Expressing the Terroir of Costa Rica through Medicinal Herbs
Yarden’s Case Study ILC
Description
This ILC is an exploration of the relationship between food and medicine, and connection between terroir, taste, and health, in the context of Costa Rica. I want to learn about medicinal herbs and super foods in Costa Rica, how to grow them sustainably, and question if growing food sustainably impacts its taste. As humans on this earth, our relationship to food is extremely complicated, and I want to learn more about ways to eat and live sustainable and healthy lives, while creating and raising awareness of terroir and high quality foods. I think we can have best of both worlds; live in harmony with earth and be a sustainable specie, while producing a large variety of quality foods and products manufactured towards taste. I hope to better my understanding of these topics and produce answers to these questions throughout my experience.
This ILC is also going deeper into not only the taste of food, but how the food makes us feel. I think that the reason we choose to eat certain foods is because of taste, but also largely because of how it makes us feel, whether we are fully aware of it or not. Food, like substances, gives us highs and lows, and I aim to explore some of the psychology behind our food preferences. I want to explore medicinal foods and their taste, and relate the experience of their flavor to the feelings they evoke within me. I hope to find some links between health and taste.
I will be creating a wordpress site including writing, photos, audio, video, and other media that will be a representation of what I learned winter quarter, and how I connected these studies to Terroir. As a coordinator for The Evergreen Yoga Service Collective, I will also use these skills to enhance my yoga teaching abilities, and share this information on tropical medicinal herbs, sustainability, and ecological farming to the community.
| Learning Objectives | Activities that will help me to attain this objective | What my sponsor will evaluate |
|---|---|---|
| I want to deepen my knowledge of tropical medicinal plants in Costa Rica, and explore the relationship between taste, the terroir of super foods, medicinal plants, and health. My goal is to be able to identify many tropical medicinal plants, know their uses, and be able to extract and use their medicine. I also want to explore how the location of a medicinal plant relates to its effectiveness, and what flavor can tell us about a plants medicinal power. I am going to explore questions like, do we crave certain foods because our body is trying to tell us something? Is taste, and the desire to savor, a language between ourselves sharing what we in fact need to be taking into our bodies, and we think it’s just simply hunger? I will read selected reading from the course, including Natural Health Care Guide for Tropical Living, by Ed Bernhardt. | Taking a three week course called, Tropical Medicinal Plants with Natural Care Therapies Course, at New Dawn Educational Center in Costa Rica. I will learn tropical medicinal botany, identification, collection, cultivation, preparation and uses, naturopathy, healing with diet and nutrition, massage therapy, comprehensive skills of clinical massage & accupressure, as well as holistic health care and mind-spirit therapies. I will also do independent research connecting taste to health, and hoping to connect and understand more about the communication between taste and health. | My completion of the course as accredited by the teacher of the course Ed, as well as a wordpress website documenting my knowledge and experiences through writing, photos, video, and audio, as well as resources, and hours logged. |
| Exploring the terroir of Costa Rica through a sustainable lens. I want to learn methods of sustainable living in the tropics, while growing quality terroir inspired foods. Costa Rica has a very unique geography and climate and I will explore a variety of foods, and determine which ones are grown sustainably, and realize food systems that could be improved. Is terroir a sustainable lens to think about producing food? Is quality of taste a standard we should be producing our food towards? I want to experience the difference of terroir, as well as the health differences in food grown on a small family farm, versus the dominant agriculturally produced food from the same country. | I will take a two week internship with Finca Inti, a permaculture farm and homestead, where I will learn about tropical crops, fruits, spices, and medicinal plants. I will be working with permaculture designers and local people planting, harvesting, maintaining, and learning about the foods and products grown on the farm. | My wordpress website documenting my knowledge gained and experiences through writing, photos, video, and audio, as well as resources and hours logged. |
| I will continue researching these topics online, and read some selected books and and articles on the above subjects, in hopes of creating some connections and framework for my project. I want connect these topics by adding additional information to weave it together. I will read Healing Ourselves: A Book to Serve as a Companion in Time of Illness and Health: Based on the Lectures and Teaching of Naboru Muramoto, by Naboru Muramoto, and research the ayurvedic concept of rasa, as well as the selected readings during the three week course. I will do some independent research on Cacao in Costa Rica, and bananas in Costa Rica, as I have found these two fascinating, and rich connection between flavor and feeling. | Independent research, visiting sustainably focused businesses, tasting various specialty foods around the country, reading books and articles, meeting and discussing with knowledgeable individuals. | My completion of a wordpress site wordpress website documenting knowledge gained, and experiences through writing, photos, video, and audio, as well as resources and hours logged. |
Evaluation of Work
- Narrative evaluation from sponsor
- Narrative self-evaluation from student
Faculty Support
We are planning to contact each other through email, and possibly skype sessions for regular check ins.
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