As part of our first challenge we worked with RecoveryPark, an urban farming initiative that seeks to employ people with barriers to employment in the city of Detroit. My  team of fellows was tasked with creating a ‘Why Buy Local’ foods educational video that explores the economic, environmental, social and other benefits of buying locally grown produce. To do this we had to do plenty of research, and interviews before we were able to make the final video for RecoveryPark.

To be honest though, coming into this project I had never really  ate particularly well,  and had VERY limited cooking ability. So while I was trying to craft this message to convey, I felt like many of the interviews and videos I watched were speaking directly to me. Once I got past the guilt of being pretty much incompetent in feeding myself, I started paying attention to the some of the larger insights and thought I would share some of the ideas, facts, and videos we were not able to include in our final video for RecoveryPark. One of our most valuable interviews was with Chef James Rigato, former Top Chef contestant and Chef at The Root Restaurant in White Lake, MI. He touched a couple themes that were reoccurring during our research so I thought I would share some of them.

Watch our video here – “Why buy local – RecoveryPark”

 We need to right-size the food economy.

    • In 2012 alone, more than 36 million tons of food waste was generated, with only five percent diverted from landfills and incinerators for composting.
    • Getting food to our tables eats up 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget, uses 50 percent of U.S. land, and swallows 80 percent of freshwater consumed in the United States. Yet, 40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten. That is more than 20 pounds of food per person every month. Not only does this mean that Americans are throwing out the equivalent of $165 billion each year, but also 25 percent of all freshwater and huge amounts of unnecessary chemicals, energy, and land
    • In 1959, there were 4,105,000 farms in the United States, while the latest US farm census in 2011 recorded only 2,200,000 farms. In the last 50 years, though the number of farms has shrunk, the size of the farms still in existence has grown tremendously, which demonstrates the consolidation and industrialization of US agriculture
  • Michael Pollan: School Lunch : This is a video that talks about the relationship between the Industrial food system and our public schools. While many poor school systems need to be cost conscious, you run the risk of blocking access of healthier food options from the communities with kids that could really use this free alternative.

Self education is key – do not buy blindly.

    • Know your food – Know your farmer- Ask Questions. Go to a Farmers Market.  Find your local farmer at www.localharvest.com
    • Meat from animals raised sustainably on pasture is also more nutritious – for example, grass-fed beef is higher in “good” cholesterol (and lower in “bad”), higher in vitamins A and E, lower in fat, and contains more antioxidants than factory farmed beef

We as a culture used to be connected to our food.

  • “Listen to our food – In the winter, there is a Vitamin D deficiency. Potatoes are common in the winter. Potatoes have a lot of Vitamin D., Walnuts look like a brain and are good for the brain — there is magic in food. As a culture, we can “celebrate the current harvest” by embracing seasonal food options”
  • Anna Lappé: My Food Journey – This video is a woman speaking about how her experience in countries where this industrialized food economy doesn’t exist, and how she has never felt healthier in her life. This resonated with me because in many ways my diet here is much poorer in quality than my family in Nigeria.

 Learn how to cook.

    • One of the things we were told was “What happened to home economics?”. Home ec was definitely before my time, so I can’t speak on how effective it actually was, but I think the point about people not learning how to cook for themselves is still true. This was an interesting video because it shows how it can actually be cheaper to eat the same types of fast food meals with healthier ingredients than to continue paying for it at the drive-through. Granted, this is on a per unit basis, but for anyone who makes the economic argument for fast food, this is something to think about.

There were many other facts, statistics and arguments, but for those I refer you to any of the big documentaries about our food production system, like Food Inc. Some of the biggest barriers to healthy eating will always be price and access. Even now they  are definitely the first factors that comes to mind when I decide what I am going to eat, but there are many other effects health and economic factors to consider. What to eat is a choice I luckily get to make dozens of times a month, and with that  plenty of opportunities to do it right.