A
Summer of Love Meets Eco Sustainability at The Bonnaroo Music
& Arts Festival
For more information, or campfire or grilling recipes
please contact:Denise Hughes @ (917) 549-2621,
Or Denise@creative-connectors.com
Manchester, Tennessee—June 13, 2008—In
August 1969 hundreds of thousands of people gathered on a farm in upstate
New York to celebrate, music, freedom and counterculture. The
Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival has become arguably the closest likeness
to a “modern day Woodstock” and includes environmentally conscious
performers like Pearl Jam who care about the fuel and carbon footprint
they take to put on a festival with 80,000 people. This year, Sustainable
Table and The Meatrix’s Moopheus have joined the lineup in the Planet
Roo section of the festival.
In the past, rock festivals in the U.S.
have tended to be ephemeral affairs—interested more in consumption
than in conservation, and longing more for fleeting pleasures than sustainable
joys. Perhaps that’s why the gathering of over 450,000 people
at the 1969 Woodstock festival--despite their hopes of realizing cultural
utopia--were plagued by overcrowding, homelessness and mountains of
trash.
In stark contrast to that event, at this
week’s Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, Sustainable Table, creator of the Webbie-Award-winning short animated
series “The
Meatrix,” will be in high
gear, working with Farmaid’s new “HOMEGROWN” campaign to help expand those ‘60s ideals by
promoting an ecologically sustainable rock festival, one in which waste
is minimized and the emphasis is put on eating locally grown, sustainably
raised foods from family farmers that not only protect the environment
but strengthen local communities.
It’s no mistake that Diane Hatz, Founder/Director
of Sustainable Table, is at Bonnaroo after spending almost ten years
in the music industry. “I left the music industry to work on
environmental and sustainable issues, and it’s so heartening to see
musicians like Jack Johnson and Pearl Jam utilize their influence and
public voice to help educate fans and consumers about issues so important
to all of us. I also applaud Bonnaroo for working hard to make
the festival as sustainable as possible, and for including an organic
café, where organic foods are being sold. It’s time that all
festivals look not only at their carbon footprint but also at their
food imprint.”
In 1985, Farm Aid started this trend,
holding yearly concerts that helped establish local food and music as
the centerpieces of a new sustainable culture. Even though Willie Nelson,
Neil Young and John Mellencamp organized the first Farm Aid concert
in 1985 to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise
funds to keep farm families on their land, their cause broadened through
alliances with groups such as Sustainable Table and others who are part
of the Good Food Movement. They are now preparing to continue
their work with the launch of a new social marketing site www.Homegrown.org.
Today, the local sustainable food movement
is catching on everywhere – in schools, restaurants, and even on campgrounds
and in backyards. “Not only can you find great-tasting local
sustainable food at restaurants and in stores around the country, you
can also cook and eat sustainably when you’re camping or having a
barbecue outside a concert or sports venue,” said Hatz. To prove
that point, Sustainable Table has just launched a feature on Sustainable Camping and Grilling, with recipes from renowned chefs, food enthusiasts
and backyard cooks. “For people who camp at festivals like Bonnaroo,
these recipes are a great way to eat healthy while enjoying great music,”
Hatz added.
For more information on sustainable food
and eating healthier, please visit
www.sustainabletable.org
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