This weekend, my family and I went to Washington DC to see my sister graduate from George Washington University. While there, we sampled some of DC's finest local offerings. Our favorite, and my sister's favorite throughout the year, is DC's first LEED certified restaurant. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a rating the government uses to classify a building as environmentally friendly.
Founding Farmers is an innovative restaurant that is located right near the International Monetary Fund in the heart of our government in DC. Their emphasis is on being "green from the inside out" and they strive to live by that motto. From the burgers to the burners, most everything about the restaurant is green and sustainable. They recycle, serve filtered tap out of glass carafes, and are carbon neutral (all the carbon they emit is offset through partnering with carbonfund.org . The food they serve, for the most part, is sourced from family farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region. Not only does this kind of food help support sustainable, small-scale farming, it also makes for delicious, fresh, and seasonal foods. Their menu changes with what is available but almost always has some classic American favorites like cheeseburgers, fried green tomatoes, and house-made fresh pastas. In earlier blogposts I wrote about livestock as a major contributor to global warming because raising livestock releases huge amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. I also mentioned that some livestock, grown carefully and fed grass diets without antibiotics, are sustainable alternatives to the now omnipresent beef available at most supermarkets. Founding Farmers relies on this kind of sustainable beef and makes the best cheeseburger I've ever had out of the ground-to-order beef from local farms.
Not every ingredient can be bought from small, local farms. This is the reality of eating locally, you can try as hard as you can to rely on locally produced foods and products, but it is just not always feasible. Founding Farmers tries nobly to support local food, environmental awareness, and energy efficiency all while providing diners with delicious food served in a comfortable atmosphere. They achieve this, and live up to one of the Founding Framers's goals: making America an agricultural country that can produce its own food and support its own farmers.
