Have you ever wondered what’s in that item you are about to eat? Is it really food, or is it a chemical concoction derived from petroleum masquerading as food? Where did it come from? How far did your food travel before it got to your plate?
Two recent developments inspire us to bring these intriguing questions to the fore. We have all enjoyed the opening of the new Commons building this spring, and an anonymous donor recently made a gift of $2,500,000 to the Bates College endowment to promote more use and understanding of local, natural and organic food.
Inspired by these new and visible signs of our long-standing commitment to a thoughtful, sustainable and nourishing approach to food on campus, we are excited to announce a new initiative, Nourishing Body and Mind: Bates Contemplates Food, to help expand the ways that we think about, appreciate and choose our food. With food as the thread that connects us, to each other and to our larger community, we will spend the next year celebrating and contemplating more deeply the ways that gathering together around food enhances and supports the College’s mission.
What is local food, natural food, organic food, and should we be interested in promoting the use of these products? How can we wisely shop for and eat food? Why is it desirable to find the time for slow food over fast food? How do we reduce food waste and promote recycling and composting? The year will be focused on activities aimed at raising our awareness.
The initiative will sponsor and facilitate activities throughout 2008-09 on the topics of food, and eating. It will provide opportunities for student organizations, departments, programs and offices of the college to engage by offering and promoting events. Oh yes — and an opportunity to eat good food together!
Our year-long celebration and examination of food and eating is being overseen by a steering committee. If you are interested in organizing an activity, or already have an event planned that fits in with this theme, please contact one or more members of the steering committee to discuss your plans. If you have ideas for events, we want to hear from you. We will help promote your activity, develop your ideas, and work with you to enhance the educational benefits of events. This blog has been created to help us begin discussing food and eating at Bates.
Please join us in this initiative, and – bon appétit!
This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.
0 Responses to “About this initiative”