Lidia Bastianich Visits Changemakers to Find Sustainable Solutions

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November 21, 2024

Lidia Changemakers

Public television chef Lidia Bastianich travels the country to preview the future of food in “Lidia Celebrates America: Changemakers,” airing November 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on PBS (check local listings) and available on PBS.org and the PBS Video app. 

“Our approach to food needs to be increasingly rooted in using local and available products, cooked with less waste,” said Bastianich, an Emmy- and James Beard Award winner. “With 1.3 billion tons of food going to waste each year, that’s enough food to feed 2 billion people. We need to take steps toward ensuring a more secure food future for everyone, and we need to do it now.” 

Lidia Celebrates America: Changemakers

In this hour-long special produced by public media leader GBH and funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Bastianich visits innovators across the country who are trying to change the availability of healthy food in their communities and to alter the way we perceive food in America.  

On the itinerary: 

  • Minneapolis, MN –James Beard award-winning chef and restaurateur Sean Sherman runs The Indigenous Food Lab Market, a teaching kitchen and market for Indigenous foods, and Claire and Chad Simons, whose company, 3 Cricketeers, strives to popularize insect protein.  

  • Middletown, VA – At the restaurant Vault & Cellar, chef Kari Rushing marries the resourcefulness of Appalachia – making do with what you have – with the refinement of fine dining.  

  • Stockton, CA – Patricia Miller, co-founder of the Black Urban Farmers Association of Stockton, works with Centre Plate LLC helping to run an aggregated CSA for local farmers that grows healthy food and educates families with recipes and container farming instructions.  

  • Inglewood, CA – The Social Justice Learning Institute delivers free produce to pop-up markets, schools, and medical clinics to improve access to healthy foods across Inglewood. Every week, SJLI gives away up to 15,000 pounds of produce to community food banks, churches, non-profits, and individuals. 

The special closes with a final celebratory meal at Sean Sherman’s restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis, where Lidia and the changemakers unite and sample a diverse array of healthy, sustainable dishes.  

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