it to industry how dothat. we've had indications from the larger marketsthey're willing to pull out a separate permit for thebakery, separate for the delhi, seafood section and onepermit for everything on the floor. whether they do thator not, the deli handlers are all part of the inspectionprogram. >>mahealani: if you findsomething you're going to put one of those placards on.>> exactly right. if the is to
store is worried about maybethe seafood section cause causing problems with the restwas store, if it's all under one permit, then that just onesection could i guess result in a can pass on the facility. ifthey have all segregated out, maybe only that seafoodsection will have a conditional pass and the restof the store will have pass placards.it's up to them how they want to do it.>>mahealani: what's interesting is it seems asthough the industry is
supportive of this because youwould think that they would say, there would be a negativeeconomic impact if there's a yellow or red. but yourexperience was they actually supported it?.yeah. when we went to the public hearing, verysurprising. we had very little blow back fromindustry. the one concern that industry did havehonestly was the conditional pass placard and how long thedepartment of health would leave that up. we committedto industry that once they tell
us they fixed all violations,we would return within one business day to do areinspection to follow up. if everything has been corrected,we'll take down the yellow placard and put up the greenpass placard. >>mahealani: kasha, how do youthink people can really choose healthy foods when they'reeating out? >> when they're eating out,.>>mahealani: there's so much tempting stuff out there.>> there is. i think that one thing that you can do as we'vebeen talking about is eat
locally grown. i think thatthat's a great option. often results in a healthier meal.i think that one thing to consider too is not just thehealth of our bodies, but also i think about who are theworker it's that brought the food to you and what kind ofconditions were they working under. that's something thati try to keep in mind when i go out to eat and as we've beentalking about, i tried to know as much as i can about therestaurant, locally owned business, do i know the familythat owns that restaurant or
food truck? so it's anopportunity to build relationships while eating outas well. >>mahealani: daniel talk aboutthe price of paiai. there's a pretty big significant pricedifference between what you're producing and just the bag ofpoi in the super market. >> in our movement, there is alot of lessons learned. if we wanted to see a healthy taroindustry, we had pay it forward. start paying for thekind of quality of taro that we wanted and needed. over thelast few years, farmers have
really risen up to that. sowhen you purchase taro at 3 to 4 times the commercial farmprice, that increases your cost. when you hand pound it,the labor increases your cost. here's what most people don'trealize. if you use department of health standardsfor poi, one pound of paiai being 99% taro will make 3 to5 pounds of ready to eat poi. so ready to eat poi isclassified as poi containing no less than 15% solids. 85%water. and so that's 3 to 5 pounds of hanalei or tarobrand refrigerated poi for one
pound of paiai. if you'regoing to go to regular poi, which is 27%, i believe, thatwould paiai would make 2 to 3 pounds of that. if you justtake a look at price of paiai and factor it in that formula,it's actually very reasonable. which makes you consider howcould the commercial industry buy it at four times less thanus, have a huge machine that does it, yet when you actuallymeasure apples to apples, we're pretty much in there.>>mahealani: this couple questions for peter oshiro.6,000 restaurants, 30
inspectors, how many visitsdoes this break down in a year for the individual restaurantor food truck? >> target for that staffinglevel was to have the high risk facilities inspected threetimes a year. so many food trucks will fall into thatcategory. fast food outlets typically will be inspectedtwice a year. smaller single item outlets like the cookieplaces, ice cream shops will be inspected annually. we havethe staffing level to inspect at that proper frequency.>>mahealani: there was a big
unroar over those rats inchinatown a while back. how are things now and is it safeto eat food from chine town? >> absolutely safe to eat foodin chinatown. i'm not going to say that's rats have problemhas disappeared. but what happens is the food handlingpractices of the merchants has changed quite a bit. so theidea if you cannot get rid of the rats in the community, youhave to protect your food supply. each. markets andfacility realize when they close up shop, everything hasto be rolled in containers.
nothing left out in the open.that's the key. when they open up in the morning, wash,sanitize, wipe down all the surfaces that were were wereexposed to keep people safe. we have many food bornillnesses and outbreaks coming out of chinatown t is safe toeat there. >>mahealani: talk about foodsecurity and why kanu decided to make that a priority.>> kanu works towards sustainable in general. foodis one aspect. then there's energy and waste. what growlocal campaign is about is
getting people to grow theirown food. that is a cheaper way for people to did thatversus going out to a restaurant or trying to findfood in like a natural food store, a lot of things are moreexpensive. when it comes to sustainability and that as awhole, it kind of starts with food.>>mahealani: if hawai'i was cut of off from the rest of theworld, how long will we have with our current food supply?>> i think there was sb937, a bill that went out there. inthat, it at that talked about
10 days. what it would be.10 days of food on shelves. after that, i'm not so sure. ithink people in hawai'i are kind of resilient in general.definitely, on other islands, molokai and big island, wherethey're growing a lot, and people are fishing.so even on the fish industry in hawai'i, i mean, there's a lotout there. we collect like the most fish that goes out tothe rest of america. so but the rest of the stuff, riceimported. beef is imported. that's probably not going to bearound.
>>mahealani: peter, is this anissue that your department actually looks at in terms offood security? >> no. that is not part of ourmission. our mission is food safety. so the food securityside i guess belongs with the administration. they need tolook at those issues. >>mahealani: what about you,kasha? where do you stand in tomorrows of food security andmaking sure that we can sustain ourselves?>> well, i think that food security is a really importantissue for hawai'i. we've been
talking about. reallyisolated. most isolated land mass in the world and we're sodependent on outside imports. if anything were to happen,natural disaster, labor strike, we were cut off fromthose import it's, we would be in really dire straits prettyquickly. i think that as consumers, it's a reallyimportant issue to look at and i participated in kahu's eatlocal challenge for quite a few years and it really, iencourage everyone to try it. i tried to eat exclusivelylocal for an entire month. it
was hard.>>mahealani: that means no rice.>> no rice. no pasta. only starches were taro and breadfruit. challenging but home to me personally how dependentwe are on outside imports and how many food we wouldn't eatlocally in our current situation. so i think thatit's really important for us to look at that and we have animportant role as consumers to focus on locally grown and wecan really use our consumer power and our consumer dollarsto have that focus on local and
sustainable and start to buildup industries. >>mahealani: tonight oninsights, we're asking do you know what you're eating. joinour conversation by calling e-mailing or tweeting yourquestions and comments. call 973-1000 on oahu. and1-800-283-4847 from the neighbor islands. let's goback to peter oshiro from the department of health. sandrafrom waikiki wants to know, is there any way to ensure thatproduce is really locally grown? in the farmer'smarket? how can you enshe's
that it's safe?>> again, that also more department of agriculturewhere they promote local produce. very hard toregulate that kind of thing. i think a lot of it is itvoluntary. urging people to properly label their proproducts especially the country of origin. we don'treally get into the economics of who can sell what productsand what they call it. >>mahealani: daniel were yousurprised that department of health started working withyou in trying to help you sell
your paiai in the market.>> the reality was that the department of health wasresponding to the community. and the community became awarethat there was this rich food product that we had beenmissing for almost 100 years. and you know, really,individuals, i did my part, but it was all the aunty it's antuncles and kupuna that said, oh, i remember that. it wasputting those things together that really brought togetherthe community. kalo alo, poi is very sticky. brings thingstogether. the a which we act
when we eat poi, all thingsthat are important to the health department and to us.so it was frightening when the health department initiallycame and said that we needed to stop. and we actually changedour practices and focused on education. but in the coursereally realized that it wasn't really an issue, but it wassomething that we needed to move forward on. thedepartment of health willingness.>>, i mean, they said, look we're going to change the rulesregardless if you guys do the
legislation. we felt thoughthat getting the community to that point, for everyone to buyin and support it, that we wanted to finish. so weactually did the legislation. but the department of healthwas very clear to us that it was kind of overkill. so we werevery thankful. yes. >>mahealani: kaleo, howrealistic is to completely cut off our dependence on importedfoods? >> well, people diet and pallethave changed over the years. so i wouldn't advocate forthat. i think people want to
eat different foods and i thinkthat's fine. increasing it by 10%, local food consumption by10% is more the key. that's going to create a lot morejobs. and it's going to keep a lot of money circulating inthe state. so i think that's a more realistic thing to bethinking about. >>mahealani: kasha, some ofthe populations that you've been working with are lowincome and elderly residents. why are those populations moreat risk than not eating healthy food.>> that's a good question. i
should just clarify. thatwork is actually through another project that i'm doingthat's called green wheel food hub. we've been workingdirectly with low income communities and folks who havedifferent challenges to getting out and buying locallygrown food. that might be a mobility challenges. we'reworking with affordable housing, kupuna center out inewa beach. so we actually buy local produce from local farm,and bring it directly into the kupuna housing facility there.and then the elderly can come
right down from their rooms andpurchase the locally grown food and we provide the ebt,program formerly known as food stamps. we provide ebtaccess, folks can swipe their cards and buy locally grownproduce in their facility. it's nice because it's hard forus to get out to farmers markets sometimes. there'svery few opportunities to use ebt cards to buy locally grownproduce. that's what we're focusing on.>>mahealani: i know that kalo is your focus. someone wantsto know about bread fruit and
where do you see that industry,if at all, where do you see that going in the future.>> look at ahupuaa. segregated into different foodsources so that you could eat well, have a great lifestyleall year long. so ulu is a part of that component. takesmore time. longer investment than taro. something that isequally as rewarding. the one thing i love about ulu is youplant it once and it showers food. so yes, i think ulu isvery important. and some of the challenge it's are going tocome down to the does the
community today know how to eatit. i think as we all learn and grow, ulu, kalo, sweetpotato, all the starches of our ancestors are going to be theobvious once. you're going to see that as we begin to eat moreof them, we begin to feel better. i mean, one of thethings that we haven't all talked about is how eating goodfood makes you feel -- for someone that has really made acommitment, we eat poi 3 meals a day, 7 days a week for thelast 3 years. 4 years. and our cal bash has been full. wehaven't washd it or emptied it.
it can happen. it changesyour lifestyle. a little bit. but so much for the better.when i make poi with our family, we all get together.family time. we spend 4 hours together, putting our loveinto our food. that 4 hours feeds us for 3, 4, 5 days weeach have a little calabash that's tupperware becausegetting wood is hard today. and we wrap it up. we take ourlittle calabash to lunch and sometimes we'll go to arestaurant. i'll pull my calabash out ofthe chinese restaurant. and
my chinese food and eat my poi.you think isn't that hard? with people say what is thebest thing about eating poi for every meal? i can tell youwithout a doubt, it's being satisfied at the end of everymeal. >>mahealani: kaleo, have ithis question for you. this is anonymous. comment to thepanel. so feel free to jump in any of you. it goes to sort oflike a rumor that people have talked about for a long time.this person says, i want the panel to realize that mostfarmer claim to grow their
produce, but are actuallybuying produce from costco and sam's and just repackaging itin the farmers markets. do you have any proof that that'shappening or is it just a rumor that people are talking about.>> well, i don't know if it's a rumor or no. i've seen someof that myself. i mean, that comes back to the key which isrelationships were the people that you're buying from. fromthe farmers and i know the guys that kaleo farms, i talk tothem. i know the guys that are at osigi. i know a lot ofdifferent people and i talk to
them. i buy the pro heproduce, we have a conversation. we're friends.a bit of a trust. >>mahealani: i've beenshopping before. so where is this? they seem hesitant.some of them. without the big labels. they're not the maofarms. they're not some of the larger farms out there.it's sort of you kind of have a gut feeling sometimes.>> yeah. that's there. visit the farms sometimes tooand see what's going on. >>mahealani: peter, do youhave any advice for someone who
is questioning whether food isreally coming from. >> farmers markets are all runby different factions. ask the people operating what istheir goal, achieve. they control the vendors. theyknow whether these people are farmers, people that are justwholesaling food from somewhere else. everythingis good as far as eating fresh fruits and fresh vegetables.that's the main goal, change peoples diets in that fashion.if you want to know whether it's locally grown or not, talkto the people and ask them.
they're pretty much veryforthright about it. if you ask everyone down the line, theones that are the farmers will tell you, oh, i don't thinkthat one is a farmer. so they kind of all know who is the realfarmers or not. >> i would second that. someof the farmers markets on oahu exclusively require all oftheir vendors to be local farmers. you could shop atthose farmers markets and rest assured that they spend a lotof time with their vendorses making sure that everythingthey're selling locally grown.
>> when you go a restaurant,some restaurants have fish on there that might sound likeit's local, when i ask, they're like, it's actually more southof this island. even in that place, want to check to seewhat's going on. >>mahealani: this is aquestion for you from ty. ty is a student at windwardcommunity college gold farm program where they educatefuture farmers. what are the post important thinggovernment needs to to help farmers succeed in what is avery challenging profession?
>> i can tell you, policy is abig hurdle for a lot of small farmers. we've been soreactionary to our needs, and haven't really set forth aplan, i spent this last few days on kalaupapa. one of thekupuna shared a story about how important the farmers are.they're the most valuable people in our whole system.they feed the politicians, lawyers, doctors, news people,department of health people, center for food safety, kanu,even myself. after they fed all of us, then they eat. soin that system, they already
value us more. and we need tochange that focus and say, look, if you're going to farmfor me, i'm going to go out of my way to make your lifeeasier. our program, we run about 70,000 pounds of tarolast year and supplied it to families on oahu. we'reshooting in 2015 for 200,000 pounds of taro forfamilies on oahu. it's really connecting those links andhelping the farmer, talking to the farmer. going to thefarmer market and ask your farmer, what's your biggestproblem? because maybe
caterpillars is the biggestproblem and you're look to make butterflies n our community,we don't talk enough. there isn't a database that connectssmall farmers. there's the farmer's union and the farmbureau. but their reality is our best farmers are farming.how can we keep them doing that. i think educationalprograms making land affordable. making the redtape to get on the land. making the land competitivewhere if you get the lease and you're not farming it in theway that you said, guess what?
you're out because get hundredfarmers that are training right now to take your place.guess what? for those hundred farmer, we get 101 lots. so weneed one more farmer to join. it's really taking a differentapproach. right now, from. that i hear, it's aboutliability. all landowners refuse to let farmers live onyour land. look, if you're not living on the land, you'renot farming. the whole concept of a maka ainana is theperson that's there, watches the food grow so that i don'tneed to spray because i see
this happening in myenvironment. intuitively, i counteract it before itoccurs. >>mahealani: that's going tobe a conflict that will be around for a long time.kaleo, when you look at just food in general, is thereanything that you refuse to eat knowing what you know now?>> wow. you know, those kind of questions are alwayssomething to answer when it's in front of me because if i wasa vegetarian and you put me in mongolia where there's verylittle vegetation, it would be
mean to say i don't eat meat.so i don't think there's anything i wouldn't really eatin particular, in general. i'm fairly open. there's alot i prefer to eat locally grown. i prefer to eat thingsthat are in season. i don't want to eat things outof season because that usually means they're moving itaround. using more resources to grow it. and.>>mahealani: kasha, is there anything that you will not eat?>> i think that i would say similar to kaleo. i don'thave anything that i expressly
don't eat. but i do like toknow as much as i can about my food. and that reminded methat i wanted to show the viewers that since we don'thave gmo labels on the foodings that we have, we did producethis shopper's guide that you can take to the grocery storewith you and it helps to provide some information aboutwhat foods are most likely to be genetically engineered.so we know that about 75% of processed foods anything in abox or package will probably contain genetically modifiedingredients. you can
download this from ourwebsite. center for food safety.org. it's also oni-phone and android app. you can bring it on your phone tothe grocery store with you. >>mahealani: it'sinteresting. year not against gmos but you're not onthe industry side either. you're just trying to educatepeople? >> we're trying to educatepeople. we really feel like it's a right to know issue.and that people cannot make educated decisions withouthaving the information
available to them.>>mahealani: daniel, someone wants to know, what are theother types of crops that can really help create asustainable hawai'i food system?>> for hawai'i. can grow anything. our ability to putsomething in the soil and see it produce way better than itproduces anywhere in the world, we have seeds from thewhole world. what do people want to eat? i mean, we'retalking about a local artisan market where people areproducing things that other
people want to eat. rightnow, you can break the market into a bunch of differentsectors. if you need to make money in the short term, plantlettuce. if it's the mid term, havesweet potato, taro, long term, ulu, awa. there is thingsthat whole pantheon for farmer, it's really where areyou? if you're on the ewa plains, you're not going tomake one loi. so it's looking at where you are and it'severything is place based what resources do you have? whatis your soil? if you don't do
a soil test, you never knowwhat's in your soil and never taking full advantage. typeof plants that are best suited for that plates.>>mahealani: kaleo, someone wants to know, how can weencourage our younger generation to farm? i knowthat it's already happening at certain schools. planterboxes. some classes have designated farms systems.how can you encourage more people to take that on?>> getting people that already in the community around thekids that are farming, get them
showing that it's normal.this is what's normal. this probably people in the canoeclub, people out surfing, that actually happened to growfood. maybe they go visit some surfers or visit someone.after they're done with that, show them some plants andthings. >>mahealani: have you ever meta child or someone who was young who goes, i didn't knowwhat that looked like? >> yes.>>mahealani: what was the particular tinge that theywere talking about?
>> well,? general, actually,one of my favorite questions i ask my friend, his son, who isprobably like around 15, where does your food come from. andhis first answer was, small styrofoam containers. soyeah, there's a lot of understanding where food comesfrom. another time, i took coconut to the our dance class.chopping it open and giving it to the girls.they start taking pictures with them and didn'tunderstand that it doesn't come from a box.>>mahealani: there's a lot of
education out there.>> looking at the whole picture. one of the proudestachievements i think with our department of health was welaunched the first shellfish oysters out of the state inover 17 years. that was a very collaborative project with thepeople that wanted to get this oyster and shellfish farm offground. kauai has a farm out there. producing freshclams. they're going to delve into oysters. got the firstoysters out of kualoa ranch recently. we haven't seen in17 years. shelf fish coming
out of hawai'i. what a bigthing. for me, that has such great potential to seeindustry out there. my rule was to enable people likedaniel, help industry. even though we're not looking at theecnomic side, but realize the importance of helping industrythat is producing food also and to produce it safely is ourmain goal. >>mahealani: how educatepeople to handle food safely? is it just through therestaurant inspection process or is there something else arestaurant owner can learn how
to handle food.>> we need to take our program and expand it also. after weget the restaurant industry, we plan to also push thisprogram out into households. the same basic rules that wehave for the restaurant or food service industry out there,practice that at home also, you also keep yourself healthy andsave yourself a lot of medical bills because a lot of our foodborne illnesses that are reported in the state are notfrom our licensed food vendors. a lot of it arecoming from households. very
important that people know howto handle food properly and safely.>>mahealani: people are getting sick from their own.>> no question. >>mahealani: usuallysomething simple like hand washing?>> typically, not knowing about cross contamination.when they handle raw chicken, raw poultry, raw beach, notusing the same cutting board to start cutting fresh tomatoit's for a salad. common sense thing. people don'trealize what they're doing.
>>mahealani: daniel,interesting question from george k. he wants to know,can you grow taro in aquaponics?>> we just had this conversation today.aquaponic technology is getting better and better. iwill tell you as a taro connoisseur, what i've seen isaquaponics doesn't get enough pressure to the root of thecorn for the corn to mature properly. what i've tasted incorn did grow in aquaponics they kind of tasted liketalapia poop. in the
mitigation of this, you couldactually clean your water from the talapia through differenttypes of plant to get. you could have a system thatproduces good taro. what i've really been aquaponics in tarois luau leaf. if you love aeat luau leaf. traditionallywomen, where they got their proteins, good come flexescome from laulau. >>mahealani: what is thebenefit of people eating more local? besides the communitybenefit. are there any other benefits?>> keeping, well, yeah, the
nutrients and the vitaminsthat you get from fresh food p. food that's import the takes alot of longer to get here. a lot of time they're sprayingit. with organic food outside of hawai'i, when itgets here, it's often sprayed with chemicals and pesticidesfor the trip. so it can stay safe from bugs, but then you'regoing to eat that. so that's a questionable thing. ifyou're eating leak locally grown food, you're going toknow what's on it and what's in it. a lot more nutrients andvitamins.
>>mahealani: kasha, even somefoods that are sold in the health food store, they havecertain chemicals or ingredients put on them. forexample, apples, some of them have wax. do you think that'ssafe to eat? >> hum, you know, that's aquestion i don't really know the answer to.>>mahealani: does anyone on this panel know?>> we had discussion about that.>> the base you can rule of thumb, for anything that cameout of the ground, coming from
tree wash it prior to eating.take care of 99% of your problems. wash any produce,vegetables, fruits, prior to eating. that's the best wayto keep yourself safe. yes, it is approved.>>mahealani: there's a whole array of special washing soapsand these kinds of things. >> those are very unnecessary.with all the bacteria, medical community feels that it isgrounded and overuse of anti-bacterial soaps. youdon't need that kind of stuff. basic soap, washing your handswith the pressure from the
washing, removes 99% of yourgerms from your hands. fda, cdc has never recommend usingantimicrobial soaps in food service or any other type offacilities. >>mahealani: even those spraysfor the fruits and everything, just use simple soap for yourfruits and vegetables? >> can you just wash it inwater. that's the main thing. physically scrub the fruit,make sure you wash everything off.>>mahealani: what do you have to say about that kasha interms of actual food safety,
simple tips to help make makesure what they're eat something safe.>> sure. your question, i don't know the answer about waxbut ti remind me i read something recently from theepa that says your average pietsch can contain up to 57different toxic chemicals 14 of which are knowncarcinogens. it's one thing to keep in mind when you'reweighing the issue of organic versus conventional to knowthat some of those chemicals might be present on and in yourfood. so if it's genetically
modified, it might bephysically in the genes of your food. if it's sprayed withchemicals it might be on your food. it's something toconsider when you're making decisions at the grocerystore. farmer's market. >>mahealani: local food couldhave it's not organic. how do you make that choice whenyou're at the grocery store? >> i think that especiallythese days, with limited incomes.>> you have to make those decisions on a personal basis.as you can. the more that you
know about who is growing inand how they're growing it, better educated you can be.>>mahealani: kaleo, someone from up country on the the bigisland wants to know. what are the programs or resourcesout there to help and give advice about growing their ownfood. >> well, kanu, we have ourfacebook page and you can always check there fordifferent recipes and different how to's. they'reon there. this is local gardens community gardenseverywhere. you can go out
there and see what's going onand check into those things. >>mahealani: college says, shelost all of her lettuce to dear. i'm not sure you haveany advice on that. >> get a fence. ungulates inthose areas is a big thing. on lanai too. that's been a bigchallenge. not just growing for locally but just forremediation of the soil so you kind of have to find somehunters. >>mahealani: danielobviously, you're not spraying your taro. how do you keepbugs out there to keep the farm
as live?>> it's a lot of observation. it's about creating the rightconditions. it's about looking at theresources that i have. and not bringing new pathogens.what i've seen with my previous use of chemicals is that theydo one thing good, but they invite other things. so bymaking it a more pact to stay away to weed, just pull weeds.weed-eat. by doing these things, the health of myenvironment has grown which is really mitigated the need forpesticides, for herbicides.
so you know what? sometimesit happens. i lose some crops. it doeshappen. i got phytofura leaf over this past winter.it's leaf blight. i need to plant my plants further apartso the leaves aren't touching during the very still, kind ofhumid mornings. maybe i not going to get the yield that imay want out of it, but one of the things about farming,farming is like fishinging. it's not catching. farming isyou have to put effort into it. you're cultivating something.you're creating something.
so in all of years of farming,you get better at it. >>mahealani: daniel, i wantedto thank you for being on our panel. kaleo, kasha andpeter, thank you so much tonight. i think our viewersmight be a little hungry after this conversation. themaster plan for kaka'ako calls for building more high-risesand workplace housing for residents who want to live inhonolulu's urban core. many residents are excited aboutplans for placing kaka'ako's industrial structures with newhims, shops and restaurants,
others are worried about how alarge influx of new residents will tax the existinginfrastructure. is kaka'ako moving in the right direction?next time on insights on pbs hawaii. i'm mahealanirichardson. a hui ho.