New York Times: Summer Camp Food Comes of Age

An article in today's New York Times ("At Camp, It's Not Grub, It's Cuisine") shines light on the improved food at some summer camps, an adjunct to our increasing awareness of the import of healthy food:

"The locavore farm-to-table movement has also had an impact on the camps, many of which are in rural areas. Ballibay turns to local farms for produce, beef, chicken and honey.

"More camps have vegetable gardens. According to a 2011 survey of 218 camps nationwide by the American Camp Association, a membership organization, 34 percent have added gardening and cooking as activities in the last five years. At Ballibay, Aviva Friedman, 20, an environmental studies major at the State University at Binghamton, is the gardening and food educator. She enlists campers to prepare the evening snack: the other day they were grating zucchini from the garden for zucchini bread, made with rice flour to be gluten free.

"As a result, daily salad bars could do double duty at hotel luncheon receptions. To please palates ranging in age from 6 to 40, particularly at larger camps where nearly 500 campers and 300 staff members eat three meals a day, salad bars might have at least two dozen choices, including beets, cauliflower, edamame, artichoke hearts and three types of hummus. And deli bars, pasta bars and potato bars. The breakfast bar always features a cornucopia of fruits (goodbye, Froot Loops!), and granola and low-fat yogurt.

"None of this would fly without the cooperation, even the insistence, of campers themselves."

Click here to read the entire article.