Food Systems Literacy - What are food systems activities?
Though you probably know a lot of food systems activities already, there’s so much to explore in this area of knowledge! This area includes food production, transportation, and the impacts on health, society, and the environment–and that’s just for starters.
It also includes awareness that what we eat is linked to social and cultural influences, and that different foods can be more expensive and hard to afford, including some more sustainable options. At EcoCooks, we take time to acknowledge these experiences, because food education needs to be inclusive of everyone.
Our programs talk about food waste, because it’s an important factor in how much of the food production resources (land, water, energy…) go to waste and how much greenhouse gas emissions are released. We help students learn easy strategies to reduce food waste in their own lives.
Another exciting strategy for reducing food waste are circular food systems, where any extra food can benefit communities and farming. For example, the Circular Innovation Council has pilot projects like this one in Edmonton that picks up food from restaurants that would go to waste and saves it for community service partners to feed more people! Scraps get diverted to composting for farming benefits. You can see their story here: https://youtu.be/mn57pVyZTBo?si=dHcHwMjPjgsBaVWs
The idea of a circular food system is to make the food production regenerative, which means that the energy and nutrients used are able to help sustain the food system. By adding food scraps to the compost, we can enrich the soil. This nutrient-rich soil can help us grow more healthy food over time, while the soil gets replenished. That’s renewable! Plus the embedded carbon gets stored in the soil, so we also reduce the greenhouse gases released by food scraps.
That’s a wrap on Food Systems Literacy! But wait… next month we’ll do a final post here where we connect the dots and think about our long-term vision to take action on sustainable food systems.