Denise Barratt, registered dietitian nutritionist, will do a food demonstration using foods grown by local farmers at the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project’s Annual CSA Fair on Thursday, March 13, 3-6 p.m. at Jubilee Community, 46 Wall St. Barratt also will share information about her upcoming cooking series, Taste the Season: Making the Most of Your CSA Box, to teach consumers how to use the abundance of fruits and vegetables in their CSA box over the growing season.
The cooking series is one of the programs offered with Barratt’s new business, Vine Ripe: Home Grown Nutrition, which was created to help people eat healthy, local and green. Vine Ripe is partnering with local farmers, tailgate markets, businesses and chefs to bring to programs that will change how we eat and think about where we get our food. Barratt’s vision for Vine Ripe came out of her passion for helping clients improve their health, her love for gardening and cooking, and connecting with the farmers who grow food in our region.
Vine Ripe will offer cooking classes, food and nutrition workshops, local tailgate market and farm tours, food tastings, visits to farm-to-table restaurants and individual and group nutrition counseling with a local twist for those who want to know more about seasonal meal planning and shopping.
Barratt has worked as a registered dietitian nutritionist for more than 20 years. She moved to Asheville in 2006 and opened her private nutrition counseling practice, Health Concepts Nutrition Therapy. She has partnered with the ASAP and the North Carolina Arboretum to develop local food educational materials and interactive cooking programs. As a professor at Western North Carolina University, Barratt teaches Food and Culture, which has a focus on how to become more active in the local food movement. She is a member of the Carolina Farm Stewardship, Slow Food Asheville and the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, where she works with others across the state and the United States to spread the message of a green, clean, and local food supply.
Her new book, Eat Local. Be Healthy. will be available this summer. It focuses on ways how local food benefits our health and highlights what is happening in Western North Carolina as a inspiration to many communities trying to grow their local food movement. To find out more about Vine Ripe, come to the CSA Fair or check out wwww.vineripenutrition.com where you can sign up for Fresh Off the Vine Newsletter and check out the local food blog.
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