You Are What You Eat: Tracing Our Past Heritage in the Kitchen
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Power Shift Convergence Workshop 2016 

​Objectives:
  • ​Promoting the importance of cooking food at home more often, and how that is directly linked to our health, well being and the environment.
  • To raise awareness of significance of knowing what we are feeding ourselves and our young kids, as a starting point to make an impact in the food system.
The KABIRA food theory
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Given that food is often viewed and consumed as only a source of energy and nutrients in today's globalised world, KABIRA tries to weave back the story into food. The heritage, the cultures and the abundance of knowledge that comes from a mother's kitchen.

We discussed the many ways in which the food we choose to eat link not just to our mental & emotional health,  but also to our interactions with the environment, and larger food systems.
Jellicles Farm Founder: Lalitha Visveswaran
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A Cordin bleu Alumni, Visveswaran left the restaurant industry many years back only to reconnect with her passion for farming, as well as eating foods that remind her of her childhood.

 Jellicles Farm, based in Sunol AgPark, grows a wide variety of vegetables including those of Indian origin, inluding eggplant and okra, to local Californian tomatoes and artichokes. Jellicles is also popular for its honey, lavender, basil and host of other herbs.

 At our workshop, Lalitha shared with participants her journey settling into a foreign country and how farming helped bridge the gap between culture, food and land. 
The Millet Project

Conceptualised in 2015, The Millet Project serves to promote the benefits of cultivating and consuming millets. In line with KABIRA's goal to retrace the heritage of our diet, MP's outreach co-ordinator Hailey Zhou discussed the different ways in which pearl and sorghum millets used to be prepared in traditional kitchens across China and India.

She also shared with us some of most propelling reasons as to why growing traditional millets over conventionally monocropped corn and wheat, can be better for both soil conditions and water consumption.
New Bread Company:  Making Breads from the Past, breads of the future 

Wanda Waszkowiak's founding New Bread Company in Alameda, is known to produce some of Bay Area's most incredible range of gluten-free baked goods. 

KABIRA was lucky enough to have them serve their variety of breads and cupcakes, both devoid of any added preservatives or artificial flavorings — just as we like our food to be!

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Rounding Off with Jellicles Farm's Teas

As an ode to another popular food tradition across the globe, the workshop ended by offering complimentary Holy Basil tea, otherwise known as Tulsi in India, plucked right from the Sonoma soil and dried to perfection.

Here too, the attendees got a chance to learn about the many natural qualities of the sacred plant, as well as the relation between its cultural and medicinal values.