Green Dining Guide releases list of 100 green restaurants, joining forces to eat our way to a sustainable environment

Green dining is booming, with more than 100 green restaurants to visit by following the map! The Taipei Culture Exploration Association founded the "Green Dining Guide" in 2018 to build a platform for exchange among consumers, farmers and green restaurants. Within two years it visited over 100 green restaurants across the country, built maps for each region, and compiled them into a book, so that consumers can follow the map and practice green consumption through "eating."

From farmers' markets to green restaurants, bringing together green production and consumption power

The Taipei Culture Exploration Association previously ran the Water Garden Organic Farmers' Market. As channels selling organic agricultural products have increased in recent years and turnover at organic farmers' markets has declined, current Secretary-General Huang Chun-cheng said that despite running an organic farmers' market for many years, the sales situation of organic and eco-friendly small farmers has not improved, while the proportion of people eating out has risen, so restaurants have also become an important player in conveying food philosophy.

"At first I wanted to find green restaurants (note), and ask them to buy more vegetables from farmers, but once I went I realized green restaurants are struggling too." Huang Chun-cheng admitted that organic and eco-friendly farmers and green restaurants all face a survival crisis, showing that people's food literacy is still not widespread, so he came up with the idea of building the Green Dining Guide to bring together existing organic and eco-friendly farmers, channels and green restaurants.

Green restaurants blooming everywhere, more than 100 and still growing

In the past, the Agriculture and Food Agency already established a list of Organic Heart gourmet restaurants, and the Environmental Protection Administration also had a list of food-saving restaurants, so how is the Green Dining Guide different? Current Green Dining Guide specialist Ho Chia-ying said that the Green Dining Guide now has 108 restaurants distributed across Taiwan, covering not only restaurants but also organic and eco-friendly farmers, organic farms and other channels. Besides collecting restaurants to make maps, it also connects restaurants through different ingredients, dishes and events.

What is special is that the Green Dining Guide did not start with labels or certification. Ho Chia-ying said that a food social movement must first gain consumers' recognition and trust, and only then does launching a label make sense. The Green Dining Guide currently has four coordinators across Taiwan, responsible for visiting restaurants and inviting them to join the platform.

"Every restaurant has the potential to become a green restaurant, the Green Dining Guide just speeds up the process." Ho Chia-ying said that the cost of using organic ingredients is at most 5% to 10% higher; the key to change actually lies in whether the operator has a green consumption mindset.

Huang Chun-cheng said that the current Green Dining Guide in Taiwan adopts a trust system and charges no fees; restaurants that use organic and eco-friendly ingredients may join freely, and their production processes must all take not harming the environment as their starting point.

Not just restaurant maps: building "Green Media" and a "Edamame Festival" to weave a multi-pronged network

The Green Dining Guide also set up "Green Media," interviewing each restaurant and writing articles to introduce them. Person in charge Lin Mei-hui said that the dedication and effort of green restaurants and organic and eco-friendly farmers should be seen. In addition, green buildings and green media elements are also topics planned by Green Media, for example a special feature introducing domestically produced bamboo and applying bamboo to market stall decoration.

The Green Dining Guide also plans events, such as this year's "Edamame Festival." It originated because the Yunlin high-speed rail caused local land subsidence, and farmers planted edamame to try to improve it, so restaurants were invited to design different edamame dishes to connect with consumers. Chefs pulled out all the stops, serving dishes such as edamame stinky tofu, edamame ice cream, and edamame nine-layer steamed rice cake, full of creativity.

Lin Mei-hui said that after the Edamame Festival, the next ingredient events are a water caltrop festival and organic rice flat noodles, and in the future they will continue to create a voice for green dining through synchronized online and physical events.

Following the UK's Sustainable Restaurant Association, even Uber Eats wants the green restaurant list

Huang Chun-cheng explained that the Green Dining Guide is still at the social movement stage, and must first build consumers' trust in the Green Dining Guide; only in the future might there be label-style identification or grading standards for green dining. "The most ideal stage is to become a green Michelin: restaurants recommended by the Green Dining Guide all make delicious dishes with good ingredients."

Huang Chun-cheng said that green dining has been established abroad for years, for example the Green Restaurant Association (GRA) in the United States and the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) in the UK, both organizations that promote green dining and connect green restaurants.

Huang Chun-cheng explained that both GRA and SRA have many standards and gradings; however, GRA uses a strict point-deduction gatekeeping system, while SRA uses a point-addition system that encourages restaurants to improve. After evaluation, Huang Chun-cheng and his team believed that SRA's