This last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with a good friend (and fellow foodie), Olivia Bensinger. I wanted to talk to Olivia not just because she’s fun to be around, but because she’s working on a unique project related to food — The Real Food Challenge. The result was a fascinating interview (that you’ll be able to listen to in full here soon!).
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about food over the years — growing it, shopping for it, cooking it, eating it, and feeding it to others — and I’ve encountered a lot of problems with food systems along the way. I’ve heard there are problems with farm worker pay rolls, animal living conditions, farm owner debt, monocultures, chemical treatments, and more. The problem is, every time I’ve come across one of these seemingly systemic squeezes between what is right and what is easy. So when I heard that by working for Real Food at The University of Alabama, Olivia was really working for local, organic, fair, and humane food on campus, I was a little overwhelmed by the list of demands.
- Local: grown within 150 miles of the place it is sold or served.
- Organic: farmed without use of man-made chemicals.
- Fair: cultivated by workers being treated and paid well.
- Humane: treatment is free of cruel conditions (meats only).
But as we spoke, I realized that what she was talking about wasn’t an unworkable goal. It’s lofty, yes, but the extent to which the program is comprehensive, it is equally attainable. Real Food gets at the entire system, changing the way we eat from the very basics — availability. Food is real when it meets 2 of the 4 requirements. And when you look at them all together, it’s easier to do than you might think: when I buy watermelon from a farmer’s market, I can identify where it was grown (locally), and how (organic), and even by whom (fair).
Organic is expensive for now, but this is about markets, and how they evolve. As soon as more organic food gets purchased, it will become a more common thing; there will be more of it. As demand increases, farmers will meet it with supply.
This economic argument for local, organic food is one I had not yet encountered.
Yes, I’d always thought I was doing my local economy good by buying local, but I’d never matched the concept of local food to our widespread farm policies. For farmers that grow to current demands for corn and grains, profits are hard to come by. But local farmers have a chance to succeed in the future, if only there is consistent demand. And that’s where this Challenge comes in: Olivia, along with volunteers for the Real Food Challenge across campuses nationwide, are working to guarantee that condition is met, by working through campus dining facilities. Olivia reminded me that:
Our goal is to implement real food campus dining halls. The ultimate goal is 20% Real Food by 2020. We want to see how much money our campuses are spending on Real Food, versus the amount of money spent on food overall. When we increase real food spending to 20%, we’ve done our job.
By focusing on the dollar value of campus eating in the large food industry, real foodies boil everything down to smart spending that can change a system. According to Olivia,
Real Food Challenge is focused around universities and campus dining halls because that’s who spends a lot of money on food every year — millions of dollars, even at small schools. We have this huge power within the food system, and are trying to use that power and money to buy real food, and make it more available to not only college students, but people all over the country.
Schools have time to transition to this new system — if they act quickly in working with real food supporters soon. Olivia’s campus, whose dining halls are run by Aramark (one of the largest food companies in the nation), just agreed to work with Real Food organizers to make sure that they’re on track to doing so. If a campus as large and storied as Alabama can make efforts to support this movement, surely campuses all over the nation can follow suit.
I, for one, am looking forward to a future where I can buy local, organic food at a cost that doesn’t clear out the bank every week. I feel better when I know where my food is from, and how it was grown, but the steps that the supporters of Real Food are taking can help make that feeling a regular event in the lives of many.
Readers can find out more or get involved with The Real Food Challenge by visiting their website
