Michelle Obama digs kitchen garden at White House

Michelle Obama digs kitchen garden at White House
Michelle Obama has begun digging an organic kitchen garden at the White House which will supply the first family with vegetables for many of their meals.

By Nick Greene in Washington
Last Updated: 8:57PM GMT 20 Mar 2009


With help from a group of Washington primary school students, the first lady began work on the project that will provide the raw material for many of the Obama family's meals.

Early in her stint as first lady, Mrs Obama has outlined healthy eating habits as one of her favoured causes. She has consulted Alice Waters, the celebrated Californian chef and restaurateur who also runs a project in which she teaches children to grow their own vegetables and eat healthily.


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Irish poet Seamus Heaney on Barack Obama: "No one else like him alive"The White House garden is aimed to be a symbolic confrontation to childhood obesity, a fast-growing health concern in the US where many are increasingly exasperated by the overwhelming presence of fast food restaurants.

Once they start dining on fennel, broccoli and spinach grown a few hundred feet from their kitchen, the Obamas will become "locavores"/

A locavore - a term coined by Miss Waters - is part of a larger sustainability movement that believes eating locally grown food weans dependence from large industrial farms and boosts local economies.

Mrs Obama said that her daughters Malia and Sasha and the commander-in-chief himself will take time to tend to the garden.

Taxpayers will be relieved to hear that after a week of controversy surrounding federally funded, multi-million dollar executive bonuses, the garden will only cost approximately $200 (£140).