People We Love :: Hai Vo

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Hai Vo, 22, is on a mission to educate young people about the value of “real” food: ecologically sound, community-based, and fair to both producers and consumers.

Motivated by his own shift toward a healthy lifestyle—and his subsequent weight loss—Vo in 2007 co-founded the University of California Irvine (UCI) chapter of the Real Food Challenge, a national youth movement to promote a just and sustainable food system. Vo organized a series of dinners, lectures, field trips, and discussions on campus, and spent months examining the origin and production processes of every food item in the UCI dining services.

A winner of a 2009 Brower Youth Award, Vo also worked with the UC Sustainable Food Services Working Group to establish a statewide sustainable food policy, which is committed to serving 20 percent real food throughout the UC system by 2020.

Berit Anderson wrote this article for America: The Remix, the Spring 2010 issue of YES! Magazine. Berit is an editorial intern for YES! Magazine.

Interested?

• VIDEO: How Hai Vo is Putting "Real" Food on Campus Plates
• Native Recipe for Health: The Tohono O’odham Nation tackles diabetes with a return to desert foods.
• realfoodchallenge.org: Uniting students for just and sustainable food.
  

YES! Magazine encourages you to make free use of this article by taking these easy steps. Anderson, B. (2010, February 19). People We Love :: Hai Vo. Retrieved May 21, 2012, from YES! Magazine Web site: http://cms.yesmagazine.org/issues/america-the-remix/people-we-love-hai-vo. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License