The Pleasures of Eating and Food Justice

Wendall Berry's first tip to eating more responsibly was to try and grow as much of your own food as you can. I completely agree with this and I think this is the best way to be more responsible about the food you eat. The only way you can know exactly what is in your food is if you grow it yourself. Berry also makes the point that growing your own food is a great way to learn how the energy cycle of food works. While I don't grow any of the food that I eat, I think Berry makes some great points that make we want to try growing my own food in the future.
Berry's second tip was to prepare your own food. Cooking your own meal is a great way to eat responsibly and just like Berry says, it allows you to eat more cheaply. Once last year, I decided that I was going to make chili. I went to the store and bought all the ingredients which added up to be about twenty five dollars (a little pricey) but the chili lasted me about a week. Another bonus was that I had control of how much of each ingredient I put in the chili. While I prepare some of my own food, In the future I would love to be able to prepare most of my own food. However, living in dorms on a college campus makes that a little hard.
Berry's third point was to learn about the origins of the food you buy and to buy local food. Eating locally grown food is pretty new to me, but so far I support it. I would love to one day be able to buy only fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables. My only critique of locally grown food is that buying it can sometimes be more expensive than the non-local option, which as a college student is usually the option I have go with.
His fourth tip was to buy food directly from a local farmer. I think that doing this leads to even more responsible eating than simply buying food from a store that is marked "locally grown". In class, I heard a statistic that fresh food loses 30% of its vitamins and minerals if it isn't eaten 3 days after it was picked. If you're buying food from the store, chances are it isn't going to be as fresh as if you buy it straight from the farmer who grew it. If I had the option, I would buy fresh fruits and vegetables from a farmer, however I don't know any local farmers. Also, living on a college campus makes cooking your own meals a bit hard.
Wendall Berry's fifth tip is the only one I don't agree with. It's one thing to be informed about what goes into the food that you eat, but I do not think that knowing about the economy and technology of industrial food production makes you any more of a responsible eater.
Berry's sixth and seventh tip can be discussed together. Learning about farming and gardening as well as the species of food that you eat can be very important if you want to be a more responsible eater. How can one strive to eat only the healthiest and freshest fruits and vegetables if they don't know anything about how they were grown? I don't know much about farming or species of foods, but I'm hoping that working in the Castanea garden on the UNCA campus will help me learn more.

I think that Food Justice was a great passage to compare to "The Pleasures of Eating". While both promote the idea of eating fresh, locally grown food to be more responsible about eating, one passage was much more realistic than the other. While Berry focuses on what people can do to eat more responsibly, he neglects the fact that everyone doesn't have access to fresh food and some people can't afford it. Gottlieb and Joshi focus on the reality of the economy of food. While there are many opportunities to eat locally and know your farmer in places like Asheville, in contrast people don't get the same options in big cities like Chicago and New York City. In Food Justice, Gottlieb and Joshi bring up great points about the struggle between responsible eating and the economy of food.

Locally Grown Food in Asheville

The image I chose to represent food in Asheville is a picture of the vegetable section at a supermarket where everything is locally grown and organic. I chose this picture because locally grown food is very popular in Asheville and is very important to many residents of Asheville. A lot of people in Asheville like to know where their food comes from and they would rather support a local farm than a large-scale food company.
Before I moved here, locally grown food wasn't very important to me. I had always figured that all vegetables and fruits tasted the same regardless of where they were grown. It wasn't until I went to Farm Burger downtown that I realized how much of a difference there is between the taste of locally grown food and food not grown locally.

Service Learning Reflection

For my service learning, I work in the Castanea garden on Fridays from 1 to 3. During my time there, I have completed  a variety of tasks.  For instance, two weeks ago I weeded and spread soil, and this week I worked on composting. So far, I'm really enjoying my work in the garden. I like working outside and doing things with my hands. I also love doing something that benefits the community.

I've learned a lot about agriculture and farming from working in the garden. For example, on Friday I tried a fruit that I had never heard of before, and I learned the difference between organic compost and food compost. While it is true that If I were researching gardening instead of working in a garden, I would probably learn a lot, I wouldn't have gained the same knowledge through experience. I never really thought about the fact people grow the fruits and vegetables I purchase. A lot of unseen effort goes into all grown food and I've never really given that much thought. After working in the Castanea garden, I've learned the importance of local growers.

The Castanea garden community is an eco-friendly garden, which means everything that happens there takes into account how the environment is being effected. While we were making the compost container, the garden supervisor insisted on using screws instead of nails because screws can be re-used and nails can't. Finding ways to reduce waste on campus is another goal of the garden. For example, all of the compost that we use in the garden is made from leftover food on campus.

Since I started taking this english class and started working in the Castanea garden, I've become more interested in agriculture and farming. Even though I only have to work in the garden for 20 hours this semester, I'm thinking about continuing my work in the garden next semester and maybe even next year. I think working in the garden is giving me a greater appreciation for food and the way food is grown. I am very grateful for this opportunity to work in a community garden.