Cooking at home? Local chefs will demo healthy recipes Sunday

This Sunday, November 1, 2020, in a virtual event called "Holiday reFresh" at 4:00 pm Pacific Time, nonprofit Acterra is bringing together chefs from across the Bay Area to showcase favorite vegetarian dishes in advance of the upcoming holidays.

Have you ever thought how meat and dairy consumption negatively impacts our environment? Conventional factory farms that raise livestock are huge contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and require a lot of land and fertilizers to produce the feed. There is evidence that the demand for meat causes widespread effects like deforestation.

This year's devastating wildfires have affected residents in the San Francisco Bay Area directly, bringing new attention to the issue of climate change. As we witness more severe wildfires, and some of the highest temperatures on record, the fight has come right to one’s backyard. Importantly, data show that food consumption has an outsized role to play; The University of California at Berkeley has estimated that nearly 20 percent of the average Bay Area resident’s carbon footprint comes from food.

“We know there is a close connection between climate change and our diet,” said Jack Broadbent, Executive Officer, Bay Area Air District. “When we are making simple changes to reduce our personal GHG’s, eating more plant-based meals can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while improving our health – a win-win for us and the environment.” The Bay Area Air District is the sponsor of this event and a series of other food sustainability educational events in partnership with Acterra.

Acterra's goal through this online event is to inspire people to move meat to the side of their plate and focus instead on the bounty of the season, with plant-based holiday recipes from acclaimed Bay Area chefs. In addition to live cooking demonstrations, attendees will receive practical tips and tricks on how to embrace a more plant-forward diet, reduce food waste and reap the benefits of all-electric induction cooking.

This event will feature Tanya Holland (executive chef and owner of Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland, California), Brandon Jew (executive chef and owner of Mister Jiu’s in San Francisco, California, which was awarded a Michelin star in 2016), Reina Montenegro (chef/owner of Chef Reina and the first chef to open a vegan Filipino restaurant in the Bay Area), Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino (chefs and co-founders of Cafe Ohlone in Berkeley, California, the world’s only restaurant serving the cuisine of Northern California’s indigenous Ohlone people), Julio Juarez and Jo Lerma-Lopez (chef and owner, respectively, of LUNA Mexican Kitchen in the South Bay), and Lenore Estrada (owner and co-founder of Three Babes Bakeshop in San Francisco). Moderating the audience questions will be Liren Baker (Kitchen Confidante) and Irvin Lin (Eat the Love).

Holiday reFresh is free to attend (donation suggested); pre-registration is required. Please visit www.acterra.org/holiday-refresh to register.