Chef urges home cooking for health

Sure, we can stand to cut down on chips and M&M’s, and bump up the fruits and vegetables. Swapping the can of cola for a bottle of water is always a great move. But if there’s one thing Sam Kass thinks we should do, it is this:

"Cook. When you cook, everything gets better," said the former White House chef and senior policy director on nutrition. "You’ll be eating less sugar, less fat, less salt."

In his capacity as chef, he nudged the country toward home cooking when he started with Michelle Obama the first major White House garden since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden during World War II.

Kass shared his perspectives on everything from what the Obama girls like to eat (mac and cheese, and pizza) to genetically modified crops and improving school lunches at a small gathering Thursday in the picturesque outdoor setting at Mission Social Hall and Cafe.

Representatives of local food advocacy and policy groups, food social service organizations, food writers, chefs and more, including former Gov. Neil Abercrombie, listened as Kass talked about his career as a young chef, his work at the White House and his involvement with the first lady’s Let’s Move campaign. Kass began cooking for the first family when the president was still a Chicago senator, and he moved to the White House in 2009.

After marrying MSNBC host Alex Wagner last August, he resigned his White House post in December and now lives in New York.

Kass was in town to give the commencement speech at the University of Hawaii at Manoa held Saturday.

His path from gourmet cooking to food policy and nutrition has its roots in a buttery rhubarb he made early in his career.

"The chef told me to break down the rhubarbs and add a ‘ton of butter,’ which I did. I added a lot. But he said it wasn’t enough, so I added more. After that he lost his temper and said to add more. He said, ‘If guests drop dead of a heart attack after eating my food, it’s not my problem. They ask for foods that taste good, not for food that’s good for them,’" Kass recalled.

"That rocked me. At that point I put down my cookbooks and picked up policy books and books on agri- culture."

Kass said trying to alter people’s eating habits isn’t easy because "food is one of the deepest expressions of who we are."

"Progress isn’t about overnight or over a year or even a decade," he said. "It’s a long proc­ess."

He believes one means of instituting real change starts with young schoolchildren and school lunches.

"With school nutrition it’s creating a new norm for 5- and 6-year-olds. The teenager will complain about changes, but the young kids, that’s all they’ll know — and that will create deep, lasting change."

As for genetically modified food, Kass said that while the issues are complicated, he believes that, based on science, claims of health concerns over genetically modified organisms are false.

"The problems are often with the practices of the businesses that produce GMO products," he said.

"I’d put stress on pushing a strong regulatory regimen."