Category: Academia

2/25

Due to the weather being nuts, I replaced my day at Growing Gardens with academic work. I first started with watching a documentary on sustainable food systems, which I found on netflix, it was recommended to me from Sarah in a forwarded email from Martha Rosemeyer. I also did some reading of another ILC text. Unfortunately the Industrial Diet canceled out on the evergreen online library so I couldn’t finish reading it but I’ll provide some context to what I learned. Bummer because it seemed like a really interesting book!

Sustainable

• Marty Travis is the main character, he’s a farmer central Illinois who links with chefs on produce available that he grows and does self deliveries with. He quotes,  “It’s more about the relationship than the rutabagas”
• The food system has become less about food and more about money, marketing and sale production
• An estimated 6.9 bil tons of soil are lost every year in U.S to erosion
• 91% of all cultivated land in Iowa is rotated between 2 crops: soybeans and corn
• Dan Barber (a farm to table chef) created a meal called Rotation Risotto. It is a nose to tail eating of the farm focusing on crops planted as rotation to go to animal feed, not consumed by humans. Ex) rye, buckwheat and cover crops
• Its harder to find younger farmers because it’s not something financially viable anymore, yet food is viable itself. 
• Low fat foods usually mean it is higher in something else
• Fruits and veggies represent 6% of our agriculture. To make change you need to talk about grains, which are 75%
• We seperated agriculture into agri and culture

Food Tourism and Regional Development

• “From a regional development perspective, this book goes beyond culinary tourism to also look at some of the ways in which the interrelationships between food and tourism contribute to the economic, environmental and social well-being of destinations, communities and producers” (p. i)
• “It  is  partly  for  these  sorts  of  reasons  that  Gössling  and Hall (2013) suggested that tourism and hospitality, from both production and consumption perspectives, needed to be positioned in the context of a food system, what they referred to as a culinary system, in which food could be tracked from farm to plate (Figure 1.1) but which, from a sustainability perspective, has also  been  framed  in  a  non-tourism  fashion  as  a  “local  food  system”” (p. 8)
• “Regional development: Use of the development potential of each area in order to stimulate a progressive adjustment of the local economic system to the changing economic environment. This is in opposition to the large industrial project (e.g. infrastructure,  events)  approach  that  often  characterised  traditional  top-down  development policies.” (p. 8)
• “Local food systems support long-term connections; meet economic, social, health and environmental needs; link producers and markets  via  locally  focussed  infrastructure;  promote  environmental  health;  and  provide competitive advantage to local food businesses and brands” (p. 10)
• Food tourism can in turn cause the globalisation of food due to one experiencing another region specific food then importing to their own place of origin (p. 13)
• “Agribusiness has given consumers an unparalleled range of products from around the world virtually all year long, BUT However, this has come at significant environmental, economic and social cost (Lang 2010; Gössling & Hall 2013) with a loss of traditional farming systems and products, food diversity and increasing food insecurity in many locations as a result of lower local production and dependence on global food supply chains stretching thousands of kilometres” (p. 13)

The Industrial Diet

• Food over the past 150 years has become a commodity due to environment, power relations and social structures (p. 2)
• Industrial diet or american diet?? (p. 3)
• Losses in nutrients from industrialization has our genes fighting against us in premature deaths and disease, resulting from food (p. 6)

2/18

This weeks readings involved exploring websites that Sarah linked me to in relation to school gardens!

Food Span

Food span is ““free, downloadable curriculum provides high school students with a deep understanding of critical food system issues, empowers them to make healthy and responsible food choices, and encourages them to become advocates for food system change.”

• there are 17 lessons within 3 units. Ex) Unit 2: farmers, factories and food chains – lesson 1 is crops: growing problems and lesson 2 is animals: field to factory —  lesson plan, powerpoint, student handouts
• for grades 9-12
• They used a term “field to plate” which I haven’t heard before, kind of like an alternative of “farm to table”
• The lessons end with a cumulative group project called “Food Citizen Action” where students design an intervention to address food system issues 
• An alignment chart was included where teachers can see the topics that students will learn and what grade/credit it relates to
• They try to source to social media with #FoodSpan

All in all I think it is a great lesson plan to implement into highschool. I never learned anything related to food systems when I was in grade school but I think this could fit well in a health related class! Social media use is always a way to engage students as it is so abundant in their lives.

USDA Farm to School Census

This census focuses on schools across the United States that utilize farms or gardens as lesson plans. The website is colorful, interactive and easy to access. What I thought was cool is you could solely search for your school districts farm to school statistics so I looked up information on Glenfair Elementary in the Reynold School District (the school I intern at), that information is found below.

• 42% of school participate = 42,000 schools
• More than 96 percent of schools report that they are successfully meeting the updated nutrition standards by serving meals with more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; lean protein and low-fat dairy; and less sugar, sodium, and fat.
  • My comment on this I remember in high school (higher income) where we retired a lot of “yummy” but unhealthy foods and replaced it with “healthier” cookies, whole wheat tortillas, whole wheat pretzels (still with nacho cheese). Yet the elementary school I intern at has a school garden and they still eat little pizzas every tuesday with sugary strawberry mashes and chocolate milk. Most wont eat their fruit they are provided. It’s easy for the USDA to generalize but in the low income school I’m at even with a garden, this statistic doesn’t exactly apply. Is Glenfair that 4%?
• 55% of Oregon school districts participate – Over $13,000,000 invested in local foods

When I looked up information on Reynolds School District, I found a survey that the USDA assigned to them with useful information. One question asked about what Reynold’s describes as “Local”. Their answer was that they get their food supplied from DUCK Delivery (they deliver produce from Oregon, Washington and california). My other internship with celebrate gets their food delivered from DUCK as well so I found that an interesting connection! Another question asked about setbacks from buying solely local and the answer was the pricing (seems to be a common theme). Also, they are proud of sourcing their apples from Oregon! The students at Glenfair eat apples every week.

This week I finished up Food Politics and am now beginning The Industrial Diet. Whether it be what I read weekly or just when I finish the text, I’m going to post a summary and some key points to not only show my work but what I have learned in relation to my studies.

Food Politics – Intro, Ch. 11, 12 & 15

The chapters I chose to read basically dug into how the food industry has turned into a political game and its impact on consumers. Food politics is described as, “Rural food producers and urban food consumers have divergent short-term interests, so they naturally will compete to use the far-reaching powers of the state (collecting taxes, providing subsidies, managing exchange rates, regulating markets) to pursue self-serving advantage. We describe such struggles over how the risks and gains from state action are allocated within the food and farming sector as “food politics” (p. 2).

Chapter 11 discussed agribusiness and how it has reached beyond first world countries. Many diets in “rich” countries, as the author described,  have become abundantly unhealthy as we have stepped away from local farmers and turned to industry to supply our food. The “industry” includes about 4 companies importing and exporting out food to us, increasing food miles and processed food-like products. All of this is very familiar to me but some key points I took away were:

• In 2002, restaurants delivered $600 billion worth of meals and services, more than total US farm sales. Suggesting US produces more money serving food than growing it (p. 155)
• According to a study done in 2012, 3 decades from now low to middle income countries will be consuming as much unhealthy food as rich countries. Where will rich countries end up? (p. 163)
• Marketing: fast food in opposing countries cater to traditions there. Mcdonalds china with tea houses, 95% of food is sources food from china, Mcdonalds makes money catering to them rather than keeping it american. Also dietary preferences in fast food sells better, KFC sells more in china because chicken, subway offers kosher food in israel (p. 164)

Chapter 12 discussed organic foods vs industrial foods. The author touched on how agribusiness and industrialization has created a distrust towards what we are eating so we turn to the comforts of local or organic food. The only issue is that organic food has become very similar to agribusiness in terms of commercial expansion and that policies for non-chemical forms of growing food has weakened as more industrial, powerful leaders have a say in it. As organic food is grown more similar to industrial food, the fact that it is twice as expensive belittles its value. And while local food can be a better alternative, food safety is called into question due to less strict regulations.

• Organic products cost 10 to 40 cents more than conventional products (p. 168)
• Studies done on organic vs conventional show little to no nutrient value increase (p. 172)
• The local food movement has brought significant expansion, increasing farmers markets from 1755 to 7864 between 2001 and 2010 (p. 177)
• USDA defines local as in-state or within 400 miles. Whole foods defines their local food as within 7 hours (p. 177)
• Alaska has a procurement law that the state must require food to be bought instate so long as the cost is no more than 7% above the out of state price, Interesting (p. 189)

Chapter 15 simply rounded out all of his topics and reiterated his main point. My issue with the book was rather than providing solutions or alternatives to these issues, the author was very heavy in tearing down every aspect. It was negatives stacked on negatives. As a reader, it not only per se “kills your vibe” but leaves you with little to work with.

 

1/29

Uh Oh! I made a woopsies. I did a check up on the Evergreen State College website ILC page to just graze my eyes over credits per hour… I’ve been doing 20 hours a week thinking that suffices for 12 credits and its only for 8, I need 30 per week!! That’s okay though, my hours at celebrate are increasing each week and I can choose to do more hours at Farm to Fit. I think an academic component would be beneficial though, so each week here on out I’ll be working with readings and outside work.

To get some inspiration on how to form a bibliography and in general ways to use wordpress I spent some time overlooking all of my classmates blogs and I am so impressed!! There are some people out there doing tremendous work, I really enjoyed reading. Some highlights I learn were:

• Hormones in flowers that help them, but can also be used for us medicinally
• Somebody is working with hops and beer! What a dream, loved their instagram
• What rearing insects is and how insects wings/antennas are prime identification markers
• Pruning trees helps with sunlights ability to photosynthesize the plant
• What biochar is and its benefit to soil. Reminded me of how volcanic ash soil can be beneficial to plants so this would make sense
• “slow” fashion vs “fast” fashion
• A student literally drafted designs of nurseries.. so neat. I can’t even draw stick figures
• A pre-school in Seattle based solely outside, reminded me of my internship, educating youth on agricultural and ecological concepts are crucial
• Fungivores!! That’s a thing! cheese mites too
• The honesty of stress/anxiety from steering your own ILC.. felt that on a spiritual level

 

As for academia, I did some research on potential texts or articles I will read through in the upcoming weeks on my own time to play catch up with hours. These writings will focus on the concept of  the “local” and “natural” food movement, how/why we got here and some systems making it happen! Hopefully I find some based solely about Portland

• Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know by Robert Paalberg
• The Industrial Diet: The Degradation of Food and the struggle for Healthy Eating by Anthony Winson
• Food Tourism and Regional Development: Networks, Products and Trajectories by Collin Michael Hall and Stefan Gossling
• The Political Economy of Food and Finance by Ted P. Schmidt

I will aim to read these texts in order, not in full but there are many crucial chapters in each book pertaining to my studies. It was hard to find texts specifically on Portland so I may just exclude that to research days!