End/Beginning?

This was fascinating, scary, chaotic, time-consuming, quick, exciting, distressing, and FUN.  Most important, though, I think is the fact that though this project began as an experiment, we learned how simple it is to turn this from an experiment to a reality.

Eating locally does not have to be part of an experimental lifestyle or a once-in-a-while type of meal.  If we learned anything on this journey it was how easy (and worthwhile!) eating REAL (local) foods can be as a lifestyle.

If eating real foods is only something that the privileged elite have the opportunity to participate in, then the movement fails.  We needs moms, dads, neighbors, gas station attendants, waiters, CEO’s, COLLEGE STUDENTS, and everyone in between eating food that they can trace and feel good about.

There are many types of health, and frankly, they all matter.  For example, your health.  It’s important!  And eating healthy local foods that you can trace and trust is vital to your own health.  Then there is the health of earth.  Right now, our planet is sick and getting sicker.  Global warming, a water crisis, and an overwhelming number of pesticides and toxins threaten the health of the environment (and that includes our food) every day, and eating locally is a really easy way of doing something to combat that.  With every local (or real) meal you eat you save energy, oil, and toxins that would otherwise be in the environment.  If you know the source you can be sure of whether or not you approve of their practices.  Does the source treat their workers fairly?  Their animals?  Do they farm organically or with lots of pesticides?  All of these questions help to determine the health of the community. 

The other thing that is important to remember is that eating purely locally all the time is not really realistic.  But that’s where the Real Food Movement comes in.  The movement defines real foods as “food which truly nourishes producers, consumers, communities and the earth.  It is a food system--from seed to plate--that fundamentally respects human dignity and health, animal welfare, social justice and environmental sustainability.”  The Real Food Movement takes into account even more than just local foods, because the truth is that not everything can be grown or raised everywhere, and there are ways to eat “non-locally” that are still good for our bodies and planet.  Considerations about how the food was made, who prepared it, and where are all valid considerations in evaluating real food.

What is really cool is that though Brown Dining hall cannot truly compare or compete with a purely local diet, currently 36% of foods in dining halls here are considered real foods.  That means that Brown has already surpassed its 2014 goal for real foods (of 35%).  That’s impressive!

Our calculations showed that the approximate carbon footprint of eating in Brown Dining halls for a day was 45,847.98 lbs CO2 as compared with 618.5 lbs CO2 for our local day.  That’s a massive difference.  What I hope you and I can aim for, as college students, is perhaps something a little above 618.5 and way below 45,847.98.  We can be realistic about it—we are in college and our resources for cooking and food are unique—but that doesn’t mean we can’t try.  This project may be coming to an end, but that doesn’t mean we stop trying to live some of this project every day.  Make food something that tastes and feels good in every sense.