People We Love :: Hai Vo

3 of 4

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.