Day 1: Catch a healthy habit

After a week of frantically packing up dorm rooms, graduating, and cleaning and organizing the bus, we left Hanover three hours later than expected, with several exhausted bussers sleeping soundly on the bus bed and couches. When we arrived in Fairfield, CT at 7:30 pm for a potluck on the green, community members rapidly came out of the woodwork, bringing bowls of pesto pasta salad, fruit salad, and raw brownie samples from a raw vegan café across the street. We were also lucky to have a representative from Community Energy set up a table to spread the word about Connecticut’s clean energy options.

We gave bus tours to dozens of excited Fairfield residents—and a few surprise Dartmouth students who happened to be passing by on their way home from an internship (including a past busser, hi Grayson!). Afterwards, Glen, the co-owner of the raw vegan café, Catch a Healthy Habit, gave us a tour of his café and numerous delicious dessert samples. He even treated us to smoothies made from almond milk, cacao powder, maple syrup, mesquite powder, rice, and banana. You can read more about our raw food tour with Glen at the FarmPlate* blog.

For many people, preparing raw vegan food can feel like an overwhelming challenge, especially when conventional recipe books are reliant on high temperatures and the restaurant staples of butter and cream. Places like Catch a Healthy Habit, however, make this kind of eating more feasible and connect you with people who also want to renovate our corn-subsidized, heavily processed food system—so keep an eye out on FarmPlate for local raw and vegan eateries popping up near you.

Similar grassroots changes in the energy sector are analogously laying the foundation for more people to start driving on biodiesel made from waste veg and other forms of renewable fuels. When we parked at the potluck in Fairfield, we found that we were right next to a free electric charging station for electric cars, and we’re looking forward to collaborating more than ever this summer with biodiesel start-ups across the country. Our journey has just begun — stay tuned!

xoxo

Anna
*FarmPlate is an online community that connects farmers, fishermen, foragers, food artisans, restaurants, markets, distributors, and foodies everywhere. You can search their directory by town or zip code and find delicious, locally sourced food near you. Foodies on the bus will be blogging on FarmPlate throughout the summer about exciting food initiatives across the country and the interconnectedness of food and sustainability.