Alice Waters

At 80 years old, Alice Waters physical status not available right now. We will update Alice Waters's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Alice Louise Waters (born April 28, 1944) is an American chef, restaurateur, activist and author.

She is the owner of Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California restaurant famous for its organic, locally grown ingredients and for pioneering California cuisine, which she opened in 1971. Waters has written the books Chez Panisse Cooking (with Paul Bertolli), The Art of Simple Food I and II, and 40 Years of Chez Panisse.

Her memoir, Coming to my Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook was published in September 2017 and released in paperback in May 2018.Waters created the Chez Panisse Foundation in 1996, and the Edible Schoolyard program at the Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, California.

She is a national public policy advocate for school lunch reform and universal access to healthy, organic foods.

Her influence in the fields of organic foods and nutrition is typified by Michelle Obama's White House organic vegetable garden.

Edible Schoolyard and Edible Education

The primary work of the Chez Panisse Foundation has been to establish and sustain the Edible Schoolyard program at Berkeley's Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. The Edible Schoolyard was established in 1995 and is a 1-acre (4,000 m2) organic garden and kitchen classroom. Students at the middle school are involved in growing, harvesting, and preparing the foods from the garden, with the aim of promoting the environmental and social well-being of the school community.

Waters's work at the Edible Schoolyard has also developed into her School Lunch Initiative, which has the broader goal of bringing school children into a new relationship with food by making a healthy, fresh, sustainable meal a part of the school day. The School Lunch Initiative is a collaborative project with the Center for Ecoliteracy, also in Berkeley, and is also the topic of a series of studies through the Center for Weight and Health, at UC Berkeley.

The School Lunch Initiative is focused on bringing wholesome school lunch to the 10,000 students in the Berkeley Unified School District. In 2005, the Chez Panisse Foundation provided a grant to Berkeley schools to hire Ann Cooper as the director of Nutrition Services for the district. Cooper and the foundation eliminated almost all processed foods from the district and introduced organic fruits and vegetables to the daily menu, all while staying within the district's budget. Waters's vision is to teach subjects such as history, science, and art through the vehicle of food.

In September 2010, the Center for Weight and Health at UC Berkeley, Center for Ecoliteracy, and Chez Panisse Foundation released an evaluation report on the School Lunch Initiative. The report tracked elementary and middle school students over three years to determine the effects of the School Lunch Initiative on children's eating habits and knowledge. The report found that students in schools with highly developed School Lunch Initiative components ate more daily servings of fruit and vegetables than students in schools with lesser developed programs, and that they scored higher on food knowledge assessments. Schools with highly developed School Lunch Initiative components integrated kitchen and garden classes into the school curriculum, in addition to overhauling the school lunch program.

Although the work of the Chez Panisse Foundation has focused primarily on the Berkeley Unified School District, Waters has become a vocal and familiar advocate for school lunch reform and activism at the national level, as well. She encouraged President Bill Clinton to plant a White House garden. In 2009, she appeared on the CBS television program 60 Minutes, and made a public call for President Obama to plant an organic garden at the White House to catalyze change in the US food system. Michelle Obama, in conjunction with her anti-obesity campaign Let's Move!, planted the White House organic vegetable garden that year. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle states that:

In addition to the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, there are five affiliate Edible Schoolyard programs around the country. These include Edible Schoolyards in New Orleans, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Greensboro, North Carolina.

As of 2010, Waters is working to extend free school meals to all public school children in the United States. She hopes to expand programs like the Edible Schoolyard and the School Lunch Initiative in order to reach schools across the US. She supported the 2010 Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, and believes that providing all public school students with free food in school would build the foundation for a healthier and more sustainable food culture in the US.

In 2003, Waters helped create the Yale Sustainable Food Project, which aims to make sustainable food an important part of university-level education. The project maintains an on-campus organic farm and integrates organic, local products into the university's dining program

In 2006, Waters oversaw the creation of the Rome Sustainable Food Project at the American Academy in Rome, which aims to provide a replicable model of simple, sustainable and seasonal food for other like-minded institutions, and which operates an internship program.

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