Walking into a corner store, you’re often bombarded with an assortment of colorfully packaged foods that are dotted with enticing advertisements, like ”buy 1, get one free” or “2 for 3.” These foods are often high in fat, sugar and artificial ingredients but are satisfying to an empty stomach, especially one that is looking for instant gratification and only able to spend a few dollars. The actual quality and nutritional value of these products are secondary to their price and “tastiness,” and convenience trumps everything.

Jean Paul, a corner store owner in North Philadelphia, recognizes these tendencies and has sought to improve access to not only affordable but fresh food within the traditional corner store structure. Through support from The Food Trust’s Healthy Corner Store Initiative, Paul is making it easier for children, who make up the a large portion of his customer base, to choose to buy healthier foods.

There is a similar initiative in Washington, D.C. and ever since I learned about the program, I have been curious to learn more about the store owners’ opinions of the program and their roles in selling the fresh produce.

I found Jean Paul’s approach inspiring. As the article explains, he had the option to discontinue the selling fresh and healthy produce when he acquired the business. However, as a vendor, he recognizes his role in shaping his customers’ purchases, while still providing them with the autonomy to make their own choices. With regular customers, he has the unique opportunity to build relationships with his customers and steer them towards more nutritious, and “valuable” foods. He acknowledges his moral responsibility to value the health of his customers and “doesn’t like the idea of being the outlet for unhealthy food bought by unhealthy kinds who don’t know any better and don’t have many alternatives even if they did know.”

We often talk about how we need to know our farmers, but in some situations, especially in urban environments, that is a lot easier said than done. However, I think small local business owners, like Jean Paul and other corner store vendors, can be advocates for healthy, sustainable food purchases in a similar way. They are the familiar faces for many urban community members, and therefore are in a position to be trusted educational resources for their customers. I think that with increased support from organizations like The Food Trust, more and more business owners like Jean Paul will start to see the long-term benefits of building healthy relationships with their customers through the sale of nutritious and fresh produce.

I remember when my family moved to Minnesota one of the first pieces of advice we received was that we needed to learn how to make the traditional Minnesotan dish: chicken wild rice soup. I didn’t realize how popular it was until I started seeing it everywhere—in our school lunches, at potlucks, in packaged soup mixes at the grocery store. Once we settled in, my mom found a recipe and started to make it more regularly. At first I was skeptical of it, but as the temperatures dropped I soon realized that it was the perfect comfort food for a cold fall or winter day.

Before listening to Winona LaDuke’s TedTalk, I did not completely understand the origin of wild rice and its rich history as a native crop in Minnesota. I did not know that there were diverse varieties as well as certain cultivation and parching techniques, all of which LaDuke and her Ojibwe ancestors have used for thousands of years. LaDuke perfectly identifies what we should be thinking of when we think of food; she says, “Food has a culture. It has a history. It has stories, it has relationships that ties us to our food.” These values are easily lost, especially as we look towards monoculture and large agricultural corporations to address food insecurity at the local, national and global scales. LaDuke points out the startling statistic that over the last 100 years, we’ve experienced a 70% decrease in agrobiodiversity. In the process we’ve also lost a great deal of nutritional value in our food as it is modified and packaged to cater to the American consumer, a consumer that is all to often accustomed to valuing the price and calorie count of a food over its quality and history.

In order to break down these tendencies that are engrained in our food culture and industry, we’re going to need to return to our roots like LaDuke suggests and “re-establish relationships with ancestors.” This means that we need to prioritize biodiversity among our crops. LaDuke acknowledges this and in response to the popularized “local food movement” states that “it’s not just that you grow local food, but it’s also what you grow.” As we work to develop policies that will make local food more accessible and affordable to people, it is important to keep this in mind.

I think traditions like chicken wild rice soup help to highlight the relationships between food, culture and place. However, it is also necessary that we recognize and understand how these food traditions are deeply connected to the agricultural processes that are unique to certain lands and people. If we can return to prioritizing these historical, traditional food narratives in our food system, I think there is hope that we can re-establish sustainable, diverse agricultural practices.

Some of my fondest memories are from my family’s road trips up the East Coast from Northern Virginia to Vermont. After getting out of suburbia through the New Jersey Turnpike traffic and into the countryside, I enjoyed passing through quaint towns and acres of farmland, and especially liked it when we’d come across an ice cream, (or creemee as a Vermonter would say) stand alongside the road.

On a few occasions, my family stayed at a bed and breakfast, dairy farm in Southern Vermont. It was on this farm that I learned how to milk a cow and got to witness the birth of a calf. Another highlight of our visits were the delicious breakfasts and dinners that the owner would prepare everyday, which always involved lots of fresh eggs, milk and butter. We would share these bountiful meals with the other guests around a big kitchen table. The corn soufflé was always my favorite dish, so I often asked my mom to make it when we had a special occasion back home. And although it did not taste quite the same as the original version, it’s creamy texture and sweet and savory flavors would still take me back to my memories of being on the farm.

While I did not know at the time that I would get to return to Vermont 14 years later to attend school at Middlebury, I feel fortunate to have had these experiences at a young age and think they are what made me feel connected and drawn to the area. Whenever it’s a windy day on campus or I am out for a run along one of the country roads in Middlebury and I catch a whiff of cow manure from a nearby dairy farm, I am often transported back to my visits as a kid.

I feel kind of silly writing about cow manure and corn soufflé now, but I do think that food memories are important because they highlight how connected we are to places through food.

Through her examples of the L’affaire Mondavi in France and Professor Elder’s maple sugaring in Vermont, Amy Trubek highlights how food is so unique to the place where it comes from. When we talk about “taste of place” she says that we must include in our discussion both the place’s “specific geologic history” and “culture, in a form of a group’s identity, traditions, and heritage” (Trubek 91). If we’re really going to change the way we’re eating and make our food system more sustainable, these aspects of our food should be prioritized. I think that sharing food memories is a way that we can do that, as they put a voice, flavor, or scent to both food and place. If we can create more platforms for these voices to be heard, I think they will have an even greater impact at the food policy level.

The examples that Trubek shares with us are both from traditional, rural agriculture. However, I think that the lessons we learn about food and place from these stories are not only relevant to people living in rural parts of the country, but also to people living in cities—places where cows, vineyards, and maple tree forests are out of sight. With more and more opportunities for urban agriculture, I think we need to be intentional in the same way about how and where we choose to grow. This means that we must continue to value the cultural and physical histories, as well as individuals’ memories, of the land that we use.

We often read about issues of class, race, and gender, but it’s challenging to understand them beyond a theoretical perspective until you are actively involved in these issues on the ground. When we leave the desk and enter the field, learning occurs in an exciting, engaging and stimulating manner. We enter into unchartered territory with a few tools to help navigate. This kind of learning also becomes so much more personal. Reality hits, and it hits hard. It plucks those inner emotional chords; it resonates and rings with you for a while. I’ve had similar experiences before; that is the beauty of a liberal arts education. Sometimes I’ve had an outlet to discuss them. On other occasions I’ve decided to keep them to myself. I’m learning to articulate my thoughts and appreciate that this course has encouraged me to do so weekly. Most importantly, I otherwise would not have felt so intimately connected to these topics if it were not for the opportunity I have to be learning directly about food justice in Washington, D.C.

These were a powerful set of readings that exposed some of the controversial underpinnings of the food justice movement. They made me deeply question our current approach to addressing food inequality. Agyeman accurately explains the uniqueness of food and its relevance to place, asserting that “there is likely no other resource required for human survival that is as culturally bound yet so dependent upon material realities of the natural environment” (217). We always want to do the right thing, but how can we really know what that is? I think former congresswoman Eva Clayton does an excellent job of explaining the balancing act that our government policy makers and community organizations must deal with. She says, “as far as policies, we have to make sure programs are equally available to all communities—they don’t outwardly discriminate but they [are not] aggressively inclusive so there must be evidence that they are doing outreach to the most vulnerable communities” (Clayton in Ammons 16). The goals of food justice and neoliberalism are easily intertwined, and I keep returning to questions that many people involved in these efforts often ask: who are we helping, and who are we hurting? Who are we serving, and what do they really want?

Theories of change are only really effective when they recognize and center on the needs and interests of every person they are trying to positively impact. This requires the change maker, program developer, policy maker, activist, etc. to put themselves in another person’s shoes and think critically about how their mission is going to help resolve the fundamental, underlying issues that are affecting the people they would like to serve. This is much easier said than done.

I would agree with Agyeman that food justice organizations are often working within a neoliberal infrastructure, which is nearly impossible to break away from. Many community organizations that would like to help address these issues have limited resources and rely on grants as well as support from more privileged members of the community to move forward. For these reasons, it’s very easy to buy into the “alternative food movement” that is indirectly “re-creating and reproducing the socioeconomic and racial inequalities that exist in the system” (Agyeman 213). However, the end goal for these organizations is not to make a profit but to build a community. I agree that we need to be looking through an urban political ecology lens in order to find this balance that Eva Clayton describes. Supplemental food programs, like WIC and SNAP, address the symptoms of the inequalities that are present in a community. But, in order to move towards rebuilding our broken food system, we need to focus on the political, social and economic inequalities that divide our communities. I think there is hope that community spaces, like Common Good City Farm where I am working this summer, can help to maintain this balance as they encourage neighbors to connect with one another and work towards a common goal of not only growing food but building a strong and resilient community.

I first read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation in 2012 during my senior year in high school. It was an assigned book for my English class, through which my teacher intended for us to not only analyze the rhetoric that Schlosser employs but also to delve into a deeper discussion of the local food movement. Prior to reading Fast Food Nation, we also read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, which offered us a context for the history of the meatpacking industry and food safety in the United States.

While I enjoyed our discussions, we only glazed the surface of some of the issues that Schlosser addresses. Most of us were aware that the local food movement was on the rise and were accustomed to seeing more and more labels like “local,” “organic,” and “GMO free.” We often referenced the popular documentary, Super Size Me when we talked about the health risks of a fast food diet. But beyond that, I felt that we were far removed from the reality of food insecurity and the detrimental effects of fast food on our country’s food system and overall health. The majority of us lived in comfortable suburban, upper-middle class neighborhoods. Our parents usually did the grocery shopping at easily accessible full-service stores. Fast food was an option for most us, but not the only option. What I didn’t fully understand at the time was that, although I was not eating fast food regularly, I was still a mindless consumer in a “fast food nation.” I really did not pay attention to where my food came from, convenience usually won out when it came to choosing what I ate, and I had no real conception of what it meant to eat sustainably.

After re-reading Schlosser’s introduction as well as works by Petrini, Pollan and McKibben, I now have a better understanding of what he meant when he said that “fast food has infiltrated every nook and cranny of American society.” We are disconnected from where our food comes from and often choose convenience and efficiency over quality and sustainability. We still tend to buy into the “uniformity” that the fast food franchises instilled in us, whether we are buying an organic apple from miles away, a packaged “health” food or a double cheeseburger (Schlosser 5). Efficiency and uniformity are not necessarily bad, but when it comes to the food we eat, we should be prioritizing qualities of our food like “good,” “clean” and “fair” (Petrini). I think this fast food mentality still exists even when we’re not buying fast food. It’s easy to still be a relatively ignorant consumer even if you are paying attention to nutritional values or the “organic” or “local” labels on the food you’re purchasing and eating. Are these labels sufficient? Do we really take the time to think critically about every food item that goes into our grocery bag? Are we still “unaware of the subtle and not so subtle ramifications of [our] purchases” (Schlosser 7)? More often than not, convenience wins out, and we don’t have the time to analyze every purchase. It’s easy to choose efficiency. For example, I’ll go to the farmer’s market, if there’s one nearby, if it works with my schedule to go, and if I have the time to prepare a meal with fresh produce.

If we, as a nation, can start thinking critically about where our food comes from (how it’s made, processed, distributed) and “eat with a fuller consciousness of all that it at stake” as Pollan suggests, I think that there is hope that we can break down this fast food mindset (9). Schlosser wrote his book in 2001, and since then we’ve made great strides as a nation to become more informed eaters. Farm to table initiatives in schools, policy changes to improve food access in underserved regions of the country, and support for sustainable food production and distribution are all steps in the right direction, all of which will allow us to be more critical of how we choose to feed our nation.

“The public health issue of violence is connected to the public health issue of chronic-diet related diseases.”

“You can die by the gun or die from the lack of proper food.”

-LaDonna Redmond, TEDxManhattan, 2013

I find Redmond’s analogy to be shockingly accurate and particularly moving. Although I first watched her Ted Talk back in April, after a week of living and working in Washington, DC., I now feel that I have a more concrete understanding of what she meant by this connection. It’s also bound to develop more fully as the summer continues. This week in DC we learned about the history of the city and how it has shaped the DC we know today. It’s one thing to read a history book or a website or even a statistic, it’s another to walk the streets of those communities that are considered “food deserts,” to talk with community members, and to witness the gentrification in some areas and the increasing concentration of poverty in others.

In addition to talking a lot about food and thinking more critically about food systems, food deserts, food access, food equality, etc., this past week I’ve also done a fair amount of observing (a.k.a people watching). While I won’t waste time discussing every one of my observations, I’d like to point out two anecdotes that I think highlight the challenges and opportunities that Redmond, Petrini, Pollan and Berry all touch on in their discussions of food justice. Earlier in the week, while riding the metro I watched a mother feed her crying toddler the last few crumbs of a package of powdered donuts. While I never will know the entire situation, I could not help but think of where those donuts came from, how much they cost, and what kinds of processes and ingredients went into making them. They were likely one of the cheapest calorie sources that one could find at a local convenience store, and they certainly wouldn’t have fit Petrini’s definition of good, clean and fair food or any of the guidelines that Pollan identifies for eating real, ordinary food. Unfortunately, these convenience stores might be the only nearby food sources for people in lower income neighborhoods of the District. There simply aren’t many affordable and healthy options, which is a frustration that Redmond expresses.

I’m optimistic, however, that this will not be the reality for these communities in the near future. DC is taking some big steps towards investing in food access and improving the lives of underrepresented and underserved populations. The Sustainable DC Plan as well as many other initiatives is helping to build urban communities that will some day provide good, clean, and fair food to all of its members. For example, DC Central Kitchen introduced a Healthy Corner Stores program, which is an initiative that helps source local, fresh produce to corner grocery stores in lower income neighborhoods of DC. My second anecdote highlights this optimistic perspective. While helping with a school field trip at the urban farm I’m working at, I listened to one of the young students accurately explain the process and importance of pollination. I was impressed. All of the students were excited to learn about gardening, bees, and vegetables. By educating this next generation to be conscious of  food in the way that Berry, Pollan and Petrini suggest, I think there is hope for healing and building communities that suffer from the public health issues of violence and chronic-diet related disease.