WEBVTT 00:00:01.189 --> 00:00:04.827 Today is August 28th, 2015. My name is Christine Barra Malaney 00:00:04.860 --> 00:00:08.505 interviewing for Arizona State University for the Dinner 2040 project. 00:00:08.538 --> 00:00:11.717 Good morning. Could I ask or afternoon? Could I ask you to tell me your 00:00:11.750 --> 00:00:16.546 name and your title, please? I am Ashley Shimi. I work with the Arizona 00:00:16.579 --> 00:00:20.387 Department of Education in their health and nutrition services division. 00:00:20.420 --> 00:00:24.695 And I work on farm to school and school garden development. So let's talk 00:00:24.728 --> 00:00:28.076 a little bit about your background. Can you tell me a little bit about 00:00:28.109 --> 00:00:32.085 where you were raised? I'm an Arizona native, born and raised here in the 00:00:32.118 --> 00:00:36.366 Phoenix area actually. Um Never really lived anywhere else. I've lived in 00:00:36.399 --> 00:00:40.546 Tempe, I now live in Gilbert and I've lived in Phoenix. So I know the 00:00:40.579 --> 00:00:48.579 Valley. Well, um I was born in Good Sam Hospital downtown. Um 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:55.106 So let's talk about um kind of where you grew up and kind of your family 00:00:55.139 --> 00:00:58.237 and the values that they, that they shared with you, especially about 00:00:58.270 --> 00:01:04.406 health and cooking. And so I am one of five Children. Um My, I have an 00:01:04.439 --> 00:01:08.757 older brother and then I have fun fact. Um three other siblings that are 00:01:08.790 --> 00:01:14.456 the same age as me. I'm a quadruplet, so I'm one of four. 00:01:14.489 --> 00:01:18.626 Mom and dad def definitely didn't plan to have four in one shot. Um But 00:01:18.659 --> 00:01:25.626 they did. And so because of that, um when dad, dad's an engineer, he he 00:01:25.659 --> 00:01:28.337 when he was first starting his career, you know, you don't always make a 00:01:28.370 --> 00:01:33.717 lot of money up front and my mom's a teacher. Um and she, when we were 00:01:33.750 --> 00:01:37.305 growing up, stayed home, she was a stay at home mom, take care of all five 00:01:37.338 --> 00:01:43.906 of us. Um, so Costco was our grocery store, our food for less. That's 00:01:43.939 --> 00:01:49.176 where we shopped. Um, we bought a lot of canned food or a lot of uh frozen 00:01:49.209 --> 00:01:52.995 food. A lot of, um, I remember one of the things, the things that I hate 00:01:53.028 --> 00:01:58.525 now, but I totally understand and respect why mom bought it then. Um, is 00:01:58.558 --> 00:02:03.915 like those flaked potatoes, those dehydrated potatoes. Um I think we all, 00:02:03.948 --> 00:02:08.286 all five of us kids now completely appreciate real potatoes that you can, 00:02:08.319 --> 00:02:12.305 you know, mash up. And so mashed potatoes are, um, just kind of one of 00:02:12.338 --> 00:02:15.446 those special things in our life now that we probably appreciate more now 00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:22.225 because we grew up on those flaked potatoes. Um I think I've always, 00:02:22.258 --> 00:02:27.146 always enjoyed food. Um, from a very young age I, my mom always cooked, we 00:02:27.179 --> 00:02:29.835 cooked all the time. We rarely went out to eat. We just didn't have the 00:02:29.868 --> 00:02:37.868 money for that. Um, so we always ate at home. Um And so I think I just saw 00:02:38.788 --> 00:02:42.055 mom cooking in the kitchen and found that to be interesting. I had an easy 00:02:42.088 --> 00:02:46.646 bake oven as a kid and as anyone who's worked with an easy bake oven, it's 00:02:46.679 --> 00:02:49.797 annoying. It takes forever to make one thing. But as a kid you don't care 00:02:49.830 --> 00:02:56.636 , you're just like in 30 minutes I'm gonna have a very tiny brownie. It's 00:02:56.669 --> 00:03:03.896 fine. I thought I was gonna start like a um a business with, among my, my 00:03:03.929 --> 00:03:08.225 siblings and I was gonna make uh we played a lot of make believe games. I 00:03:08.258 --> 00:03:11.585 guess that's what you do when you're a kid and we had baby dolls and stuff 00:03:11.618 --> 00:03:17.146 and I was going to be the baker for the, the baby doll birthdays 00:03:17.179 --> 00:03:21.646 and use fake money, I suppose to barter with that. But um, so that's funny. 00:03:21.679 --> 00:03:25.085 But somewhere along the lines, mom was like, why don't you just bake for 00:03:25.118 --> 00:03:28.737 real in the kitchen with real cooking equipment? And I jumped at the 00:03:28.770 --> 00:03:34.225 chance to do that. And so, um probably throughout high school, uh mom and 00:03:34.258 --> 00:03:39.827 dad were very uh nice and bought a lot of whatever I needed to make, 00:03:39.860 --> 00:03:43.755 whatever I felt like making um I guess it was two fold like sweet. We 00:03:43.788 --> 00:03:48.677 don't have to make something and you can make it for us and um you enjoy 00:03:48.710 --> 00:03:52.626 this. So we're gonna go ahead and let you do that. Um So Costco flour bags 00:03:52.659 --> 00:03:56.146 were, you know, something in the freezer and, you know, if it didn't work 00:03:56.179 --> 00:04:00.927 out, it's not the end of the world. Um I always remember that being I was 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:04.596 , I feel very fortunate looking back at that mom and dad really supporting 00:04:04.629 --> 00:04:07.775 that. I, at one point I thought I was gonna go to culinary school and then 00:04:07.808 --> 00:04:13.725 I didn't know if I had the thick skin and the drive to like kind of excel 00:04:13.758 --> 00:04:17.937 and be at that place where you get to create. Um a lot of, a lot of people 00:04:17.970 --> 00:04:21.567 who go through culinary school, I feel like are kind of stuck in because 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:24.645 going out to eat is such a big deal. These days, there's so many 00:04:24.678 --> 00:04:29.026 restaurants and so the competition to be a chef is, is super strict and 00:04:29.059 --> 00:04:33.305 cut throat. And I just didn't want to be that mean cut throat person to 00:04:33.338 --> 00:04:37.786 have to get through the layers of competitiveness um to make it into that 00:04:37.819 --> 00:04:42.986 place where you get to be the executive chef and um create really 00:04:43.019 --> 00:04:48.856 innovative dishes. And so I was like, maybe, maybe that's not for me. Um 00:04:48.889 --> 00:04:52.765 which I think pleased my dad, dad was not really thrilled with the idea of 00:04:52.798 --> 00:04:57.986 me not going to college. Given dad had a master's and mom was working on 00:04:58.019 --> 00:05:01.447 her master's. But um 00:05:01.480 --> 00:05:05.217 mom was supportive, she's like, whatever is going to make you happy. Um So 00:05:05.250 --> 00:05:10.586 I ended up coming to a su um, and I decided I was gonna open up a jazz 00:05:10.619 --> 00:05:16.226 club because I also have a background in music. I play trombone and II, I 00:05:16.259 --> 00:05:21.486 also didn't think I had the skill per se to, to make it big and, and be 00:05:21.519 --> 00:05:25.546 the musician that would actually bring in money. And I didn't really want 00:05:25.579 --> 00:05:30.187 to be a music teacher. So I decided I would go to business school and I 00:05:30.220 --> 00:05:35.526 would learn to hire the best chefs and hire the best musicians. And I 00:05:35.559 --> 00:05:39.515 would create this place that, um, celebrated jazz music in a way that I 00:05:39.548 --> 00:05:45.055 didn't think existed in the world today. Uh, looking back now with all the 00:05:45.088 --> 00:05:50.257 , the quote unquote hipsters that are about and, and all of the, um, old 00:05:50.290 --> 00:05:52.895 fashioned drinks that are kind of trendy right now. I probably would have 00:05:52.928 --> 00:05:57.055 been successful, at least for a little while had I stuck with that. But 00:05:57.088 --> 00:06:00.575 somewhere along the way, um, in my business degree, we had to take a 00:06:00.608 --> 00:06:05.546 certain amount of science classes to round out our programming. Um, so I 00:06:05.579 --> 00:06:10.495 chose to take things like botany and anatomy and somewhere along the way, 00:06:10.528 --> 00:06:14.697 I took a class called, I can't even remember the title perfectly, but it 00:06:14.730 --> 00:06:19.217 had something to do with health care innovations or something like that. 00:06:19.250 --> 00:06:21.476 And I was like, well, that sounds cool. I mean, most of the class was 00:06:21.509 --> 00:06:26.366 about insurance, which I tell you is not my cup of tea, but there was 00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:30.616 something that struck me. Um when I and I was still on business track at 00:06:30.649 --> 00:06:36.086 that point that stuck out to me and they had talked about nutrition being 00:06:36.119 --> 00:06:40.656 a field that people study. Um And that it is a preventative measure to 00:06:40.689 --> 00:06:43.467 reduce health care costs. And I didn't know much about health care costs 00:06:43.500 --> 00:06:49.046 or even really realize the epidemic that we were living in um with obesity 00:06:49.079 --> 00:06:55.156 and all of that. Um And so that's kind of where I was like, I don't think 00:06:55.189 --> 00:06:58.156 I like business. I didn't really like the people that I was going to 00:06:58.189 --> 00:07:02.075 school with a lot of the kids I went to school with just wanted to make a 00:07:02.108 --> 00:07:05.437 lot of money and they didn't really have like a personal or passionate 00:07:05.470 --> 00:07:10.526 drive to change the world in any particular way. And I was like, that 00:07:10.559 --> 00:07:16.776 can't be all you want in this life. There's got to be more than money. Um 00:07:16.809 --> 00:07:20.895 There's no way that money could make me happy. And I, I guess I knew that 00:07:20.928 --> 00:07:26.717 from, from a young age. But um, so I decided to switch my major to 00:07:26.750 --> 00:07:32.276 nutrition with the, I, I had some encouragement from my sister Erin um to 00:07:32.309 --> 00:07:35.305 switch my major to nutrition, which, you know, I had to kind of start all 00:07:35.338 --> 00:07:39.986 over. I didn't have a whole lot of classes that really, um converted over 00:07:40.019 --> 00:07:42.877 to nutrition school, which was fine. I didn't care I just wanted to do 00:07:42.910 --> 00:07:48.437 something that I cared about. And, um, I really like nutrition. Actually. 00:07:48.470 --> 00:07:53.916 I really, I've always, I don't want to get like emotional but, um, I 00:07:53.949 --> 00:08:00.546 always struggled with body image as a kid. I was probably overweight since 00:08:00.579 --> 00:08:07.096 third grade. Um, and I always was curious about 00:08:07.129 --> 00:08:11.166 how food impacted the body. And I think for a long time to God, I didn't 00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:16.075 mean to talk about this. Um, I think I always thought that you were kind 00:08:16.108 --> 00:08:20.116 of dealt in one card in life and that you don't have a whole lot of room 00:08:20.149 --> 00:08:24.086 to control it. So I kind of grew up with like the fat kid and I thought 00:08:24.119 --> 00:08:28.156 that's just what I, that's just the card that you had dealt. Oh, my gosh. 00:08:28.189 --> 00:08:33.875 Sorry. Um, so for a long time I didn't think that I had any control over 00:08:33.908 --> 00:08:39.116 that I was overweight. Um, my heaviest, I won't quote numbers but I was 00:08:39.149 --> 00:08:42.875 pretty heavy freshman year of college and just kind of thought, well, 00:08:42.908 --> 00:08:47.226 that's who I am. I have to be. If I want to stand out, I have to be, you 00:08:47.259 --> 00:08:50.476 know, like the funny fat girl or something like that. If I, if I thought I 00:08:50.509 --> 00:08:58.047 had anything, it was creativity. And, um, I was sometimes funny. So that's 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:04.145 what I had to give to the world and, um, obviously I think differently now. 00:09:04.178 --> 00:09:09.417 But, um, yeah, so it was interesting, I, I found out with nutrition 00:09:09.450 --> 00:09:13.907 school that, you know, while we all have predispositions to certain body 00:09:13.940 --> 00:09:21.116 types or genetic disorders, what have you, um, a healthy diet and a 00:09:21.149 --> 00:09:25.226 healthy active lifestyle are definitely something that has more to do than 00:09:25.259 --> 00:09:30.686 how the world views you from a physical standpoint. You know, um being 00:09:30.719 --> 00:09:35.657 healthy and physically active also um impacts your longevity and quality 00:09:35.690 --> 00:09:40.167 of life. Um It helps you if you feel your body right? It helps you to, to 00:09:40.200 --> 00:09:44.015 meet certain goals. Like I'm currently training to run for my second 00:09:44.048 --> 00:09:49.346 marathon. A lot of people think I'm crazy and some days I think I'm crazy 00:09:49.379 --> 00:09:55.696 too because you're out there for hours hashing out those miles. Um But I 00:09:55.729 --> 00:09:59.086 think that's just a testament to kind of celebrating that your body is 00:09:59.119 --> 00:10:03.246 healthy and that it can do these things that sound outlandish and crazy, 00:10:03.279 --> 00:10:09.047 especially in August. It's so hot right now. Um But yeah, anyway, so I, I 00:10:09.080 --> 00:10:13.726 switched from business to nutrition and I kind of fell in love. So, so I'm 00:10:13.759 --> 00:10:18.265 gonna take you back just a little bit about the cooking and baking and 00:10:18.298 --> 00:10:23.927 what is it about um baking that kind of that you loved it so much and they 00:10:23.960 --> 00:10:26.797 actually encouraged you by buying the ingredients and everything. What was 00:10:26.830 --> 00:10:31.037 it about um baking that you loved? That's something that's really hard to 00:10:31.070 --> 00:10:34.135 describe. Actually, I think there's just something really satisfying with 00:10:34.168 --> 00:10:37.496 cooking or baking your own food and baking is what I started out doing 00:10:37.529 --> 00:10:42.816 probably because who doesn't like cake and cookies. Um, some people, and 00:10:42.849 --> 00:10:48.255 I've learned to not indulge in those too much. But, um, I don't know, 00:10:48.288 --> 00:10:51.976 especially around the holidays, like baking. My mom used to make a big 00:10:52.009 --> 00:10:55.265 deal about baking cookies for your neighbors or like, for people at church. 00:10:55.298 --> 00:10:58.976 And so we would, we would spend like two days baking cookies, like, for 00:10:59.009 --> 00:11:03.807 all day and we'd have cookies everywhere. And so, you know, we have fun 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:06.515 making them and now we have to give them out to all of our neighbors and 00:11:06.548 --> 00:11:10.657 to people at church. And, um, that was fun. I mean, it's kind of, you 00:11:10.690 --> 00:11:13.917 spend time with family, I guess you're spending time with people that you 00:11:13.950 --> 00:11:17.456 care about and you're spending time doing this activity that is 00:11:17.489 --> 00:11:23.066 indescribably satisfying and fun. Um, and then at the end of it all, you 00:11:23.099 --> 00:11:25.866 know, you're not just keeping it for yourself, you're giving it to someone 00:11:25.899 --> 00:11:29.385 else, which makes them feel special because, you know, when you look at 00:11:29.418 --> 00:11:33.047 something like a cookie that is really pretty to look at and hopefully 00:11:33.080 --> 00:11:36.826 very tasty. Uh, you know, the person feels special if you like, oh, you 00:11:36.859 --> 00:11:41.037 spent time out of your day to think of me or to, you know, make sure that 00:11:41.070 --> 00:11:46.816 I felt special. And so if that's not really a direct answer, but that's, 00:11:46.849 --> 00:11:52.547 uh, I think that's what's fun. And in high school, actually, I I had this 00:11:52.580 --> 00:11:56.217 habit of when it was someone's birthday, a friend's birthday. I would, I 00:11:56.250 --> 00:11:58.667 would, even if it was three in the morning. Right. As a high school 00:11:58.700 --> 00:12:01.496 student I'd be like, I got to, got to make this thing and, you know, 00:12:01.529 --> 00:12:06.086 luckily my family tolerated me, I'd be like, in the kitchen making stuff 00:12:06.119 --> 00:12:12.076 and I just wanted people to feel special. It was their day and, uh, my 00:12:12.109 --> 00:12:17.066 family either tolerated it or encouraged it one or the other. Um, and so I 00:12:17.099 --> 00:12:20.746 guess that's, I guess that's probably why I think it's, it's fun. I'm a 00:12:20.779 --> 00:12:24.736 very service oriented person makes me feel better to make someone else 00:12:24.769 --> 00:12:31.657 feel better. So I guess that's why. So tell me about, um, you have a large 00:12:31.690 --> 00:12:34.746 family. So tell me about the meals or any special meal that you all 00:12:34.779 --> 00:12:37.807 celebrated or coming together and sitting down and eating at the table and 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:43.326 what that meant. So, um, when my dad was growing up and I keep forgetting 00:12:43.359 --> 00:12:47.385 which state it's either, I think it's Iowa. He moved around a fair amount. 00:12:47.418 --> 00:12:53.196 His dad was a math teacher but a math teacher in church. So, so he would 00:12:53.229 --> 00:12:59.145 move around depending on where he was called to work. Um, and at one point 00:12:59.178 --> 00:13:02.875 when my dad was in high school, I think it was early high school. He, my, 00:13:02.908 --> 00:13:06.996 my grandfather decided I'm not going to teach right now. I'm going to make 00:13:07.029 --> 00:13:11.177 more money. Uh, my dad grew up with a large family and not a whole lot of 00:13:11.210 --> 00:13:14.186 money and they just, I'm going, I'm going to start my own business. I'm 00:13:14.219 --> 00:13:18.537 going to open up a pizza and sub shop. And so some of my favorite foods 00:13:18.570 --> 00:13:22.765 are the foods that he make, make at home. And, um, so he makes like an 00:13:22.798 --> 00:13:26.917 Italian sub sandwich that you see everywhere. It's like capicola ham, like 00:13:26.950 --> 00:13:32.275 salami pepperoni, like Pepperoncini tomatoes, all that delicious. Um, and 00:13:32.308 --> 00:13:36.986 he also makes, and this is what I think the family really remembers dad 00:13:37.019 --> 00:13:42.996 for is, um, pizza. We would make pizza, the dough that he would make and 00:13:43.029 --> 00:13:45.557 the sauce that he would make and then we all would just make whatever kind 00:13:45.590 --> 00:13:49.015 of pizza we want. But it's just, that's such a process to make your own 00:13:49.048 --> 00:13:52.515 pizza from scratch, especially when there's like, you know, whatever Pizza 00:13:52.548 --> 00:13:57.875 Hut or whatever down the road. Um, that it's, we didn't do it very often. 00:13:57.908 --> 00:14:02.167 And so that was very special to do at home. And now, um, we do that 00:14:02.200 --> 00:14:04.996 Christmas Eve. 00:14:05.029 --> 00:14:09.746 So, um, and I think, I think of meals that dad made because dad didn't 00:14:09.779 --> 00:14:13.385 cook as much as mom did. And so maybe that why is why it was more special. 00:14:13.418 --> 00:14:18.265 But, um, mom's happy because she's not cooking and she's getting food and 00:14:18.298 --> 00:14:22.826 we're all happy because we get to help in some way and, um, dad's pizza 00:14:22.859 --> 00:14:27.015 crust just tastes better. I don't know, what was it like to help in the 00:14:27.048 --> 00:14:30.076 kitchen? What, what is that? You know, did you enjoy? Most kids were like 00:14:30.109 --> 00:14:32.996 , no, I don't want to do that, but, you know, why did you enjoy helping in 00:14:33.029 --> 00:14:38.206 the kitchen with when your dad was cooking or your mom? Um, 00:14:38.239 --> 00:14:42.436 I think that's probably where I probably felt most connected to mom and 00:14:42.469 --> 00:14:48.895 dad maybe. Um, 00:14:48.928 --> 00:14:53.686 I guess, um, I, I would say even now that my sisters probably connect best 00:14:53.719 --> 00:14:57.696 with my mom. Like, they kind of share just more about their life with mom 00:14:57.729 --> 00:15:02.385 right now and I'm just kind of like, I'll let, I'll let you know what you 00:15:02.418 --> 00:15:08.366 need to know. And, um, II, I enjoy quality time with, with someone more 00:15:08.399 --> 00:15:11.436 than I enjoy, like, calling and letting you know what's going on in my 00:15:11.469 --> 00:15:16.616 life. Although now I'm realizing that maybe as we grow up, that's just as 00:15:16.649 --> 00:15:20.616 important because there's not as much one on one time. But, um, and then 00:15:20.649 --> 00:15:23.946 with dad, um, 00:15:23.979 --> 00:15:29.135 dad's not one to necessarily hang out with you while you're at home. He's 00:15:29.168 --> 00:15:33.476 not, there has to be a purpose almost to your, your one on one time. And 00:15:33.509 --> 00:15:36.976 so that meant a bike ride. If that means playing games on the computer or 00:15:37.009 --> 00:15:40.275 watching a movie, then that's all fine. Um, but if he's not interested in 00:15:40.308 --> 00:15:44.446 whatever activity it is that's going on, he's not necessarily going to 00:15:44.479 --> 00:15:48.907 join you. I mean, sometimes he will and he's getting better. But, um, so I 00:15:48.940 --> 00:15:52.566 think for me cooking with mom and dad is important because that's 00:15:52.599 --> 00:15:55.677 something that all of us can connect on and we all enjoy that activity. 00:15:55.710 --> 00:16:01.807 And so that's probably why. So let's talk about when you decided to switch 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:07.557 , uh, to nutrition. Uh, a big change from business. Yes. Just a little bit 00:16:07.590 --> 00:16:11.217 of switch. Um, why, how did you know that this was the route you wanted to 00:16:11.250 --> 00:16:19.250 go? Um Well, my sister pointed, I was between kinesiology or nutrition and 00:16:19.658 --> 00:16:24.096 nutrition or kinesiology. Both interested me just because I, I think they 00:16:24.129 --> 00:16:29.717 both impacted the body or, or could at least guide me to um understand 00:16:29.750 --> 00:16:34.145 this kind of giant issue that I didn't really understand, which was my 00:16:34.178 --> 00:16:38.407 body image issues. And um my sister convinced me to go with some food 00:16:38.440 --> 00:16:42.726 because it's what I kind of just gravitated towards naturally. Um And I 00:16:42.759 --> 00:16:46.537 enjoyed learning about that. I still enjoy learning anything I can learn 00:16:46.570 --> 00:16:52.505 about food and the food system. Um And so it was kind of a no brainer once 00:16:52.538 --> 00:16:55.885 my sister helped point that out to me that this was this has always been 00:16:55.918 --> 00:17:00.635 something you've been fascinated by. And so why not go to school? Um and 00:17:00.668 --> 00:17:03.616 learn about it. So, and, and from the beginning, like one of the first 00:17:03.649 --> 00:17:07.756 classes you take is nutrition, 241 or something like like a basic human 00:17:07.789 --> 00:17:11.075 nutrition, you learn about all the nutrients kind of informally and you 00:17:11.108 --> 00:17:14.026 learn about how that impacts the body. And it's, it's honestly a lot of 00:17:14.059 --> 00:17:19.034 information up front if you knew nothing about metabolism or nutrition, um 00:17:19.067 --> 00:17:22.605 it's a lot to learn at one time. Um But as you go through the program, you 00:17:22.638 --> 00:17:26.726 kind of tease out um certain disorders and certain uh nutrients and how 00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:30.876 that metabolizes in the body. And it's, it's quite frankly fascinating, 00:17:30.909 --> 00:17:34.435 although I can understand why some people just don't need to know that 00:17:34.468 --> 00:17:39.255 much about food and why like I need to eat my vegetables and things like 00:17:39.288 --> 00:17:43.355 that. Some people just, it's just food. I just need it to fuel me so I can 00:17:43.388 --> 00:17:47.166 do these things that I love. But um I'm kind of a nerd in that way and I 00:17:47.199 --> 00:17:52.295 just wanna know, I just wanna know why, what do you think attribute you, 00:17:52.328 --> 00:17:56.357 what attributes that fascination with the food with food and learning 00:17:56.390 --> 00:18:00.916 about it that fueled you to, to make the switch? 00:18:00.949 --> 00:18:04.156 Um I think this kind of goes back to cooking and one of the first cooking 00:18:04.189 --> 00:18:07.535 , one of the first classes you take too in nutrition is a cooking class. 00:18:07.568 --> 00:18:13.456 So you learn about um the mallard reaction about the browning of toast or 00:18:13.489 --> 00:18:16.617 the browning of meat and the chemical reaction that's taking place there. 00:18:16.650 --> 00:18:19.776 And you realize that, you know, math and science have a purpose because 00:18:19.809 --> 00:18:24.906 now it's being tied to cooking or before outside of that. It's not very 00:18:24.939 --> 00:18:30.926 fascinating to me to talk about, um, che chemical rea, you know? Ok, great. 00:18:30.959 --> 00:18:34.617 We made ammonia. It smells gross. And I don't, I don't really care, you 00:18:34.650 --> 00:18:38.666 know, but when you're talking about a cooking reaction and it's related to 00:18:38.699 --> 00:18:43.176 food, which is related to people, I think that's then a connection that 00:18:43.209 --> 00:18:46.565 I'm really on board with and now I care about the chemistry behind that 00:18:46.598 --> 00:18:52.097 all. And so, um I think it's just, it was something I thought I would 00:18:52.130 --> 00:18:56.516 really enjoy. It was certainly hard. I won't say it was easy. Um But I 00:18:56.549 --> 00:19:00.926 think it was kind of like worth, worth the hard work for sure, any 00:19:00.959 --> 00:19:07.117 surprises um during the nutrition classes that you just did not anticipate 00:19:07.150 --> 00:19:15.150 or um I definitely didn't expect metabolism to be so difficult and I kind 00:19:15.348 --> 00:19:20.196 of wish that I had taken macro before I took micro. Um for some reason, 00:19:20.229 --> 00:19:23.217 the catalog has you take micro before macro and micro is where you learn 00:19:23.250 --> 00:19:28.736 about every mineral and every nutrient in its in its significant form. Um 00:19:28.769 --> 00:19:33.805 And macro is where you learn about fats, proteins and carbohydrates. And 00:19:33.838 --> 00:19:37.805 II, I just kind of feel like if I had a bigger picture of you and then 00:19:37.838 --> 00:19:41.226 kind of went and looked at the details, it would have probably connected 00:19:41.259 --> 00:19:45.545 with me better, but you don't really know that until you get into it. Um 00:19:45.578 --> 00:19:50.075 Although it kind of makes sense, you take macro before you take micro in 00:19:50.108 --> 00:19:53.897 economics. I don't know why I didn't think to do that with nutrition, 00:19:53.930 --> 00:20:01.930 metabolism. But, um, it was certainly difficult. Um, but II, I was told 00:20:01.959 --> 00:20:07.897 that from the beginning and it's rain. True for me anyway. Um, and I, what 00:20:07.930 --> 00:20:11.335 I like about nut, the nutrition field is that it's so diverse. I don't 00:20:11.368 --> 00:20:16.967 have to stay committed to one particular field if I don't want to. And, um 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:20.406 that's kind of, that's kind of why I think I'm in the position that I'm in 00:20:20.439 --> 00:20:25.717 now. Um But I like that kind of flexibility of not having to be locked in 00:20:25.750 --> 00:20:29.416 as like an accountant for the rest of my life because there's really no 00:20:29.449 --> 00:20:34.276 other way to spin. These are my skill sets and this is what I can offer 00:20:34.309 --> 00:20:39.976 you as a, as an employee. But um I don't know if that really answered you. 00:20:40.009 --> 00:20:43.847 No, that's perfect. So tell me a little bit about being um receiving your 00:20:43.880 --> 00:20:47.357 degree in nutrition. What people don't know about getting this type of 00:20:47.390 --> 00:20:52.285 degree and what they can do with it. Um If you know nothing about 00:20:52.318 --> 00:20:56.986 nutrition and the field that it goes in that you can go into or enter into 00:20:57.019 --> 00:21:01.406 is um I don't think people realize how science based it is. And I also 00:21:01.439 --> 00:21:06.717 don't think people realize how, how young the field of nutrition is. 00:21:06.750 --> 00:21:09.706 There's a lot of nutrition, misinformation in the world and everyone's 00:21:09.739 --> 00:21:12.867 kind of an expert on nutrition because in this world of social media and 00:21:12.900 --> 00:21:19.226 constant attention to a theory about nutrition. Um, there, there's 00:21:19.259 --> 00:21:23.976 research based nutrition, information that we know about the human body 00:21:24.009 --> 00:21:29.065 and how it interacts with certain nutrients or certain lifestyle habits. 00:21:29.098 --> 00:21:32.065 And then there's a lot, we don't know. And so in a way, there's a lot of 00:21:32.098 --> 00:21:35.585 assumptions on how we should carry our body. I mean, we see that too with 00:21:35.618 --> 00:21:41.085 the change from the my pyramid to the to the my plate. Um there was, that 00:21:41.118 --> 00:21:43.746 was a lot of information in the my period for people to grasp and it's 00:21:43.779 --> 00:21:47.236 just really hard for them to kind of adhere to that. Now with my plate, 00:21:47.269 --> 00:21:50.617 it's a little bit more simplistic even though not perfect. It's, it's in 00:21:50.650 --> 00:21:55.847 their five, their fifth year now with that. Um And uh I think it's 00:21:55.880 --> 00:22:00.266 interesting that I just, I kind of feel like nutrition gets attacked a lot 00:22:00.299 --> 00:22:04.347 just because there is a lot of misinformation out there or experts or 00:22:04.380 --> 00:22:07.585 people who maybe don't have a nutrition background, they didn't go through 00:22:07.618 --> 00:22:11.906 the four year program. Um And, but they've read an article or a blog or 00:22:11.939 --> 00:22:16.295 picked up some book at Barnes and Noble or what have you. And um I now 00:22:16.328 --> 00:22:20.545 know how the body works. I think there's a huge, huge misunderstanding 00:22:20.578 --> 00:22:25.305 with that. And um and even in the field of nutrition, we have dieticians 00:22:25.338 --> 00:22:31.565 who are experts at weight management or diabetes or renal care or um, 00:22:31.598 --> 00:22:36.016 infertility or um 00:22:36.049 --> 00:22:41.335 heart heart issues. I mean, you can be a cardiac dietitian or, or a IC U 00:22:41.368 --> 00:22:45.446 dietician you specialize in kind of those trauma care situations and, and 00:22:45.479 --> 00:22:50.127 there's special, there's certifications on top of your dietetic uh 00:22:50.160 --> 00:22:54.597 registered dietetic certification that makes you a specialized person in 00:22:54.630 --> 00:22:59.976 that field. And um, I do think and hopefully this will change but the 00:23:00.009 --> 00:23:03.967 people who study nutrition and nutrients and, and how that affects your 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:09.476 body, I think that's also under appreciated even in the clinical realm. Um 00:23:09.509 --> 00:23:13.776 And so we have a lot of work in the field of nutrition to kind of get the 00:23:13.809 --> 00:23:19.377 support that we need both in the clinical care, but also um publicly for 00:23:19.410 --> 00:23:22.756 the work that we went through with school and all this studying that we do 00:23:22.789 --> 00:23:26.867 and the nerds that we are about why we care about food and how to affect 00:23:26.900 --> 00:23:32.666 your body and, and all of that. So, did you change your, once you started 00:23:32.699 --> 00:23:36.496 doing this, uh, nutrition field? Did you change your habits, your eating 00:23:36.529 --> 00:23:41.476 habits or? Definitely. Yeah, tell me about that transition. Um I've 00:23:41.509 --> 00:23:45.535 changed a few times actually, you kind of learn, you experimenting 00:23:45.568 --> 00:23:49.877 yourself. Kind of no one else is gonna follow this diet I decided to come 00:23:49.910 --> 00:23:55.097 up with. But, um, when I, when I, this is actually something my family and 00:23:55.130 --> 00:23:58.166 I, we, we all joke about when I was in business school. I was, you're so 00:23:58.199 --> 00:24:01.867 kind of financially motivated to save money, make money, invest money. 00:24:01.900 --> 00:24:06.206 That, um, I was really trying and I was out of mom and dad's house. I was 00:24:06.239 --> 00:24:10.315 , like, really trying to be good with money and be a good steward of money. 00:24:10.348 --> 00:24:13.726 And, you know, I did have to take out loans and things like that. So I 00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:16.857 was just like, ok, I'm going to save and do really well. And I, they 00:24:16.890 --> 00:24:20.045 called me the Dollar Queen because I wouldn't buy anything that wasn't a 00:24:20.078 --> 00:24:24.585 dollar. I mean, I'm talking vegetables, milk, protein. I didn't buy it if 00:24:24.618 --> 00:24:27.555 it wasn't a dollar because it was too much. And, and I always left the 00:24:27.588 --> 00:24:32.367 grocery store like, under $12 and that's what I would eat for most of the 00:24:32.400 --> 00:24:36.867 week. And let me tell you, you're not buying the best foods when you're a 00:24:36.900 --> 00:24:42.436 dollar queen. So that was probably the biggest change that happened when I 00:24:42.469 --> 00:24:46.406 came into nutrition school and kind of learned about what it is that most 00:24:46.439 --> 00:24:49.436 American or the American diet and what most Americans aren't getting. And 00:24:49.469 --> 00:24:53.496 now, um, I'm probably a huge advocate of eating your fruits and vegetables 00:24:53.529 --> 00:24:58.335 , but also focusing on fiber. Um, not that fiber is going to change the 00:24:58.368 --> 00:25:01.766 world, but I think it's something that people don't focus enough on. Um, 00:25:01.799 --> 00:25:06.897 and it's really good for colon care, but when your colon is healthy, you 00:25:06.930 --> 00:25:10.166 have a better immune defense system. And so I just feel like we don't 00:25:10.199 --> 00:25:13.585 focus enough on that. Um A lot of people are really focused on things like 00:25:13.618 --> 00:25:17.107 protein, um fruits and vegetables obviously do have fiber in it, but so do 00:25:17.140 --> 00:25:23.676 beans, legumes, um whole grains. And I just, I don't know. Um those are 00:25:23.709 --> 00:25:27.285 probably, that's probably what I focus on the most now, but the biggest 00:25:27.318 --> 00:25:32.877 change was the high sodium processed um items that you could get for a 00:25:32.910 --> 00:25:36.377 dollar when it's on sale or manager special or what have you. And uh I 00:25:36.410 --> 00:25:40.476 didn't really focus too much about having a complete meal um or making 00:25:40.509 --> 00:25:43.847 sure I had my fruits and vegetables. That was not a focus. It was, can I 00:25:43.880 --> 00:25:48.506 leave the grocery store in $10 or less? 00:25:48.539 --> 00:25:51.776 Don't feel right there. 00:25:51.809 --> 00:25:56.035 So, so let's talk a little bit about, I, I have two kind of questions that 00:25:56.068 --> 00:25:59.516 are not in the same area whatsoever. I hear a lot of business kind of 00:25:59.549 --> 00:26:05.496 entrepreneurship talk and um coming from you, how do you think that skill 00:26:05.529 --> 00:26:10.857 set has helped you along the path of the path that you've chosen to take? 00:26:10.890 --> 00:26:15.276 Um Yeah, so I ended up getting a business minor um because I felt like, 00:26:15.309 --> 00:26:18.217 well, what, what is three more classes? And let's just lock that in into a 00:26:18.250 --> 00:26:22.597 minor. Although looking back, I kind of wish that I had studied um supply 00:26:22.630 --> 00:26:27.446 chain management, but that would have meant like an additional year and a 00:26:27.479 --> 00:26:33.285 half, probably more and I was like uh kind of over school right now. Um 00:26:33.318 --> 00:26:36.486 I'm not sure if that would have particularly helped me um supply chain 00:26:36.519 --> 00:26:39.967 management. I think, focused a lot more on um how you save a business 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:45.656 money by reducing mileage um or packaging materials and all of that. But I 00:26:45.689 --> 00:26:49.847 think it would have given me a better foundation from the beginning 00:26:49.880 --> 00:26:55.486 considering where I started from um about the industry and why it's kind 00:26:55.519 --> 00:27:01.656 of manifested into the way that it is. I mean, you, when we talk about 00:27:01.689 --> 00:27:05.825 sustainability in the food system and much like in business, it comes down 00:27:05.858 --> 00:27:09.766 to financial incentives to get people to do the things that you want them 00:27:09.799 --> 00:27:13.847 to do. It's not, it's not always about kind of, you've heard probably of 00:27:13.880 --> 00:27:17.555 the triple bottom line of doing what's good for your business, but also 00:27:17.588 --> 00:27:21.946 what's good for the community around you. And um I don't know that most 00:27:21.979 --> 00:27:26.906 businesses, most large businesses necessarily have that in mind. Um It 00:27:26.939 --> 00:27:33.597 seems to be very much how is this going to impact my financial bottom line 00:27:33.630 --> 00:27:40.026 ? Um And that's nice if I can do that and still make my profit margins, 00:27:40.059 --> 00:27:44.387 but if I can't, then it's not going to be a priority for me. And I think 00:27:44.420 --> 00:27:48.726 um that is something I really struggle with. Um But at the same time, 00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:52.877 given that the, the limited business background that I have, I guess it 00:27:52.910 --> 00:27:57.446 makes sense. I mean, as a, as a world, I think a lot of us are financially 00:27:57.479 --> 00:28:03.085 motivated and, and that's kind of a way that we identify as success if my 00:28:03.118 --> 00:28:08.651 business can get to just, you know, one more level or, or what have you, 00:28:08.684 --> 00:28:12.512 um, were then successful. But at some point, and this is just kind of how 00:28:12.545 --> 00:28:16.190 economics works. You can only get so high and at some point you're going 00:28:16.223 --> 00:28:19.621 to come down, don't know when that's going to happen, but at some point, 00:28:19.654 --> 00:28:23.910 it's going to come down. And so when we talk about sustainability, um I 00:28:23.943 --> 00:28:27.016 kind of wonder 00:28:27.049 --> 00:28:31.555 if businesses, especially newer businesses who are kind of triple bottom 00:28:31.588 --> 00:28:35.956 line oriented are thinking about how can we sustain success, make what we 00:28:35.989 --> 00:28:39.357 need and and is success then identified by how can we take care of our 00:28:39.390 --> 00:28:42.506 employees in the community around us and make sure that the needs of the 00:28:42.539 --> 00:28:46.676 community are being met outside of like, you know, our financial profit 00:28:46.709 --> 00:28:50.055 margin gains. Um 00:28:50.088 --> 00:28:54.656 I forgot the question was this kind of your business, the business skill 00:28:54.689 --> 00:28:59.085 set and how that has impacted. So I guess that's probably why when I am 00:28:59.118 --> 00:29:03.656 talking with industry about um bringing on more local producers that 00:29:03.689 --> 00:29:09.416 schools have access to it or um what do you need distributor to bring on a 00:29:09.449 --> 00:29:12.617 local farm? How can we make that happen? What's, what's the reality of 00:29:12.650 --> 00:29:15.706 that actually happening as opposed to you may be doing it once and it 00:29:15.739 --> 00:29:19.295 being a flash in the pan kind of business venture view because it looks 00:29:19.328 --> 00:29:23.506 good, goodwill wise. Um, but it's not really helping maybe that producer 00:29:23.539 --> 00:29:29.545 or that school, you know, at all. Um I think it helps me to talk with, 00:29:29.578 --> 00:29:34.706 with industry in a way that they can, that they will stay involved in the 00:29:34.739 --> 00:29:39.377 conversation. I think it would be, um, a disservice to go in kind of 00:29:39.410 --> 00:29:44.266 naively thinking that everyone is interested in servicing their community 00:29:44.299 --> 00:29:49.026 for the community's sake and not just for like a financial incentive. Um 00:29:49.059 --> 00:29:55.696 And so I, what I, what I do and what I've learned is that you need to work 00:29:55.729 --> 00:30:00.446 in the system to make changes in the system. Uh You kind of have to use 00:30:00.479 --> 00:30:04.976 your, your business savvy or your, this is gonna sound bad but your 00:30:05.009 --> 00:30:10.266 manipulative skills to kind of um help make that change happen and make it 00:30:10.299 --> 00:30:13.897 sound appealing to the people who really can make that change happen. So 00:30:13.930 --> 00:30:21.166 one of the things um that I'm hoping will work out um when so schools, so 00:30:21.199 --> 00:30:24.266 I, I guess I should explain a little bit what I do this before I can. OK. 00:30:24.299 --> 00:30:27.545 So I'll, I'll have you wait then. So I have one more quick question when 00:30:27.578 --> 00:30:31.597 you go and talk to industry and they're thinking a nutritionist is coming 00:30:31.630 --> 00:30:35.456 to them and they, and you actually start talking about supply and demand 00:30:35.489 --> 00:30:39.315 and kind of the business angle. Are they surprised? And what is that kind 00:30:39.348 --> 00:30:45.246 of reaction? Um Honestly, I don't, I have not had, I've had more push back 00:30:45.279 --> 00:30:51.926 because I am young and I look very young. Um I think more than, than what 00:30:51.959 --> 00:30:55.857 background do you have? Um Initially when I first started, I had a 00:30:55.890 --> 00:30:59.756 nutrition background and I was speaking with uh some of I was trying to 00:30:59.789 --> 00:31:03.916 get some of our agricultural experts at a, at a, at the table to talk 00:31:03.949 --> 00:31:07.347 about how I'm going to do this. And what's the reality of the food system 00:31:07.380 --> 00:31:11.766 here in Arizona? And like, what did I get myself into uh kind of a thing? 00:31:11.799 --> 00:31:14.555 And, and I, I don't know that I had pushed back about the fact that I 00:31:14.588 --> 00:31:18.416 don't have an agriculture background um because my intention was to feed 00:31:18.449 --> 00:31:23.085 kids healthy food and to bring Arizona agriculture into the forefront in a 00:31:23.118 --> 00:31:28.946 way that hadn't been really discussed in Arizona before. Um So I probably 00:31:28.979 --> 00:31:35.166 use my, my skills there a little bit to kind of help make that. Ok. Um I 00:31:35.199 --> 00:31:40.585 wouldn't say industry is necessarily concerned about um the fact that I 00:31:40.618 --> 00:31:43.656 don't necessarily, I have a small business background, but I don't know 00:31:43.689 --> 00:31:47.467 that that's like a deterrent for them. Like, like I said, I think they are 00:31:47.500 --> 00:31:50.397 more interested in how maybe is this going to make me money or how is this 00:31:50.430 --> 00:31:53.805 going to make my business stronger? Um more than what background do you 00:31:53.838 --> 00:31:56.406 have? And what right do you have to come talk to me about my business and 00:31:56.439 --> 00:32:01.196 changing my business? Ok. So tell me a little bit about since you were 00:32:01.229 --> 00:32:06.276 calling yourself the Dollar Queen. Um Tell me a little bit about how being 00:32:06.309 --> 00:32:12.857 the Dollar Queen has helped you understand, kind of the food um in the 00:32:12.890 --> 00:32:17.565 food injustice or the problems with food for people that are on a limited 00:32:17.598 --> 00:32:22.456 budget. And um similar to you, they have to watch every at that time, you 00:32:22.489 --> 00:32:26.496 have to watch what you purchased and you didn't necessarily purchase um 00:32:26.529 --> 00:32:32.575 healthy vegetables, purchase high calorie content. And so tell me how that 00:32:32.608 --> 00:32:38.107 doing that has helped you kind of frame where you are now today. I think 00:32:38.140 --> 00:32:43.266 that it just allows me more empathy when I'm working in that population, 00:32:43.299 --> 00:32:46.236 as you probably know, the National School Lunch program is an Anti Hunger 00:32:46.269 --> 00:32:50.186 program. And so that's the population that I am working with for the 00:32:50.219 --> 00:32:54.647 majority. Um And so when we're giving advice to people about changing the 00:32:54.680 --> 00:32:58.617 way they practice their business, we have to be mindful of that. Um food 00:32:58.650 --> 00:33:02.756 service structures do not have a lot of extra cash to be buying um kind of 00:33:02.789 --> 00:33:06.637 heritage grains or heritage lettuces or, you know, these kind of special 00:33:06.670 --> 00:33:09.946 products that you would normally see in maybe a high end restaurant. Um 00:33:09.979 --> 00:33:15.075 And so I have to be respectful of that and understand the reality of maybe 00:33:15.108 --> 00:33:20.436 bringing that in as a trial situation or, or what, what resources do you 00:33:20.469 --> 00:33:24.055 really have to making something like this work? Because the, the end all 00:33:24.088 --> 00:33:28.446 result is that students will be more connected with their food and then 00:33:28.479 --> 00:33:31.246 hopefully eat more of those fresh foods that we want them to eat, 00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:34.717 especially those low income populations that maybe don't have access to 00:33:34.750 --> 00:33:37.446 that at home. And so it's really important that we give them the best meal 00:33:37.479 --> 00:33:43.006 we can at school. Um But I think 00:33:43.039 --> 00:33:47.835 grocery shopping is one of my favorite things to do. By the way, 00:33:47.868 --> 00:33:53.127 a lot of people hate grocery shopping. I find it fascinating and maybe 00:33:53.160 --> 00:33:57.726 it's because the world that is such an expansive world that is constantly 00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:03.936 changing and the marketing that goes on in a grocery store is constantly 00:34:03.969 --> 00:34:07.597 changing. It, it's ambiguous too and people just get really confused and 00:34:07.630 --> 00:34:11.467 nervous, but instead I like dive into it and I just, I, for some reason, 00:34:11.500 --> 00:34:15.066 I'm just fascinated. I mean, you see products on the shelf too that come 00:34:15.099 --> 00:34:18.727 in, you know, being really great popular for maybe a couple of years and 00:34:18.760 --> 00:34:22.586 then you never see it again. And um that all has to do with kind of 00:34:22.619 --> 00:34:25.267 business and how we market food and all of that. But I don't know, I just 00:34:25.300 --> 00:34:30.385 think it's interesting and fascinating and, and you also see too like Kale 00:34:30.418 --> 00:34:33.675 coming up in population and Quinoa coming up in population with people 00:34:33.708 --> 00:34:37.485 because of, you know, kind of the foodie world or maybe we're claiming 00:34:37.518 --> 00:34:41.476 it's very more nutrient dense and maybe something else. And I think that's 00:34:41.509 --> 00:34:45.745 fascinating too in some ways that's good in some ways that's bad. Um, 00:34:45.778 --> 00:34:48.684 especially when we're talking about low income populations, you know. Do I 00:34:48.717 --> 00:34:52.827 really have access to something like quinoa? Is it worth it to me to buy 00:34:52.860 --> 00:34:55.986 something like chemo that's more expensive as a grain than something like 00:34:56.019 --> 00:35:02.537 brown, white, brown rice or barley or, or, or uh what is that? Wheat 00:35:02.570 --> 00:35:06.956 berries? Um Things like that. What, what can I, what can I do? As maybe 00:35:06.989 --> 00:35:10.586 someone who doesn't have a lot of money, invest in the food that I'm 00:35:10.619 --> 00:35:14.876 eating that then will keep me healthy and my family healthy. Um outside of 00:35:14.909 --> 00:35:21.595 these trend foods that kind of make a splash every year. Um 00:35:21.628 --> 00:35:29.628 So I think that my, my dollar queen Day is just, it kind of, it just helps 00:35:29.628 --> 00:35:32.885 me, I think empathize with people who don't have a whole lot of money and 00:35:32.918 --> 00:35:36.986 I'm definitely getting back to there, I think for a while too because I'm 00:35:37.019 --> 00:35:41.796 , you know, had a job and had more money. I was fascinated by this 00:35:41.829 --> 00:35:47.546 creative culture of food and probably invested a lot more money and time 00:35:47.579 --> 00:35:51.727 and energy into kind of exploring that area. Only to realize that I really 00:35:51.760 --> 00:35:57.916 like and enjoy cooking and would rather in a lot of cases nowadays, um 00:35:57.949 --> 00:36:01.776 cook at home and come up with my own creations with what I have at home. 00:36:01.809 --> 00:36:07.445 Um And be just as pleasantly surprised and happy than going out to a 00:36:07.478 --> 00:36:11.166 restaurant and having to get dressed up or, you know, the event of going 00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:15.675 out to eat. And I would rather just kick it at home and make something 00:36:15.708 --> 00:36:19.747 happen there. Um And plus you did it yourself. So that's kind of, you know 00:36:19.780 --> 00:36:24.206 , encouraging as well. Um 00:36:24.239 --> 00:36:27.227 So I am going to ask you now, how did you become involved in your current 00:36:27.260 --> 00:36:33.706 organization? So it is a weird kind of thing. One of the first things we 00:36:33.739 --> 00:36:38.057 had to do um in nutrition school was spend. Um I think it was something 00:36:38.090 --> 00:36:42.416 like 90 hours in the community. No, it was only like 12, it was only 12 00:36:42.449 --> 00:36:45.526 hours. We had, it was a community nutrition class. We had to spend 12 00:36:45.559 --> 00:36:48.186 hours in the community. It could be like a food bank. I ended up at the 00:36:48.219 --> 00:36:53.077 farmers market with Cindy, which is where I first met her. Um I didn't 00:36:53.110 --> 00:36:55.666 even know what farmer work it was. I didn't know that those things existed. 00:36:55.699 --> 00:37:00.767 I was so outside of my realm but excited about it at the same time. Um I 00:37:00.800 --> 00:37:04.606 didn't know like any, like most Arizonans didn't know that we grew things 00:37:04.639 --> 00:37:08.497 here. I was like, and I've lived here my whole life. Arizona is a desert. 00:37:08.530 --> 00:37:11.747 There's no way we're growing anything but cactus and tumbleweeds because 00:37:11.780 --> 00:37:15.296 I've lived, I've lived behind a desert that's now developed, but I was 00:37:15.329 --> 00:37:20.856 like, nothing grew out there. I promise you. Um, but obviously that's not 00:37:20.889 --> 00:37:26.106 true. Um, and I've, I've learned that over the years. Um, but so I started 00:37:26.139 --> 00:37:29.925 with Cindy 12 hours. Uh, I think I had to get that done in a semester. It 00:37:29.958 --> 00:37:33.997 was very, a very kind project actually, whatever worked out for both Cindy 00:37:34.030 --> 00:37:38.876 and myself. And she was working at the Phoenix Public Market at the time. 00:37:38.909 --> 00:37:43.037 And so she had every weekend I could come out and it was like five or six 00:37:43.070 --> 00:37:46.816 hours a slot. So I really only had to be there for six, like two weekends 00:37:46.849 --> 00:37:54.849 probably. Um And uh I, I ended up staying, they seem to need my help and I 00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.256 really like helping people. So I stayed on for a couple of years and 00:37:59.289 --> 00:38:04.686 helped recruit more volunteers. And um I learned a lot while I was there 00:38:04.719 --> 00:38:09.865 with Cindy about smaller producers and, and also the low income population. 00:38:09.898 --> 00:38:13.247 I, I was really just at the information booth unless I had some special 00:38:13.280 --> 00:38:17.646 projects that needed to be done on the weekend. And um so we had customers 00:38:17.679 --> 00:38:21.095 who had E BT cards and it was really kind of cool because we would just 00:38:21.128 --> 00:38:24.727 scan that like a debit card. And like, they didn't have to feel weird 00:38:24.760 --> 00:38:29.566 about shopping at the farmers market, which was awesome. And so, um that 00:38:29.599 --> 00:38:32.666 was, and then the purpose of this volunteer work was to give us direct 00:38:32.699 --> 00:38:36.876 exposure to um a community in need, which is what we spent a lot of our 00:38:36.909 --> 00:38:41.376 time talking about in community nutrition. Um And what those programs 00:38:41.409 --> 00:38:45.385 really look like and kind of meet the people that were those programs 00:38:45.418 --> 00:38:48.296 where those assistance programs kind of touch base with real life people. 00:38:48.329 --> 00:38:52.557 And I think that's important for all dietitians to know. Um Not only 00:38:52.590 --> 00:38:57.467 because they're going to be in every community that you work in. Um But 00:38:57.500 --> 00:39:01.365 also there's, there's a special caveat on how you need to treat that 00:39:01.398 --> 00:39:07.717 population too. Like they have, they have, they have little, little and 00:39:07.750 --> 00:39:13.217 often less than, than I do. And um I think it's important to treat them 00:39:13.250 --> 00:39:18.217 with respect. They're, they're there asking for help because they are 00:39:18.250 --> 00:39:22.345 often working poor. They're not making enough to buy food, but maybe 00:39:22.378 --> 00:39:26.296 enough to cover whatever rent that they need to cover. A lot of them have 00:39:26.329 --> 00:39:30.655 families and need to help those kids thrive and maybe they are themselves 00:39:30.688 --> 00:39:33.865 sacrificing meals so that their Children can eat or, or whatever the 00:39:33.898 --> 00:39:38.896 situation is. And I think that um we come across these people in general 00:39:38.929 --> 00:39:44.885 in our daily life and I think a lot of the time, um sometimes they're 00:39:44.918 --> 00:39:50.566 disrespected or kind of forgotten, they're kind of invisible because it's 00:39:50.599 --> 00:39:56.497 easier to not think about that. Um Kind of human kindness. But um, so 00:39:56.530 --> 00:40:02.655 anyway, from, from there, I also have a child nutrition certificate that I 00:40:02.688 --> 00:40:06.276 got through as U as I was finishing up my minor. Why not get a certificate 00:40:06.309 --> 00:40:12.615 ? Um, I was able to work with the Department of Education as an intern. 00:40:12.648 --> 00:40:15.876 And so there I learned about things like the USA Fresh Fruit and Vegetable 00:40:15.909 --> 00:40:22.557 program, the USA healthier, healthier, healthier school challenge. Yes, I 00:40:22.590 --> 00:40:26.695 said that right. Um which is just an incentive program for schools who are 00:40:26.728 --> 00:40:31.175 excelling in their meal program and their physical activity components at 00:40:31.208 --> 00:40:36.396 school. Um To get an award that recognizes their work outside of those in 00:40:36.429 --> 00:40:39.807 the community who maybe are are kind of doing, maybe not the bare minimum 00:40:39.840 --> 00:40:43.675 , but you know, the meets that they meet the needs of, of what it is that 00:40:43.708 --> 00:40:46.436 their program is supposed to do. We want really want to exemplify those 00:40:46.469 --> 00:40:49.767 who are kind of going above and beyond for the health of their community. 00:40:49.800 --> 00:40:53.506 Um and to the and also the Fresh Fruit vegetable camp program. So I was 00:40:53.539 --> 00:40:57.206 learning some little programs that were beyond national school lunch or 00:40:57.239 --> 00:41:03.506 school breakfast. Um And I was with them for about two months, probably 00:41:03.539 --> 00:41:07.247 once a week. Um So I got a lot of time with them and kind of from there. I 00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:12.086 was then beginning to read articles from my professional organization now 00:41:12.119 --> 00:41:17.115 the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics um about farm to school. And so I 00:41:17.148 --> 00:41:23.896 was like, what is that? So my grandfather on my mom's side had a farm. He 00:41:23.929 --> 00:41:29.276 was a cattlemen and he also raised rose his own grain for the for that 00:41:29.309 --> 00:41:34.425 cattle. And uh so we we are fond of little Blue Hill Nebraska where his 00:41:34.458 --> 00:41:39.635 farm was. And um now that I know more about agriculture, he was a smaller 00:41:39.668 --> 00:41:45.706 producer, very humble, had all girls. So no one took over the farm. 00:41:45.739 --> 00:41:50.175 Um Although that's the case a lot these days. Um So that was like the most 00:41:50.208 --> 00:41:53.557 agriculture that I had grown up with. I mean, grandpa had a farm and like 00:41:53.590 --> 00:41:57.356 , I didn't realize, I don't think that a lot of my friends growing up 00:41:57.389 --> 00:42:02.717 didn't have that same exposure to agriculture. It was just, that was kind 00:42:02.750 --> 00:42:07.557 of normal. Grandma, had a garden, mom, had a garden here and there. Um And 00:42:07.590 --> 00:42:13.695 so it, it wasn't very significant to me. But when I saw that article about 00:42:13.728 --> 00:42:16.816 Pharm to school, I was like, well, this is interesting and I asked the 00:42:16.849 --> 00:42:21.646 director of that uh program who is, who is going to hire this person to do 00:42:21.679 --> 00:42:25.635 ph to school? What is Arizona doing in ph to school? Like, what, how do 00:42:25.668 --> 00:42:28.506 you know we grew stuff here? What does that look like? And I'm asking all 00:42:28.539 --> 00:42:32.787 these questions and they couldn't answer because they're like, wow, that's 00:42:32.820 --> 00:42:36.186 why we're actually hiring someone because we need this to be an initiative 00:42:36.219 --> 00:42:39.195 in our school. Program. But we don't, we don't know how to answer these 00:42:39.228 --> 00:42:42.626 questions. And we're getting questions about school garden development. 00:42:42.659 --> 00:42:46.146 And we just realized that the background of most of our professionals, you 00:42:46.179 --> 00:42:49.916 know, and the connections that they have are limited, we can't answer 00:42:49.949 --> 00:42:53.816 those questions. And so we're basically creating a position to help bridge 00:42:53.849 --> 00:42:59.497 that gap. And so um as USDA slowly took on this initiative in school lunch 00:42:59.530 --> 00:43:05.336 , uh ad E did the same thing. And so I applied, didn't think I was going 00:43:05.369 --> 00:43:07.787 to get it. I was like, if I don't get this, I'm going to go do my 00:43:07.820 --> 00:43:14.436 internship for my registered dietitian certificate. Um I didn't even make 00:43:14.469 --> 00:43:17.655 it to actually applying formally. So applications were due in February. I 00:43:17.688 --> 00:43:22.896 graduated in December, I applied kind of waited around for a month. Um And 00:43:22.929 --> 00:43:28.675 then they picked me. I don't really know why honestly, because I, I don't 00:43:28.708 --> 00:43:33.267 really know who I was in competition with, but I can imagine a fresh out 00:43:33.300 --> 00:43:38.586 from nutrition school with no ag background really fit the bill except 00:43:38.619 --> 00:43:42.885 that I remember there was a question in the interview about um are you 00:43:42.918 --> 00:43:48.316 comfortable with gray, like with, with an ambiguity? Like are you 00:43:48.349 --> 00:43:52.756 comfortable with not having a black and white? And if you, if you've ever 00:43:52.789 --> 00:43:56.736 met a dietician, most of them are black and white, there's gonna be a 00:43:56.769 --> 00:44:00.267 black and white answer. It's, there's gonna be evidence to support this. I 00:44:00.300 --> 00:44:06.077 just don't see the world that way. And so I was completely ok with gray. 00:44:06.110 --> 00:44:10.166 Um, and I'm, I'm guessing, I don't really know this for sure, but I'm 00:44:10.199 --> 00:44:15.477 guessing that's probably why I got the job and also probably being younger 00:44:15.510 --> 00:44:21.057 , I was someone that could be manipulated to doing and being whoever the 00:44:21.090 --> 00:44:24.695 agency needed me to be as opposed to maybe someone who is older and more 00:44:24.728 --> 00:44:28.307 kind of set in their ways. Um They didn't want to have to deal with the 00:44:28.340 --> 00:44:34.436 push back. Um But that's kind of the story of how I got there. Ok. So tell 00:44:34.469 --> 00:44:38.807 me a little bit about the job and what it is and the goals and the mission 00:44:38.840 --> 00:44:46.227 of the, of the farm school. So, um the the agency's mission and goals is 00:44:46.260 --> 00:44:50.267 to create an excellent environment for academic success. So that's 00:44:50.300 --> 00:44:53.997 supporting our teachers and supporting our students making sure that um 00:44:54.030 --> 00:44:58.706 everyone is academically successful in health and nutrition. Um We want to 00:44:58.739 --> 00:45:01.885 make sure that students are well fed so that they can be focused and ready 00:45:01.918 --> 00:45:06.017 to learn in the classroom. Um And Ph New School honestly has the same 00:45:06.050 --> 00:45:11.695 goals. Um A lot of nutrition educators, we have Snap Ed, which is um an 00:45:11.728 --> 00:45:15.247 education program under the Arizona Nutrition Network that works in 00:45:15.280 --> 00:45:19.445 schools of 50% frame reduced and below to make sure that those students 00:45:19.478 --> 00:45:24.537 have nutrition education um continuously, they work on policies, they work 00:45:24.570 --> 00:45:28.986 on um settings of the school to make sure that it's a healthy one. So that 00:45:29.019 --> 00:45:34.206 physical activity is not only present but also encouraged um to meet a 00:45:34.239 --> 00:45:40.287 certain standard every year or every yes, every week, sorry, every week. 00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:43.925 And also that there is nutrition, education opportunities for students to 00:45:43.958 --> 00:45:49.537 learn about what's good for them in their body. Um health classes and pe 00:45:49.570 --> 00:45:54.006 classes has kind of been cut out of the system as academic has become more 00:45:54.039 --> 00:45:57.086 of the forefront and focus. It's not true of all of our schools, but a lot 00:45:57.119 --> 00:46:00.497 of our schools when you got to cut funding, you kind of cut those special 00:46:00.530 --> 00:46:05.155 areas that help make a student more well rounded and and quite frankly, um 00:46:05.188 --> 00:46:10.557 for those kid aic learners who need hands on development or learn outside 00:46:10.590 --> 00:46:14.256 of written or verbal communication, um they're kind of doing a disservice 00:46:14.289 --> 00:46:17.586 for them to cutting out those kind of creative elements to where they are 00:46:17.619 --> 00:46:22.997 more free to think the way that they're comfortable thinking and forcing 00:46:23.030 --> 00:46:27.827 them instead to think in a way that they're less likely to probably be 00:46:27.860 --> 00:46:32.717 successful. Um farm to school helps in those ways. Farm to school is 00:46:32.750 --> 00:46:36.827 honestly just one method that you can use to get a child to connect with 00:46:36.860 --> 00:46:41.267 food, cooking, which doesn't necessarily have to be farm to school related. 00:46:41.300 --> 00:46:45.256 Um can be that for many students and adults actually to connect with 00:46:45.289 --> 00:46:50.881 their food, they enjoy the process of of eating is now more satisfying 00:46:50.914 --> 00:46:55.102 because I helped prepare this meal and I almost have more value tied to 00:46:55.135 --> 00:46:59.461 this meal because I spent 30 minutes to an hour or whatever it took to 00:46:59.494 --> 00:47:03.510 cook this meal, as opposed to just getting it in five minutes from the 00:47:03.543 --> 00:47:08.642 driver window or from some counter or opening up a chip bag, whatever. Um 00:47:08.675 --> 00:47:12.981 , and the same thing can be set up after school program. The reason why 00:47:13.014 --> 00:47:18.227 it's kind of just blown up in the last I'd say five years or 10 years is 00:47:18.260 --> 00:47:22.026 because there's a lot of research to show that through social cognitive 00:47:22.059 --> 00:47:25.626 theory, students who are able to kind of touch and feel and smell and 00:47:25.659 --> 00:47:30.916 taste their food, their especially the fruits and vegetables that they're 00:47:30.949 --> 00:47:34.061 more, more likely to consume those items. I mean, there's lots of free 00:47:34.094 --> 00:47:37.970 research to show that students who maybe didn't like things like broccoli 00:47:38.003 --> 00:47:43.932 or asparagus or cauliflower or beets. Um These are all foods that we kind 00:47:43.965 --> 00:47:46.461 of associate with kids and be not particularly liking and for a lot of 00:47:46.494 --> 00:47:49.662 adults probably not liking either. Um But these kids are then growing it 00:47:49.695 --> 00:47:52.320 themselves. They're watching this plant grow that, you know, in often 00:47:52.353 --> 00:47:56.881 cases, takes anywhere from like 30 to 90 days to mature to a place where 00:47:56.914 --> 00:48:01.296 you can eat it. And so you've kind of grown along with this plant and you 00:48:01.329 --> 00:48:03.747 eat it for the first time and not only does it taste better because it's 00:48:03.780 --> 00:48:08.686 fresher, but you are more open minded to trying that item and accepting it 00:48:08.719 --> 00:48:12.606 as something that maybe you could put into your regular repertoire of food. 00:48:12.639 --> 00:48:19.037 Um So school gardening is huge in, in Arizona but also nationally. Um and 00:48:19.070 --> 00:48:22.106 gardens are starting to become more popular even at homes. Community 00:48:22.139 --> 00:48:25.566 gardening is very popular. Um I think for those reasons and there's just 00:48:25.599 --> 00:48:28.586 kind of a direct connection with that. You see a direct impact with 00:48:28.619 --> 00:48:32.477 students who are gardening themselves and then being more open minded with 00:48:32.510 --> 00:48:36.986 food. Um The same thing can be a set of students who are exposed to 00:48:37.019 --> 00:48:40.227 meeting their producer, either through farm tours or through videos of 00:48:40.260 --> 00:48:45.267 where they're seeing what's happening on a farm and how growing a broccoli 00:48:45.300 --> 00:48:48.345 plant or a lettuce plant, you know, actually ends up on your plate and you 00:48:48.378 --> 00:48:51.756 kind of have a deeper connection and you, you find that there's more value 00:48:51.789 --> 00:48:54.345 to that this food item that maybe I didn't like and I just threw in the 00:48:54.378 --> 00:49:02.378 trash or gave to my dog or whatever. Um So, um I think that that is one of 00:49:04.239 --> 00:49:07.856 the reasons why I think this program is so important, but also just why it 00:49:07.889 --> 00:49:12.376 is so impactful. Um It's just neat and me even knowing that my, you know, 00:49:12.409 --> 00:49:15.057 my grandpa had cattle and my grandma had a farm and I didn't like 00:49:15.090 --> 00:49:17.986 asparagus when I was a kid, I was like, it looks cool and it takes like 00:49:18.019 --> 00:49:21.595 two years for it to produce anything. So when I was cutting all this 00:49:21.628 --> 00:49:24.836 asparagus for grandma and she was like, oh, you're not eating any. And I 00:49:24.869 --> 00:49:26.936 was like, oh, no, I don't like asparagus. I just wanted to cut it all. You 00:49:26.969 --> 00:49:31.945 know, her heart probably broke because she was like, 00:49:31.978 --> 00:49:38.595 now we have to eat so much asparagus. This kid won't even eat it. Um 00:49:38.628 --> 00:49:43.066 So let me ask you a little bit about you saying the school gardening and 00:49:43.099 --> 00:49:46.445 tell me a little bit about what that initiative is and, and your role in 00:49:46.478 --> 00:49:53.287 that. So unfortunately, my role is I think a little indirect. Well, it is 00:49:53.320 --> 00:49:56.787 , it's indirect. I think a lot of people, I, when I first started, I had 00:49:56.820 --> 00:49:59.776 people call me up and be like, ok, I'm ready for the school garden to be 00:49:59.809 --> 00:50:03.916 dropped in uh when, when could you be here uh during the month and I was 00:50:03.949 --> 00:50:07.026 like, ah 00:50:07.059 --> 00:50:11.456 frankly more complicated than that. So I really provide uh I'm more of a 00:50:11.489 --> 00:50:14.865 resource provider for schools who want to start a school garden. I also go 00:50:14.898 --> 00:50:18.916 out and visit school gardens. I give them an advice based off of um things 00:50:18.949 --> 00:50:22.037 I learned from Coperative Extension or just going out on site visits and 00:50:22.070 --> 00:50:26.195 really help people kind of brainstorm about how they can start or expand 00:50:26.228 --> 00:50:29.327 their school garden. I connect, I can connect one school garden to another 00:50:29.360 --> 00:50:33.936 , let's say so earlier. This year, we had a school who was struggling with 00:50:33.969 --> 00:50:38.885 their administration to get um citrus trees put into their yard. And their 00:50:38.918 --> 00:50:42.706 concern was that maintenance was going to have to take care of it. Um 00:50:42.739 --> 00:50:47.287 instead of the garden leaders, and they wanted an example of a school that 00:50:47.320 --> 00:50:52.747 had citrus in their, in their garden. And for some reason, they wanted an 00:50:52.780 --> 00:50:56.816 example which was actually kind of hard to find. Um We found one for them 00:50:56.849 --> 00:51:01.276 to then the administrators then talk about, you know, what does this take 00:51:01.309 --> 00:51:04.997 citrus trees? Like a lot of fruit trees actually do take a lot more water. 00:51:05.030 --> 00:51:09.606 And so I don't know if that was really the concern. Um And as far as 00:51:09.639 --> 00:51:12.026 maintenance, you do want to make sure that you're taking care of the fruit 00:51:12.059 --> 00:51:15.287 and harvesting it when it's available because you want to avoid certain 00:51:15.320 --> 00:51:19.646 pests. So pest management might have been another issue. But um so that's 00:51:19.679 --> 00:51:22.635 something that I do and also whenever grants come out, I want to make sure 00:51:22.668 --> 00:51:26.686 that our schools know about it. Um West Growers Foundation has received um 00:51:26.719 --> 00:51:30.566 especially crop block funding, which is from our Department of Agriculture 00:51:30.599 --> 00:51:35.106 and from our American marketing service. Um but funds to get start gardens 00:51:35.139 --> 00:51:39.646 started or expanded in Arizona. And so they service Arizona and California 00:51:39.679 --> 00:51:44.095 and uh they've been putting out, I think now it's $1000 but it used to be 00:51:44.128 --> 00:51:49.336 1500 per school garden K 312. And, you know, my job then is to make sure 00:51:49.369 --> 00:51:54.296 that schools apply. Um, and interestingly, um, it, we've struggled the 00:51:54.329 --> 00:51:57.425 last few years to get schools to apply. I'm like, guys, this is easy money. 00:51:57.458 --> 00:52:00.227 We're not even competing with national markets anymore. Like, we're just 00:52:00.260 --> 00:52:04.635 competing with ourselves. Like, just apply. You'll probably get it. Um, 00:52:04.668 --> 00:52:08.905 what do you think that is? I don't know, I think, I think when you're 00:52:08.938 --> 00:52:12.376 writing a grant, so it's kind of grandiose, especially if you're not used 00:52:12.409 --> 00:52:16.425 to writing a grant. And it may even be easier just to ask for donation 00:52:16.458 --> 00:52:20.046 within your community from garden supply centers. A lot of people want to 00:52:20.079 --> 00:52:24.936 start or help support school gardens because it impacts kids. And so that 00:52:24.969 --> 00:52:28.526 might be a reason or maybe the PT or school has a special pot of funding, 00:52:28.559 --> 00:52:31.606 which I, I should, I should say that kind of jokingly knowing that a lot 00:52:31.639 --> 00:52:35.236 of our schools don't have a lot of extra money. But um I think maybe in 00:52:35.269 --> 00:52:39.666 some ways because I know the PT or because I know maybe my community 00:52:39.699 --> 00:52:44.445 garden center, maybe it's easier to think of doing that. But I mean, also 00:52:44.478 --> 00:52:48.115 quite frankly starting a school garden if you know nothing about gardening 00:52:48.148 --> 00:52:52.267 or even like where to go is, is quite daunting. Um And thinking that you 00:52:52.300 --> 00:52:56.787 might have to then shoulder this project, which, you know, a lot of school 00:52:56.820 --> 00:53:00.115 gardens are kind of flash in the pan projects because it is a lot of work. 00:53:00.148 --> 00:53:02.896 And if you are the only one doing it, you're going to burn out. Like 00:53:02.929 --> 00:53:07.227 that's just the story. Um Unless you have a huge passion for kids in 00:53:07.260 --> 00:53:11.316 gardening, um it's, it's just something that's going to falter unless you 00:53:11.349 --> 00:53:16.885 get more people to help you out. Um because it's a lot of work. Um And you 00:53:16.918 --> 00:53:20.135 really want students to be connected to that garden. That's in a lot of 00:53:20.168 --> 00:53:23.905 that, that's in a lot of ways why schools start gardens for the 00:53:23.938 --> 00:53:29.577 educational aspect. And so, um 00:53:29.610 --> 00:53:34.405 yeah, I think that that so anyway, my role really is to just talk with 00:53:34.438 --> 00:53:37.026 school gardens or people who want to start school gardens, let them know 00:53:37.059 --> 00:53:41.077 of Corporate Extension and the Valley Permaculture Alliance. And um we 00:53:41.110 --> 00:53:45.066 have a lot of seed libraries specifically for schools where they can check 00:53:45.099 --> 00:53:48.546 out seeds and they kind of, they let their plant go to seed and they 00:53:48.579 --> 00:53:51.135 collect them and then kind of give them back and try a new plant in the 00:53:51.168 --> 00:53:54.606 next season. And it really just offers schools an opportunity to kind of 00:53:54.639 --> 00:53:58.106 learn through like research and development, like what works for them, 00:53:58.139 --> 00:54:02.517 what worked for them and what they're going to continue doing. But um all 00:54:02.550 --> 00:54:06.436 in all it's the purpose of school gardening is just to kind of learn. You 00:54:06.469 --> 00:54:09.635 don't have to, you don't have to meet a certain yield. You're not a farm, 00:54:09.668 --> 00:54:14.195 you're just learning about seed cycles and plant life cycles and also 00:54:14.228 --> 00:54:18.405 hopefully getting kids to really connect with food so that they are more 00:54:18.438 --> 00:54:21.646 likely to eat those foods. Like if they're served at home, we're served on 00:54:21.679 --> 00:54:28.066 the, the lunch line. So that's kind of ok. So tell me, um, a little bit 00:54:28.099 --> 00:54:33.026 how hard is it not to go into these schools and just go, look, this isn't 00:54:33.059 --> 00:54:36.675 hard if you just and to actually get in there and, and everything, I mean 00:54:36.708 --> 00:54:40.336 , you can provide resources, but it's also the next step, right? And how 00:54:40.369 --> 00:54:44.316 hard is it for you? Just to not kind of, it's super frustrating sometimes 00:54:44.349 --> 00:54:48.577 even when I talk about local purchasing um while I understand probably 00:54:48.610 --> 00:54:52.327 more than a school would upfront, like the difficulty of accessing local 00:54:52.360 --> 00:54:59.526 product, I also can only do so much to make that change happen. Um It 00:54:59.559 --> 00:55:04.626 takes a school or several schools and for that matter to, to kind of 00:55:04.659 --> 00:55:08.827 change the demand and supply system of making creating that change to 00:55:08.860 --> 00:55:12.595 happen. And I am only me, I'm only one person and what I say can only go 00:55:12.628 --> 00:55:17.727 so far. Um Whereas schools are an entire community and they just, they 00:55:17.760 --> 00:55:22.365 have more weight than I do, at least that's how I feel. Um And so 00:55:22.398 --> 00:55:25.307 sometimes it is difficult for me to be like, OK, like I could give you a 00:55:25.340 --> 00:55:29.747 step guide, this is what you need to do. It's kind of that saying, you 00:55:29.780 --> 00:55:33.247 know, you can, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink 00:55:33.280 --> 00:55:38.345 it. And so, um, that's kind of how I feel sometimes. What I have 00:55:38.378 --> 00:55:43.896 definitely felt in, in my career here at the department is how slow it 00:55:43.929 --> 00:55:47.717 takes for a change to happen. And while you can do all the research you 00:55:47.750 --> 00:55:52.227 can and be like this is all you got to do with this plan. This is all you 00:55:52.260 --> 00:55:57.037 got to do. This 10 step plan will look different um school to school 00:55:57.070 --> 00:56:01.046 district, to district, producer, to producer. Um what incentivizes them 00:56:01.079 --> 00:56:05.477 and what encourages them to make those changes or what they even get out 00:56:05.510 --> 00:56:09.195 of the entire process is going to be different every single time. And 00:56:09.228 --> 00:56:13.456 that's something that's hard for me to gauge, I can't predict that. And so 00:56:13.489 --> 00:56:17.856 it kind of makes it makes motivating people to act and change and do and 00:56:17.889 --> 00:56:24.336 do something different and very difficult only because um I know that I 00:56:24.369 --> 00:56:27.997 like if I were to like, just decide I'm going to go and put a garden in 00:56:28.030 --> 00:56:32.066 every single school garden or every single school or if I'm going to make 00:56:32.099 --> 00:56:37.396 sure that each, our producers are connected to a school or each school has 00:56:37.429 --> 00:56:42.445 a producer in their area that they can be connected to. Um I just, I can't 00:56:42.478 --> 00:56:46.736 even imagine the amount of work that would take. I mean, I feel like that 00:56:46.769 --> 00:56:52.557 would take 100 100,000 years to do just knowing how relationships develop 00:56:52.590 --> 00:56:56.356 and the whole trust aspect of actually getting that to happen. I mean, 00:56:56.389 --> 00:57:00.497 relationships literally don't develop out of thin air. They just don't, um 00:57:00.530 --> 00:57:05.227 , no matter how great the end result might, may or may not be. There's a 00:57:05.260 --> 00:57:09.796 lot of distrust in you saying in me saying that Children are going to eat 00:57:09.829 --> 00:57:12.236 their broccoli. If you start a school garden, there's a lot of distrust 00:57:12.269 --> 00:57:16.236 there because, um, well, I don't know that that's true. And I don't know 00:57:16.269 --> 00:57:19.537 if I believe you when you say that, even if I can show you evidence that 00:57:19.570 --> 00:57:23.916 it's happened in other states, um It's really difficult to get someone to 00:57:23.949 --> 00:57:28.365 be like, well, OK, well, where did it happen in Arizona? And uh I'm 00:57:28.398 --> 00:57:31.546 getting, I have more success stories. So it's getting a little easier to 00:57:31.579 --> 00:57:35.845 kind of help motivate people. Um But getting those trailblazers out there 00:57:35.878 --> 00:57:40.046 is really difficult. Who wants to do something that they've never done 00:57:40.079 --> 00:57:44.655 before? And it might not work out anyone, anyone, I'm your girl, I'll help 00:57:44.688 --> 00:57:49.456 you out, I'll hold your hand, but you gotta be ready to help me convince 00:57:49.489 --> 00:57:52.416 your entire administration that this is a great idea and I'll be there and 00:57:52.449 --> 00:57:55.046 I'll help you. But 00:57:55.079 --> 00:58:00.666 no, you go figure, share with me a success story that you had of a school 00:58:00.699 --> 00:58:05.925 that's taken this on. Um I have worked very closely with Tempe school 00:58:05.958 --> 00:58:12.445 district. Um, and I, I don't know that I've necessarily been directly 00:58:12.478 --> 00:58:17.736 responsible for their success. I, I think that schools are successful on 00:58:17.769 --> 00:58:20.557 their own. Um, at the end of the day, they're the ones doing the work and 00:58:20.590 --> 00:58:24.836 I'm more the person to just call up when you're having a bad day and, you 00:58:24.869 --> 00:58:28.537 know, kind of reassure you that this is a good idea and that this will 00:58:28.570 --> 00:58:33.267 work out. Um But Tempe school district I've highlighted again and again 00:58:33.300 --> 00:58:38.356 and Melinda probably won't be happy that I'm highlighting her again. But 00:58:38.389 --> 00:58:42.606 um she's bought local apples in the fall to highlight, you know, the fall 00:58:42.639 --> 00:58:46.345 harvest, which is not a top commodity here in Arizona. Certainly not when 00:58:46.378 --> 00:58:49.845 you think of apples, you do not think of Arizona, you think of Washington. 00:58:49.878 --> 00:58:53.526 Um But she does it because she thinks it's important to connect kids with 00:58:53.559 --> 00:58:57.925 agriculture and with fresh tasting food. And if, if kids are even willing 00:58:57.958 --> 00:59:01.695 just to try the bite of apple, even though this cost me 30 cents more per 00:59:01.728 --> 00:59:06.695 apple than what I would normally buy. Uh She thinks it's worth it because 00:59:06.728 --> 00:59:09.945 um kids had one more bite of nutrition than they might not have had 00:59:09.978 --> 00:59:12.977 otherwise. And they had an experience that they might not have had 00:59:13.010 --> 00:59:17.997 otherwise. And um she's also been a huge trooper in the realm of local 00:59:18.030 --> 00:59:22.425 procurement, um which is a kind of a special caveat that schools have to 00:59:22.458 --> 00:59:25.436 work under when they're trying to buy anything but are particularly 00:59:25.469 --> 00:59:30.425 something local. Um, it's, it kind of fits into that specialized product 00:59:30.458 --> 00:59:34.717 category which, um, if you don't have the money to cover, it's not 00:59:34.750 --> 00:59:39.557 something that you're willing to try. Um, so she's, she's attempted to buy 00:59:39.590 --> 00:59:44.706 local carrots out directly, um, outside of her normal produce bid and, um 00:59:44.739 --> 00:59:52.026 , she hasn't been successful but she's tried. Um, which, so I guess that's 00:59:52.059 --> 00:59:56.126 not a success story, but I think getting someone to try something outside 00:59:56.159 --> 01:00:02.126 of what they would have normally tried. Um To me is successful. Um And we 01:00:02.159 --> 01:00:06.557 do have anyway, so we were able to get those carrots through a program of 01:00:06.590 --> 01:00:10.566 the USDA Foods program, our Department of Defense Fresh Produce program. 01:00:10.599 --> 01:00:13.595 So in a nutshell, we were successful, we just just didn't, we had to 01:00:13.628 --> 01:00:17.577 choose a different route to get the product there. Um And we also were 01:00:17.610 --> 01:00:21.385 able to get more schools access to it. So, I mean, it wasn't for, it was 01:00:21.418 --> 01:00:27.747 for not. Um We also have a school in Tucson which again, I I want to say 01:00:27.780 --> 01:00:31.026 was indirectly involved with, I was more involved with the community food 01:00:31.059 --> 01:00:35.186 bank who's a really huge supporter of Tucson Unified School District. Um 01:00:35.219 --> 01:00:40.267 And they are this first year um won a contract with Tucson to kind of 01:00:40.300 --> 01:00:44.727 aggregate and bring local food for taste tests. So, on a small scale, 01:00:44.760 --> 01:00:48.747 there are about 90 sites. So they have the demand to kind of ask for 01:00:48.780 --> 01:00:52.626 things that maybe they're not already getting. Um, but for other reasons, 01:00:52.659 --> 01:00:57.666 are unsuccessful in that route. And so, um, on a smaller scale, they have 01:00:57.699 --> 01:01:00.695 several sites under them that are part of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable 01:01:00.728 --> 01:01:03.776 Grant program, which is a great opportunity for schools if you're able to 01:01:03.809 --> 01:01:07.845 access that program to start buying local on a small level. And also what 01:01:07.878 --> 01:01:11.256 better way than outside of a meal, which can be kind of intimidating if 01:01:11.289 --> 01:01:14.796 you're trying to talk about food and nutrition to picking one item 01:01:14.829 --> 01:01:19.195 focusing on why it's good for you where it came from. Um And building that 01:01:19.228 --> 01:01:22.945 connection with that one food as opposed to one food that maybe you're 01:01:22.978 --> 01:01:28.017 focusing on in an entire meal, um especially if you're super hungry, 01:01:28.050 --> 01:01:33.006 you're just trying to get a get food in your belly. Um So that's a success 01:01:33.039 --> 01:01:38.106 story. Um So what are the challenges? 01:01:38.139 --> 01:01:40.506 My favorite? 01:01:40.539 --> 01:01:45.967 So primary school kind of has 55 challenges. There is the cost piece. 01:01:46.000 --> 01:01:51.405 There is the distribution or aggregation or food access piece. Um There is 01:01:51.438 --> 01:01:56.385 procurement that can be a barrier. Um 01:01:56.418 --> 01:02:01.655 Supply size can be a barrier and I'll talk about that. Um Shoot, what's 01:02:01.688 --> 01:02:06.905 the fifth one? Food safety? Love that topic and by love. I mean, not 01:02:06.938 --> 01:02:11.956 really. Um So all those barriers are certainly true in Arizona in getting 01:02:11.989 --> 01:02:17.365 access to local food. Probably the ones that are the are the biggest 01:02:17.398 --> 01:02:23.095 challenges that are the hardest to overcome. Um is the distribution aspect 01:02:23.128 --> 01:02:26.425 and that kind of ties to like food safety and supply size. So, 01:02:26.458 --> 01:02:30.717 distributors schools want to buy like any other buyer want to buy from one 01:02:30.750 --> 01:02:34.287 place that's just kind of the culture that we've set up in this world and 01:02:34.320 --> 01:02:38.506 it's easier and it takes time to buy from multiple people. I'd rather just 01:02:38.539 --> 01:02:41.856 buy from one. Do you go to a grocery store? I mean, you used to have to go 01:02:41.889 --> 01:02:47.195 to the meat market and the bread store and maybe the farmer's market or 01:02:47.228 --> 01:02:50.037 whatever, you have to go to several places. It was an entire day to get 01:02:50.070 --> 01:02:53.706 food for the week. Um So I can imagine, I mean, I would love, that was 01:02:53.739 --> 01:02:57.345 amazing, but not everyone wants to do that. And so we've grocery stores, 01:02:57.378 --> 01:03:02.146 you know, kind of fit a need for, for busy families. And um so it's, it's 01:03:02.179 --> 01:03:05.456 completely unrealistic to think that schools would want to go by from 01:03:05.489 --> 01:03:09.787 multiple sources of food, especially when um you have to follow certain 01:03:09.820 --> 01:03:15.635 procurement processes to make that happen as well. So, um the barrier, we 01:03:15.668 --> 01:03:18.706 see a lot in Arizona is we have a lot of small producers and a lot of 01:03:18.739 --> 01:03:22.217 large producers, but not a whole lot of middle of the road. Our larger 01:03:22.250 --> 01:03:26.896 producers are kind of set up for export. Most of their stuff is contracted 01:03:26.929 --> 01:03:32.095 before it's even planted. Um and whatever is left over is really a smart 01:03:32.128 --> 01:03:35.316 business move for our farmers in case yields don't happen. Or if they have 01:03:35.349 --> 01:03:37.827 product that something happened to has happened on the field, they can 01:03:37.860 --> 01:03:43.227 still um give to their promises to whoever they have contracted with 01:03:43.260 --> 01:03:48.557 internationally or nationally. Um So that happens a lot. We also have 01:03:48.590 --> 01:03:53.006 small producers who are set up for farmers markets. Basically, they do not 01:03:53.039 --> 01:03:56.816 have a whole lot of acreage or a lot of yield in their supplier. They have 01:03:56.849 --> 01:04:00.956 a really diverse portfolio. And so they are growing a lot, a lot of a 01:04:00.989 --> 01:04:04.115 little supply of a lot of different things, which is great. I mean, that 01:04:04.148 --> 01:04:09.037 is really fun. Um But in terms of making that like a good adventure for 01:04:09.070 --> 01:04:13.936 schools, that's difficult. A lot of our schools are concerned about the 01:04:13.969 --> 01:04:16.836 supply that they're going to need, especially our larger districts who 01:04:16.869 --> 01:04:19.905 have several sites underneath them. And they're like, well, if I buy this 01:04:19.938 --> 01:04:24.595 , I want to be able to menu it for all of my schools and I have 60 80 90 01:04:24.628 --> 01:04:28.376 whatever sites underneath me, even 20 would be a lot. Um And that's just 01:04:28.409 --> 01:04:31.227 not realistic for me. I I can't have a different menu for every single 01:04:31.260 --> 01:04:34.486 school. Like I have a hard enough time getting the same menu out to all my 01:04:34.519 --> 01:04:40.686 schools and having that go seamlessly. And so 01:04:40.719 --> 01:04:44.497 that's, that's a barrier and, and that's like a food system issue, which 01:04:44.530 --> 01:04:48.175 is where I think schools, if they band together or if we have larger 01:04:48.208 --> 01:04:52.727 districts who make that initiative or may create that demand, industry 01:04:52.760 --> 01:04:55.865 will follow because industry is going to be tied to money and school 01:04:55.898 --> 01:05:00.635 industry is tied to schools because there's a lot of money there and while 01:05:00.668 --> 01:05:03.646 schools can't afford the top of the line products, I mean, we're not 01:05:03.679 --> 01:05:07.086 serving like sirloin steaks or anything to kids anytime soon. Even those 01:05:07.119 --> 01:05:10.856 who could probably pay for it. Um, 01:05:10.889 --> 01:05:15.807 you have a certain demand or a buying power that a small charter or a 01:05:15.840 --> 01:05:20.566 smaller school district just could never actually call that demand for, um 01:05:20.599 --> 01:05:24.736 , especially in the realm of produce. I mean, um, some of our, our 01:05:24.769 --> 01:05:28.686 districts who are, I wouldn't say small but are small in the eyes of 01:05:28.719 --> 01:05:34.356 industry, 20 sites, let's say, um, doesn't have the buying power or demand 01:05:34.389 --> 01:05:40.106 to say I want x amount of lettuce, which means I'm, let's say they swapped 01:05:40.139 --> 01:05:44.997 out a lettuce, um, local, whatever, they're still not buying enough for 01:05:45.030 --> 01:05:49.115 interest to make that worth their time. Now, if we had five or 10 01:05:49.148 --> 01:05:53.006 different districts claiming for the same product, then we're talking 01:05:53.039 --> 01:05:58.365 enough money to where it's, it's kind of dumb business wise to not invest 01:05:58.398 --> 01:06:01.856 in that, that new product or whatever that schools are looking for. So, 01:06:01.889 --> 01:06:06.767 something I'm really excited about that. I hope we get done by October or 01:06:06.800 --> 01:06:09.497 by the end of the year is a group purchasing pilot with a few of our 01:06:09.530 --> 01:06:14.916 districts. And I say group purchasing, we have a lot of, we have a lot of 01:06:14.949 --> 01:06:18.885 um group Purchasing Cooperative's in the state for schools. They, they 01:06:18.918 --> 01:06:22.655 kind of band together by one thing and they get a reduced price because 01:06:22.688 --> 01:06:25.557 they have so much money they're putting on the table that whoever is 01:06:25.590 --> 01:06:30.856 winning that contract or that bid, I can't say no because I'm like, I'm 01:06:30.889 --> 01:06:34.046 getting so much money from you basically that, that's a large account. I 01:06:34.079 --> 01:06:37.956 can't afford to say no. Um and I didn't realize this was an issue. I don't 01:06:37.989 --> 01:06:40.405 think until I had some schools actually go out and try to buy certain 01:06:40.438 --> 01:06:44.227 things local and they were unsuccessful in getting responses. And so it's 01:06:44.260 --> 01:06:46.467 like, ok, well, you're clearly, we clearly don't have enough money on the 01:06:46.500 --> 01:06:50.896 table then just to make anyone listen. So I'm really excited about this 01:06:50.929 --> 01:06:53.736 group purchasing pilot and uh we actually have a meeting about it with a 01:06:53.769 --> 01:06:58.736 couple of our school districts who are doing this um next month. And um 01:06:58.769 --> 01:07:04.425 I'm hoping it's really successful because we have promised that by buying 01:07:04.458 --> 01:07:07.557 together, we can not only reduce the price but get access to things that 01:07:07.590 --> 01:07:12.017 you've been unable to access in the past. And I think that if that's 01:07:12.050 --> 01:07:16.586 successful, we're on the brink of a larger food system change, at least 01:07:16.619 --> 01:07:19.635 for schools to accessing products that's going to make a difference in 01:07:19.668 --> 01:07:25.126 their meal program. So tell me how you came about this group purchasing 01:07:25.159 --> 01:07:29.066 pilot and what are the items you're going to purchase? So this is a 01:07:29.099 --> 01:07:33.396 concept that you see in business, um especially school, business in 01:07:33.429 --> 01:07:39.057 general. And um this happens too in ph to school programs around uh around 01:07:39.090 --> 01:07:42.135 where this, where it's an issue of um I don't have a lot of small 01:07:42.168 --> 01:07:46.767 producers near me. And so, um for example, in Vermont, there is a lot of 01:07:46.800 --> 01:07:50.416 smaller producers there, there's not a whole lot of large producers. And 01:07:50.449 --> 01:07:54.046 so a small farmer getting a contract with a school is like really sweet 01:07:54.079 --> 01:07:57.115 business because now I don't have to go to the market as much. And a 01:07:57.148 --> 01:08:01.115 school, especially probably in Vermont, they are willing to take kind of 01:08:01.148 --> 01:08:04.057 the ugly, the ugly product that you know, someone at a farmers market 01:08:04.090 --> 01:08:07.945 probably wouldn't take. And so I am going to turn that into lasagna or, or 01:08:07.978 --> 01:08:12.106 whatever it is and the school is happy, the farmer is happy and that works 01:08:12.139 --> 01:08:17.586 really well. Um And while we have small and large producers here, um 01:08:17.619 --> 01:08:24.067 getting, getting uh the buy in to kind of make that change can be 01:08:24.100 --> 01:08:28.467 difficult without like a guarantee that this is going to help sustain my 01:08:28.500 --> 01:08:33.226 business or help take some like farmers markets off my docket. Um And with 01:08:33.259 --> 01:08:37.906 schools too, them being concerned about meeting supply or will my kids 01:08:37.939 --> 01:08:41.675 even eat this like, are, is this just going to go into the trash? And also 01:08:41.708 --> 01:08:45.135 it's not like a very streamlined approach, which they're very used to, um 01:08:45.168 --> 01:08:50.366 , buying things, um, kind of once a year and getting that year round and 01:08:50.399 --> 01:08:55.487 like worst case scenario, having to switch out, um, a menu item because 01:08:55.520 --> 01:08:58.687 something didn't come through. And like that is a big hurdle in school 01:08:58.720 --> 01:09:03.095 food in general. So, like, why would I want to invite more, more fires to 01:09:03.128 --> 01:09:09.159 put out? Like I, I totally understand that you're right. That sounds awful. 01:09:09.220 --> 01:09:11.220 Um And so we had talked about a couple of things for this purchasing pilot. 01:09:14.359 --> 01:09:18.046 I was hoping that we can access apples. We have an apple, we have a 01:09:18.079 --> 01:09:25.656 couple of apple growers down south and I believe one up north. Um And they 01:09:25.689 --> 01:09:30.456 say they can give us a truckload of apples if a school buys, if this, if 01:09:30.489 --> 01:09:33.866 this group purchasing product can buy a truckload of apples. Um, we have 01:09:33.899 --> 01:09:38.836 something to negotiate with. That's apparently a quantity that, that perks 01:09:38.869 --> 01:09:43.496 the ears up of industry. Um And if some of our producers who maybe if you 01:09:43.529 --> 01:09:46.626 couldn't meet the cost that they were asking for, wouldn't really be into 01:09:46.659 --> 01:09:50.357 negotiating. Look, if you can't give me 60 cents per apple, then I don't 01:09:50.390 --> 01:09:56.925 know if I, if I want to help you, you know. Um We've talked about 01:09:56.958 --> 01:10:01.635 like lettuces in the winter time, November through April is like our large 01:10:01.668 --> 01:10:06.036 lettuce season basically because we are not frozen over like a lot of 01:10:06.069 --> 01:10:10.406 other places. So we are producing a lot of lettuces, um, for a year and 01:10:10.439 --> 01:10:14.095 throughout the year, um, I think we have also talked about things like 01:10:14.128 --> 01:10:17.906 tomatoes. It is really dependent on what all the schools can agree on that. 01:10:17.939 --> 01:10:22.446 They could buy a truckload of. I'm hoping it's apples because it's a nice 01:10:22.479 --> 01:10:25.696 storage crop. So you don't have to utilize it really quickly. Which means 01:10:25.729 --> 01:10:30.131 we don't, you have to worry so much about. Um that means schools can ask 01:10:30.164 --> 01:10:33.890 for more upfront in one buy basically. And we don't have to worry about 01:10:33.923 --> 01:10:37.921 multiple deliveries. We get one delivery per school site. It's a storage 01:10:37.954 --> 01:10:40.050 crap. And so we don't have to worry too much about it. Another thing that 01:10:40.083 --> 01:10:44.692 I might suggest, but this would require some menu enhancements would be 01:10:44.725 --> 01:10:50.156 something like a winter squash or pumpkin or something like that. Um So, 01:10:50.189 --> 01:10:53.277 so to be determined what will actually happen, but I'm really excited 01:10:53.310 --> 01:10:57.476 about that. How long did it take to put this pilot together and all the 01:10:57.509 --> 01:11:03.187 people to bring all the people to the table? Um So I proposed the question 01:11:03.220 --> 01:11:07.107 probably earlier this year. One of our school districts receipt had a new 01:11:07.140 --> 01:11:10.916 , they had changed out their procurement person. And so that took a little 01:11:10.949 --> 01:11:14.246 bit of a while, we had to get the um whatever that transition had to 01:11:14.279 --> 01:11:18.817 happen. And then we had to kind of spin it to this procurement person. And 01:11:18.850 --> 01:11:24.067 luckily this per person was very interested in doing something different. 01:11:24.100 --> 01:11:26.836 I mean, if it's going to get you the product that you want in her mind, 01:11:26.869 --> 01:11:31.906 that that's, that's what I'm here for. Um, she was fine doing something 01:11:31.939 --> 01:11:35.996 outside of the norm, which I wouldn't say is the call of duty of a lot of 01:11:36.029 --> 01:11:42.607 procurement people. Um, and luckily she knows her research, she knows her 01:11:42.640 --> 01:11:46.015 stuff. She's like here's the limitations. I had to sit down and kind of 01:11:46.048 --> 01:11:50.796 train and discuss what options you have. Um kind of legally to go about 01:11:50.829 --> 01:11:54.586 this. Here are the loopholes. Essentially, this is what you need to think 01:11:54.619 --> 01:11:57.305 about when you're rewriting your documents and then you process the 01:11:57.338 --> 01:12:02.456 procurement as you would anything else. Um She, she became on board very 01:12:02.489 --> 01:12:05.777 quickly and then it became more of a process of getting other school 01:12:05.810 --> 01:12:09.857 districts to get excited about it. So I'd say it's probably taken eight 01:12:09.890 --> 01:12:12.187 months 01:12:12.220 --> 01:12:17.467 to, to do that. And now we are having a meeting in September. Um And 01:12:17.500 --> 01:12:20.536 hopefully the procurement will take place before the end of the year. I'm 01:12:20.569 --> 01:12:25.156 hoping so. Let's go back to, you mentioned five challenges. You talked 01:12:25.189 --> 01:12:28.987 about distribution and then you hadn't really touched on the other ones. 01:12:29.020 --> 01:12:31.906 But just briefly, I mean, you talked about distribution but like safety 01:12:31.939 --> 01:12:36.487 and the other, the other challenges. So food safety is kind of a concern. 01:12:36.520 --> 01:12:40.567 What's, what's different about Arizona than other states it seems is, um 01:12:40.600 --> 01:12:48.600 , a lot. So we are a local regulatory state, a lot of our, um, so our 01:12:48.958 --> 01:12:52.055 local county health departments are the ones who kind of decide what food 01:12:52.088 --> 01:12:56.737 code we use and how we interpret what that means and what that says, um, 01:12:56.770 --> 01:13:02.536 the Arizona food code has a line about, um, approved source which there is 01:13:02.569 --> 01:13:07.046 no definition as to what that means. But the interpretation really is, um 01:13:07.079 --> 01:13:11.376 are you food safety certified or not, is what it comes down to? It's not 01:13:11.409 --> 01:13:15.746 written that that's what they mean. And when you talk to, to different 01:13:15.779 --> 01:13:20.317 counties, it kind of means different things to different counties or even 01:13:20.350 --> 01:13:23.456 to different representatives that you talk to from the county. Um But in 01:13:23.489 --> 01:13:28.425 general, we've, I think gotten most of our counties to agree that um food 01:13:28.458 --> 01:13:32.446 safety approved source for the most part means some sort of food safety 01:13:32.479 --> 01:13:37.467 certification. Um The bare minimum tends to be the USDA G gap, which is 01:13:37.500 --> 01:13:41.836 good handling practices and good agricultural practices. It is a kind of 01:13:41.869 --> 01:13:48.095 baseline food safety certification for, for produce. Um And then there's 01:13:48.128 --> 01:13:52.656 higher level ones where you get like a third party audit from Primus Labs 01:13:52.689 --> 01:13:56.376 or something like that. Basically saying that we have the best food safety 01:13:56.409 --> 01:14:01.987 you have and most distributors um will take anything from gap to some sort 01:14:02.020 --> 01:14:05.836 of third party auditor. Now, in other states with primary school, it tends 01:14:05.869 --> 01:14:09.956 to be the case that in lieu of a food safety certification for a small 01:14:09.989 --> 01:14:12.796 producer that can be really resource intensive, it can take a lot of time 01:14:12.829 --> 01:14:16.237 , it can take a lot of money and there's not a guarantee that you're going 01:14:16.270 --> 01:14:20.546 to make that money back working with an institution. Although ideally if 01:14:20.579 --> 01:14:23.857 you had a good relationship with an institution, you would make that money 01:14:23.890 --> 01:14:28.897 back tenfold outside of a farmers market. Um But anyway, other states have 01:14:28.930 --> 01:14:32.095 these like food safety checklists that they go through with, with the 01:14:32.128 --> 01:14:34.866 producer. So the buyer and the producer are together talking about your 01:14:34.899 --> 01:14:39.317 food safety practices, they check to check, decide that we're ok with it. 01:14:39.350 --> 01:14:42.067 Um And they both sign off and that's supposed to act as like a legal 01:14:42.100 --> 01:14:46.467 document in the case or the event or in the event of like a food recall. 01:14:46.500 --> 01:14:52.286 Um Some people might argue that that's not going to hold up in court or 01:14:52.319 --> 01:14:54.866 that that's not really going to protect you from a risk management 01:14:54.899 --> 01:14:58.487 perspective on the schools. A lot of our schools want to err on the side 01:14:58.520 --> 01:15:02.036 of caution, particularly because we're talking about um students. But I 01:15:02.069 --> 01:15:06.095 think also just because the liability risk is really can potentially be 01:15:06.128 --> 01:15:12.506 really um heavy and so many of our schools prefer to buy or look for local 01:15:12.539 --> 01:15:19.376 from a G gap or above certified farm. Um Some aren't necessarily like some 01:15:19.409 --> 01:15:24.067 some of our schools know their producers well and want to buy. Um, so we 01:15:24.100 --> 01:15:27.496 have, we have some counties that are more restrictive will not let a 01:15:27.529 --> 01:15:31.666 school buy outside of g gap or above. And then we have some counties who, 01:15:31.699 --> 01:15:34.756 um, kind of just don't want to be the bad guy, which I probably even 01:15:34.789 --> 01:15:37.206 shouldn't even say on this, but like, kind of don't want to be the bad guy. 01:15:37.239 --> 01:15:42.107 And so they kind of say, well, um, technically we wouldn't necessarily 01:15:42.140 --> 01:15:44.916 know who you're buying from or what you're getting and, and if they meet 01:15:44.949 --> 01:15:48.317 all these certifications because when we come and inspect your kitchens, 01:15:48.350 --> 01:15:51.876 um we're just making sure that you hit, you know, these marks and that 01:15:51.909 --> 01:15:54.515 everything looks clean and all of that, but we're not like looking through 01:15:54.548 --> 01:15:57.987 your invoices and then checking to see if like those people are food 01:15:58.020 --> 01:16:02.576 safety certified. Um So we recommend that you buy from someone who is food 01:16:02.609 --> 01:16:07.656 safety certified. But, um, if you choose not to, we recommend that you 01:16:07.689 --> 01:16:11.196 cook it, cook these items. And a lot of the items that schools want to buy 01:16:11.229 --> 01:16:16.296 local are something you would serve raw. And so it's kind of an 01:16:16.329 --> 01:16:20.147 interesting point. So most of our schools just kind of prefer to err on 01:16:20.180 --> 01:16:22.885 the side of caution or if they are comfortable with their producers and 01:16:22.918 --> 01:16:26.996 their food safety practices, um are literally not allowed to buy anything 01:16:27.029 --> 01:16:30.416 depending on the county that they're in. Um, so that is certainly a 01:16:30.449 --> 01:16:34.567 barrier. Um, but for the most part, schools aren't going to buy directly 01:16:34.600 --> 01:16:38.906 from a farm, unless, unless it's for a special event, which doesn't happen 01:16:38.939 --> 01:16:43.076 very frequently, they would buy more of a particular farms product or 01:16:43.109 --> 01:16:46.836 local in general if they could get it from their main produce distributor. 01:16:46.869 --> 01:16:51.406 So that's kind of the overlying challenge that I see. And that's what I 01:16:51.439 --> 01:16:54.876 mean by working within the system is getting distributors to want to pick 01:16:54.909 --> 01:16:58.937 up local product and making that worthwhile for them. But that means 01:16:58.970 --> 01:17:02.726 guaranteeing in a, in a way that multiple schools are going to be 01:17:02.759 --> 01:17:06.726 interested in that product. So buying direct does happen occasionally, 01:17:06.759 --> 01:17:10.506 especially if the product is, you know, cost effective enough or it's 01:17:10.539 --> 01:17:14.175 really going to impact your food service operation and those are just kind 01:17:14.208 --> 01:17:17.687 of special, special cases. Um But if you're looking for, you know, 01:17:17.720 --> 01:17:22.015 sustainability, you really want to look at what's what frequent purchases 01:17:22.048 --> 01:17:24.756 are going to happen and what and what system is that going to really 01:17:24.789 --> 01:17:29.906 happen? And so it kind of falters to who's going to distribute that food. 01:17:29.939 --> 01:17:36.817 Ok. So tell me a little bit about um so you've been there five years, what 01:17:36.850 --> 01:17:43.326 do you hope to see happen down the road with this program? I would really 01:17:43.359 --> 01:17:51.359 like to see um more schools ask for local but formally in procurement 01:17:51.579 --> 01:17:56.786 documents, that's going to be kind of the the legal standing way for them 01:17:56.819 --> 01:18:02.226 to show that their demand um means something because that is something 01:18:02.259 --> 01:18:04.836 they are going to practice. Everyone wants to get into schools, you are 01:18:04.869 --> 01:18:07.595 going to get a huge count if you get into a school, especially a larger 01:18:07.628 --> 01:18:12.206 school or if you have a pocket of schools um who is associated with one 01:18:12.239 --> 01:18:15.675 particular entity, like a lot of our charters or some of our charters, I 01:18:15.708 --> 01:18:20.006 say a lot. Um if you can seal the deal on that or even some of our food 01:18:20.039 --> 01:18:24.256 service management companies, if you can get to those areas, those are 01:18:24.289 --> 01:18:27.156 large accounts and you can't afford to not do that, but you are not going 01:18:27.189 --> 01:18:32.366 to make that switch or make that move um until you are financially 01:18:32.399 --> 01:18:36.496 motivated to do that. And so you are not going to do that as an industry 01:18:36.529 --> 01:18:40.706 person unless you see that demand written in contract essentially. Um 01:18:40.739 --> 01:18:46.217 which is kind of a shame. Um because that means you have to kind of change 01:18:46.250 --> 01:18:50.717 a whole fleet of procurement practice to change. So hopefully we have, our 01:18:50.750 --> 01:18:54.506 procurement directors are more comfortable with adding a local preference 01:18:54.539 --> 01:18:59.527 for certain items. Um Hopefully, industries carrying a local line of 01:18:59.560 --> 01:19:03.126 something and they're able to share and communicate that information to 01:19:03.159 --> 01:19:07.385 the schools that they're serving. Um And I also hope too and this is kind 01:19:07.418 --> 01:19:11.746 of a similar point that we are able to carry more direct farm product 01:19:11.779 --> 01:19:16.567 through our dod catalog, um which is an easy access point for our schools 01:19:16.600 --> 01:19:21.067 and and also that our group purchasing co that have large accounts with 01:19:21.100 --> 01:19:27.946 many schools are able to kind of change that demand um because they have 01:19:27.979 --> 01:19:31.675 so many schools that contract with them every single year. So I'm hoping 01:19:31.708 --> 01:19:36.496 that priorities kind of shift um in local purchasing and on the and on the 01:19:36.529 --> 01:19:40.425 realm of school gardens, I would, I would like to see more educational 01:19:40.458 --> 01:19:43.987 based school gardens. We also and I didn't mention this earlier, have some 01:19:44.020 --> 01:19:47.425 school gardens who are doing a garden to cafe program and there's a 01:19:47.458 --> 01:19:50.967 special food safety certification for schools, it's free. Um And our 01:19:51.000 --> 01:19:55.616 Department of Health runs that program. But um we have some schools who 01:19:55.649 --> 01:19:59.967 really just want to have kids see things being grown and then having it 01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:04.265 being served in the cafeteria to kind of bring a full 01:20:04.298 --> 01:20:08.976 circle effect back to that student. And so um we have a few who are 01:20:09.009 --> 01:20:12.437 interested in doing that, but most schools are interested in the 01:20:12.470 --> 01:20:16.406 educational aspect of, of the garden and not necessarily want to be like a 01:20:16.439 --> 01:20:21.437 micro farm or, you know, to be production heavy. So um I would like to see 01:20:21.470 --> 01:20:26.006 more of that happen. Um We have so many different climates in Arizona too. 01:20:26.039 --> 01:20:31.406 So up north, you know, our, our growing season is about April to October 01:20:31.439 --> 01:20:35.536 um because it's just too cold to grow anything the rest of the year. Um 01:20:35.569 --> 01:20:38.515 And so that's, you know, pretty much the end of the school year and the 01:20:38.548 --> 01:20:41.786 front of the school year where schools have access to be growing things 01:20:41.819 --> 01:20:48.147 and then there's um summer programs that happen. So summer camps or um 01:20:48.180 --> 01:20:51.586 community gardens that happen where kids have a place to kind of learn and 01:20:51.619 --> 01:20:58.226 play in the dirt. And then we, our growing season down here is mostly um 01:20:58.259 --> 01:21:02.425 out during the school season, which is remarkable compared to a lot of 01:21:02.458 --> 01:21:06.095 places in the nation, which is kind of awesome. So like, I feel like we 01:21:06.128 --> 01:21:10.246 should be taking priority over that, but also just the schools who have 01:21:10.279 --> 01:21:13.687 gardens, everyone that you meet on that campus after it's been kind of 01:21:13.720 --> 01:21:18.126 established for a while will tell you that they love it and the adults 01:21:18.159 --> 01:21:21.015 will tell you that they have never, they've had the best broccoli or 01:21:21.048 --> 01:21:24.217 whatever out of that garden that the students are happy and you just the 01:21:24.250 --> 01:21:28.866 culture of that school um kind of changes a little and it's just a little 01:21:28.899 --> 01:21:34.147 bit more happy. Tell me what did um talk about the success of having that 01:21:34.180 --> 01:21:39.147 school garden? Um Why are they giving you that kind of response? Have you 01:21:39.180 --> 01:21:41.866 been out there when they're in the garden? The Children and kind of the 01:21:41.899 --> 01:21:45.746 responses of that the Children have and the teachers I have, yeah, I have 01:21:45.779 --> 01:21:51.217 , I have seen some um student and teacher interactions with, with the 01:21:51.250 --> 01:21:55.506 school garden and it's, it's fun. I've seen more like little kids in the 01:21:55.539 --> 01:21:58.756 garden than maybe the older kids. We have some f fa programs where they're 01:21:58.789 --> 01:22:01.595 kind of learning like plant science and animal science, which is 01:22:01.628 --> 01:22:05.147 interesting too because, um, a lot of those kids didn't grow up with 01:22:05.180 --> 01:22:08.937 agriculture and all of a sudden they are tied to it and they've learned so 01:22:08.970 --> 01:22:12.467 much from it and they kind of respect food in a different way that they 01:22:12.500 --> 01:22:16.076 hadn't before. And I think the same thing is true with little kids, but 01:22:16.109 --> 01:22:20.786 little kids are so curious about their surroundings. And I think sometimes 01:22:20.819 --> 01:22:23.756 as adults, we kind of lose that curiosity just because of maybe over 01:22:23.789 --> 01:22:27.175 simulation or we're too focused on whatever we have to get done. But 01:22:27.208 --> 01:22:32.226 little kids love gardening even if you're just planting and they haven't, 01:22:32.259 --> 01:22:34.946 they can't see anything right away. Like you'd think a student would be 01:22:34.979 --> 01:22:37.366 like impatient being like we put a seed in the ground and they're just 01:22:37.399 --> 01:22:43.116 like, I have to wait like 30 to 90 days to see something happening. But 01:22:43.149 --> 01:22:48.726 every little stage in that plant cycle is like something new and fun and 01:22:48.759 --> 01:22:52.425 all the bugs and everything that happens throughout a plant's life cycle I 01:22:52.458 --> 01:22:56.487 think is just fascinating for kids. And what a lot of teachers will say. A 01:22:56.520 --> 01:23:00.175 lot of teachers are um garden coordinators will say is that school 01:23:00.208 --> 01:23:03.286 students with school gardens, not only appreciate their garden, but they 01:23:03.319 --> 01:23:08.376 learn to appreciate their school campus and one another and other things 01:23:08.409 --> 01:23:12.397 in the environment because, um, you just, everyone has almost like a 01:23:12.430 --> 01:23:15.987 common interest. You know, everyone wants this thing to grow well. And, um 01:23:16.020 --> 01:23:20.845 , I've heard too that communities will kind of be on the watch for 01:23:20.878 --> 01:23:23.616 vandalism and things that might happen when school is not in session. And 01:23:23.649 --> 01:23:28.095 so it's, it's weird, Plants are just happy and people get really happy 01:23:28.128 --> 01:23:32.897 about it. I used to have like a little desk garden in which my coworkers 01:23:32.930 --> 01:23:37.196 keep bugging me about to start one. But I, I work for tens and so I'm not 01:23:37.229 --> 01:23:40.647 , I'm only there four days of the week and I'm like, wow, these things 01:23:40.680 --> 01:23:44.876 still need to get watered when I'm not here. I should probably do some 01:23:44.909 --> 01:23:48.876 hydroponic stuff because I don't have to worry about it. But, um, the 01:23:48.909 --> 01:23:52.305 office is happier when you have like, little plants growing and people who 01:23:52.338 --> 01:23:54.857 maybe weren't even interested in food before. Like, what do you got 01:23:54.890 --> 01:23:59.976 growing here? And you're like, oh, just, you know, tomatoes, no big deal. 01:24:00.009 --> 01:24:03.487 Um, I don't know. It's just, you're just happier with plants there. I 01:24:03.520 --> 01:24:09.576 don't have like a scientific reason, but that's what I tend to see. Ok. 01:24:09.609 --> 01:24:12.937 Can you tell me a little bit about, um, what you, can you tell me what 01:24:12.970 --> 01:24:18.036 food sustainability means to you? Yes. And I thought about this, um, I 01:24:18.069 --> 01:24:21.976 think a lot of people would say that food sustainability is about 01:24:22.009 --> 01:24:26.675 sustaining food access for everyone um throughout the entire food system. 01:24:26.708 --> 01:24:31.027 But I also, I think it's a little deeper than that. I think that yes, 01:24:31.060 --> 01:24:33.925 that's important. We want to make sure that everyone has access to fresh, 01:24:33.958 --> 01:24:36.916 healthy food that's good for their bodies. Um and that they're going to 01:24:36.949 --> 01:24:42.515 eat. But I also think that in a healthy or sustainable food system, people 01:24:42.548 --> 01:24:46.956 value that food differently and in a nutshell, they value people 01:24:46.989 --> 01:24:52.147 differently because it's people who create that food for you. Um And so I 01:24:52.180 --> 01:24:55.406 think that's what a sustainable food system means, but that's just me 01:24:55.439 --> 01:24:59.586 because I'm like a people person and I think that when you value people, 01:24:59.619 --> 01:25:03.555 you can then value what they do, which is provide food and fiber and fuel 01:25:03.588 --> 01:25:09.687 for you. And, and to me that's ideal. Why, why is that important? 01:25:09.720 --> 01:25:15.336 Oh, well, I mean, we 01:25:15.369 --> 01:25:20.866 are a population with dwindling numbers of people who work in agriculture. 01:25:20.899 --> 01:25:24.595 Um And without that, we can't survive and something that I think is 01:25:24.628 --> 01:25:28.006 disappointing or something that concerns me. I actually worry about it 01:25:28.039 --> 01:25:30.836 sometimes and I try not to because I don't know how to get out of that 01:25:30.869 --> 01:25:36.425 spiral sometimes. But um when we relinquish control over our food and our 01:25:36.458 --> 01:25:38.876 fiber and our fuel, these things that we need to live and that are 01:25:38.909 --> 01:25:43.456 necessary for human beings to live, then um 01:25:43.489 --> 01:25:48.305 just that we lose control over it. We then no longer get a say 01:25:48.338 --> 01:25:51.425 in what happens to that and, and essentially, then what happens to us. And 01:25:51.458 --> 01:25:55.546 so um I think it's disappointing that we have less numbers of people who 01:25:55.579 --> 01:25:59.265 are involved in agriculture and in a sense we're giving up that control to 01:25:59.298 --> 01:26:03.467 maybe other countries or maybe, and I, I understand too that there's a 01:26:03.500 --> 01:26:07.237 need for even international export, right? We, we have places that grow 01:26:07.270 --> 01:26:11.067 coffee and bananas and stuff like that. We can't grow that here. So we 01:26:11.100 --> 01:26:16.746 have to barter in exchange to some extent. But I think 01:26:16.779 --> 01:26:20.687 when we give up farmland, really good farmland and things like that and we 01:26:20.720 --> 01:26:23.286 have things like droughts and natural disasters that are happening, that's 01:26:23.319 --> 01:26:28.726 out of our control. But I think that um, when we give up that land, we're 01:26:28.759 --> 01:26:33.687 giving up that control. And um, that's so sad to me. Actually, I live out 01:26:33.720 --> 01:26:37.696 in Gilbert. I don't know if you've been, but um, we have quite a few farms 01:26:37.729 --> 01:26:40.805 out there that have been there probably forever. And a lot of our 01:26:40.838 --> 01:26:44.836 neighborhoods that are in developments used to be farms or ranches and 01:26:44.869 --> 01:26:48.946 they're named after that farm or ranch. And so to me it's, it's so sad. 01:26:48.979 --> 01:26:52.786 Like it's fun. I get to live there and still see agriculture like daily. 01:26:52.819 --> 01:26:56.067 Like there will be a tractor going down the road and you're just like 01:26:56.100 --> 01:26:59.826 patient because it can only go so fast and you're like, I want to go 45 01:26:59.859 --> 01:27:07.805 but this thing can go like 20. Um, it's humbling, um, to get to live there. 01:27:07.838 --> 01:27:11.226 But at the same time, like, I'm living in a development that used to be a 01:27:11.259 --> 01:27:15.345 farm and while my garden is probably better for it because it used to be a 01:27:15.378 --> 01:27:18.687 farmland. So the soil is really great. Hopefully, I don't mess that up. 01:27:18.720 --> 01:27:24.166 But, um, it also makes me really sad when I first moved out there, there 01:27:24.199 --> 01:27:27.147 was a little dairy, tiny dairy compared to some of the larger dairies that 01:27:27.180 --> 01:27:33.616 we have. Um, that probably went out of business a year somewhere in the 01:27:33.649 --> 01:27:37.496 year up there. So all of a sudden it was gone paved over and now they're, 01:27:37.529 --> 01:27:40.796 they're, you know, putting stuff on it. And to me, I'm just kind of like, 01:27:40.829 --> 01:27:44.857 do we really need another tire store? Like, couldn't this farm have just 01:27:44.890 --> 01:27:49.376 stayed here? Like I was fine with it? I don't think I have to go like, 01:27:49.409 --> 01:27:53.107 like a mile down the road. There's another tire store. If I need a tire, I 01:27:53.140 --> 01:27:58.706 can just go to that one. but that's just not how the world works. If you 01:27:58.739 --> 01:28:03.027 can in a developed, in a developing area, you want to get in there quickly 01:28:03.060 --> 01:28:06.946 because then you'll become like, you know, a mainstay or whatever. And, um 01:28:06.979 --> 01:28:12.866 , so anyway, it makes me sad that farmland gets developed. But at the same 01:28:12.899 --> 01:28:16.376 time our population is growing and like, what do you do with that? And 01:28:16.409 --> 01:28:23.237 that's a completely another area almost. But um yeah, that makes me sad. 01:28:23.270 --> 01:28:27.866 So let's talk a little bit about um what factors do you think influence 01:28:27.899 --> 01:28:35.899 you to become involved in foods, food sustainability? What factors? 01:28:36.449 --> 01:28:40.836 Well, so this kind of goes back to why I got involved in the first place 01:28:40.869 --> 01:28:44.536 when I was taking my health care innovations class. They mentioned that um 01:28:44.569 --> 01:28:50.226 , in that obesity was an epidemic and that we are a very unhealthy 01:28:50.259 --> 01:28:53.967 population. Our American diet wasn't really serving us and that most 01:28:54.000 --> 01:28:58.805 people die earlier in life because of our, our habits, our lifestyle 01:28:58.838 --> 01:29:04.506 habits. And so whether that's inactivity, um or eating poorly, uh we 01:29:04.539 --> 01:29:08.656 weren't taking care of ourselves and that we could prevent so much money 01:29:08.689 --> 01:29:12.237 being kind of, I don't know if it's, I guess kind of wasted in health care 01:29:12.270 --> 01:29:15.996 on ourselves because we're abusing our bodies in a way, we're not taking 01:29:16.029 --> 01:29:20.116 care of them. We're not being good stewards of our body. Um And I don't 01:29:20.149 --> 01:29:23.976 know, I guess I felt that that's something that I could do. That's 01:29:24.009 --> 01:29:27.437 something that because it was interesting to me and I cared enough to 01:29:27.470 --> 01:29:34.576 learn about chemistry and metabolism and how to cook things. And um, so 01:29:34.609 --> 01:29:39.076 that's really what influenced me to get involved probably was the health 01:29:39.109 --> 01:29:43.826 care system and the fact that we are a nation of unhealthy people and I 01:29:43.859 --> 01:29:48.296 actually saw this in my family too. I mentioned I was a baker. I would 01:29:48.329 --> 01:29:51.226 bake cookies. One of the things that we make at home a lot are these 01:29:51.259 --> 01:29:54.786 things called Ginger Snaps and like Ginger Snaps are not the crunchy ones. 01:29:54.819 --> 01:29:58.826 They were like soft and chewy and delicious. And we use Crisco, which is 01:29:58.859 --> 01:30:02.416 the only thing today that I still use Crisco in because it just butter 01:30:02.449 --> 01:30:04.987 just doesn't work. 01:30:05.020 --> 01:30:08.397 Um But I was making this all the time because, you know, in some, some 01:30:08.430 --> 01:30:13.555 people think that food is love. Um But I felt like I was, I felt like I 01:30:13.588 --> 01:30:17.336 was loving my family by making these cookies. But then I realized I was 01:30:17.369 --> 01:30:22.175 probably attributing to our excessive waistlines or, you know, I was 01:30:22.208 --> 01:30:25.656 indulging, we were indulging too much in cookies or whatever. And so I 01:30:25.689 --> 01:30:30.116 felt like I wasn't helping, I was hurting. And so, um switching nutrition 01:30:30.149 --> 01:30:33.476 makes me feel like I'm doing good for the world by inspiring other people 01:30:33.509 --> 01:30:37.996 hopefully to eat healthily and also like help make it normal. I think 01:30:38.029 --> 01:30:42.756 that's something that in general is hard, even if you are someone who's 01:30:42.789 --> 01:30:46.256 trying to take care of yourself, you might be in a culture of people or 01:30:46.289 --> 01:30:49.765 whoever your people are. Um maybe not interested in doing that because 01:30:49.798 --> 01:30:52.265 they're younger and they don't have to, they're not on medicine or they're 01:30:52.298 --> 01:30:56.976 not sick yet or whatever. Um It's really hard to be healthy if you have 01:30:57.009 --> 01:31:00.696 friends and family that aren't who, that's not their, their choice, that's 01:31:00.729 --> 01:31:05.036 not their health, their lifestyle habits. And so, um, hopefully I'm 01:31:05.069 --> 01:31:10.206 encouraging people to be healthy and happy and um, invest in themselves 01:31:10.239 --> 01:31:14.595 and in the food that they eat. But, um, I think that's what motivates me 01:31:14.628 --> 01:31:18.726 to stay here. For sure. Tell me about, um, let's talk a little bit about 01:31:18.759 --> 01:31:22.286 food justice and what, what do you think is important to the future of 01:31:22.319 --> 01:31:28.237 food justice that may not be on your questions? It is OK, good. Um I think 01:31:28.270 --> 01:31:33.656 food justice um comes back to valuing people giving people workable wages 01:31:33.689 --> 01:31:39.265 , um especially people who are working hard doing manual labor things you 01:31:39.298 --> 01:31:47.298 would never want to do, you should pay those people, right? Um I um so I 01:31:47.659 --> 01:31:51.376 think food justice comes back to that just valuing people and, and value 01:31:51.409 --> 01:31:56.015 again, valuing food, but more importantly, valuing people for what they 01:31:56.048 --> 01:31:59.156 provide for you. I don't know that there necessarily should be much of a 01:31:59.189 --> 01:32:02.996 difference of someone who's an athlete who provides you entertainment 01:32:03.029 --> 01:32:05.055 versus 01:32:05.088 --> 01:32:07.857 arguably there probably should be a difference, but I don't think our 01:32:07.890 --> 01:32:12.576 worlds are gonna go that way. Um Or even someone who's an engineer who 01:32:12.609 --> 01:32:16.357 develops technology that makes your life easier. Um But what about this, 01:32:16.390 --> 01:32:20.546 these basic needs that you have, which is few food, fiber and fuel. Um 01:32:20.579 --> 01:32:26.817 What about those people who work in the sun? It is hot here. If, if, if 01:32:26.850 --> 01:32:29.916 they're working in the summer months too, or even when it's cold outside, 01:32:29.949 --> 01:32:32.095 like they're, and they're working hard doing things you would never want 01:32:32.128 --> 01:32:38.876 to do. Like I said, um, so to me, food justice means valuing those people. 01:32:38.909 --> 01:32:42.527 Ok. So I have one more question to go back a little bit about that first 01:32:42.560 --> 01:32:48.256 internship, you said at the Phoenix Market. Yes. Can you tell me what um 01:32:48.289 --> 01:32:51.845 that internship, not the internship, but talk about the program itself 01:32:51.878 --> 01:32:57.555 that you were part of that was at the Phoenix market? Oh, so it wasn't 01:32:57.588 --> 01:33:02.536 really a program. I don't think when I was there anyway, um maybe it 01:33:02.569 --> 01:33:06.357 turned into more of a program but it was, we had a list of pre-approved 01:33:06.390 --> 01:33:09.987 sites from our community, our community nutrition class that we could go 01:33:10.020 --> 01:33:13.076 and spend 12 hours at. And there was like contact information, you set it 01:33:13.109 --> 01:33:17.357 up as a student and you just experienced whatever it is that that 01:33:17.390 --> 01:33:23.246 community place offered. Um And so I believe Cindy was my contact. And so 01:33:23.279 --> 01:33:26.826 I contacted her, let her know what I was like, who I was and that I was 01:33:26.859 --> 01:33:31.765 interested in, in helping volunteering. What can I do? Very helpful. 01:33:31.798 --> 01:33:36.527 Please let me volunteer with you kind of a thing. And um so she took me on 01:33:36.560 --> 01:33:41.967 , I ended up staying. Um but so the program was really with the school and 01:33:42.000 --> 01:33:46.826 kind of a in informal contract if you will, with, with these different 01:33:46.859 --> 01:33:49.425 community sites, it was kind of like if a student was interested in 01:33:49.458 --> 01:33:52.885 working at that site, they would contact you, they would fulfill their 12 01:33:52.918 --> 01:33:57.385 hours. Um Someone like Cindy would sign off on those 12 hours and then you 01:33:57.418 --> 01:34:01.376 would never see the student again. I just really liked the market and 01:34:01.409 --> 01:34:04.135 wanted to help Cindy. So I stayed there. So let's talk about the market 01:34:04.168 --> 01:34:10.976 and what that was. Yeah, tell me what that was. So in Arizona, um we have 01:34:11.009 --> 01:34:16.175 a few farmers markets. Um We keep getting more. Um But farmers markets are 01:34:16.208 --> 01:34:21.376 places where, so Cindy was our market manager at Phoenix Polar Market. She 01:34:21.409 --> 01:34:28.006 worked with a nonprofit called Community Connections and um 01:34:28.039 --> 01:34:33.006 her role there was to bring vendors. So vendors would pay a certain amount 01:34:33.039 --> 01:34:36.866 of money to be able to vend their weekly. Um We had a Wednesday and a 01:34:36.899 --> 01:34:42.156 Saturday market. Um You also could pay for tents and tables and chairs or 01:34:42.189 --> 01:34:44.756 you could provide your own, which I think most vendors brought their own, 01:34:44.789 --> 01:34:49.086 especially if they were marketing a lot. Um We had produce vendors, Cindy 01:34:49.119 --> 01:34:52.086 worked really hard to make sure there was enough food there to keep people 01:34:52.119 --> 01:34:56.067 coming. Um So we had anything from ready to eat foods, like hot and ready 01:34:56.100 --> 01:34:59.036 to eat foods to like we had coffee vendors who would come and set up like 01:34:59.069 --> 01:35:02.635 a little coffee bistro thing there because who doesn't want coffee first 01:35:02.668 --> 01:35:06.487 thing while they are running the market. Um We had crafts, um we had 01:35:06.520 --> 01:35:13.796 people who make soap, um people who made things like bread, jewelry, um 01:35:13.829 --> 01:35:19.555 art. She would also have like a local musician come in and we had food 01:35:19.588 --> 01:35:24.515 trucks. So it was just kind of like this fun environment around food where 01:35:24.548 --> 01:35:27.496 you could do your grocery shopping or you could just come and have 01:35:27.529 --> 01:35:32.476 breakfast or you come and buy a gift or something like that. Um And I 01:35:32.509 --> 01:35:36.156 think Cindy was really good at what she she does. So you said you were 01:35:36.189 --> 01:35:40.666 able to use this snap card? Yes. So tell me about that and how you would 01:35:40.699 --> 01:35:43.006 entice 01:35:43.039 --> 01:35:47.046 people on a lower income to come to the market to purchase. That's a good 01:35:47.079 --> 01:35:52.305 point. We have, um, we have a, well, we used to have someone who would 01:35:52.338 --> 01:35:56.555 train certain producers for Wic and Farmers Market nutrition program 01:35:56.588 --> 01:36:01.305 vouchers. So there are certain funds that then allow people with E BT 01:36:01.338 --> 01:36:05.836 cards or those vouchers to then spend money on fresh produce at markets. 01:36:05.869 --> 01:36:09.226 Um 01:36:09.259 --> 01:36:15.107 We don't yet. I think some farmers might have offered a discount to those 01:36:15.140 --> 01:36:18.737 vendors if they had like a voucher, but it really just allowed you to 01:36:18.770 --> 01:36:22.437 spend your money, um, at a farmer's market, it did not necessarily give 01:36:22.470 --> 01:36:25.845 you a discount as someone of lower income buying at a farmer's market. And 01:36:25.878 --> 01:36:28.385 if you ever shopped at a farmer's market, you know that the prices are not 01:36:28.418 --> 01:36:35.345 always uh cheap. And so something that we haven't been successful in, in 01:36:35.378 --> 01:36:38.925 Arizona is something called like double, double up food Bucks, which then 01:36:38.958 --> 01:36:45.425 provides an additional kind of um what's the word, some sort of assistance 01:36:45.458 --> 01:36:51.135 to provide a lower rate uh for things like fresh fruits and vegetables to 01:36:51.168 --> 01:36:57.527 participants of some sort of assistance program. What is that called? 01:36:57.560 --> 01:36:59.635 Uh 01:36:59.668 --> 01:37:03.496 I can't remember the word that people still come to the farmers market and 01:37:03.529 --> 01:37:10.006 use. It's mostly for people who are not of low income status, for some 01:37:10.039 --> 01:37:12.925 people who do shop there. I think it's more of the convenience that it's 01:37:12.958 --> 01:37:17.595 their neighborhood right there. Um But because those items are expensive, 01:37:17.628 --> 01:37:21.717 um, you don't see too many people shopping there with their, with their E 01:37:21.750 --> 01:37:26.456 BT cards. We did see some but not always. Um which is something in general 01:37:26.489 --> 01:37:32.046 , the community of food justice, the food justice people or the local food 01:37:32.079 --> 01:37:37.086 people are really concerned about and something that we are hoping we can 01:37:37.119 --> 01:37:42.996 make a difference in, but it is certainly not enough. Um because we don't 01:37:43.029 --> 01:37:47.397 have some sort of program to help make that cheaper for those people. Um 01:37:47.430 --> 01:37:50.805 It is difficult to incentivize them to come to the market for obvious 01:37:50.838 --> 01:37:56.817 reasons. I think probably the reason that someone would go to a farmer's 01:37:56.850 --> 01:38:00.305 market or choose to go to farmer's market, um is maybe a relationship with 01:38:00.338 --> 01:38:04.826 a producer who might give you a discount, um, or, um, especially if it's 01:38:04.859 --> 01:38:08.126 like, maybe not like the top item, like I said, like the ugly, the ugly 01:38:08.159 --> 01:38:11.487 carrot. Like, you will sell me your ugly carrot for less or, or what have 01:38:11.520 --> 01:38:14.546 you, you can kind of barter and negotiate if you have a relationship in 01:38:14.579 --> 01:38:18.546 that way, which is kind of a neat thing about a farmers market. Um, but 01:38:18.579 --> 01:38:22.305 mostly just that I don't have to find a car or take a bus and that adds 01:38:22.338 --> 01:38:27.140 time and money on to my shopping trip outside of having actually, and 01:38:27.173 --> 01:38:30.211 spend time at a, at a grocery store. So it's probably the people who live 01:38:30.244 --> 01:38:35.022 right there downtown that you would see coming to spend their E BT money. 01:38:35.055 --> 01:38:40.342 OK. So can you talk a little bit about um what you would like um the food 01:38:40.375 --> 01:38:44.487 system in Phoenix to look like in 2040. 01:38:44.520 --> 01:38:49.796 That's such a grandiose question. So 01:38:49.829 --> 01:38:54.086 I think, and just kind of generically, I think that it would be nice to 01:38:54.119 --> 01:38:59.385 see more people valuing the food producers in the area by supporting them 01:38:59.418 --> 01:39:05.826 and investing in them. Um But also valuing the valuing healthy foods over 01:39:05.859 --> 01:39:10.467 less healthy foods or valuing healthy components of the community over 01:39:10.500 --> 01:39:16.786 less healthy components of the community. Um We talk about deserts in some 01:39:16.819 --> 01:39:22.916 areas. It would be nice to see um grocery stores or farmers markets or 01:39:22.949 --> 01:39:28.196 farm stands or what have you in areas of low access to fresh fruits and 01:39:28.229 --> 01:39:32.196 vegetables and things like that. Um But in general, I think it would be 01:39:32.229 --> 01:39:39.706 nice to see a food system that respects values and utilizes and invests in 01:39:39.739 --> 01:39:46.546 its its people and that includes the people who produce food. Why is that 01:39:46.579 --> 01:39:52.357 so important? And what don't people get about that? I don't, I think 01:39:52.390 --> 01:39:57.976 people and I, I am this way at times too motivated by price. I mean, 01:39:58.009 --> 01:40:01.027 you're used to living a certain way or you would like to live a certain 01:40:01.060 --> 01:40:06.756 way because that is successful or comfortable or what have you. Um And so 01:40:06.789 --> 01:40:11.937 that means you cut corners in some areas to make room for more luxurious 01:40:11.970 --> 01:40:19.970 accommodations. Um And so when you value food is just that food, you don't 01:40:20.000 --> 01:40:23.286 necessarily need to feel connected in one way or another. Like all you 01:40:23.319 --> 01:40:28.237 care is that you're satisfying your hunger or, or possibly your desire to 01:40:28.270 --> 01:40:32.067 eat something delicious um that you don't have to prepare or something 01:40:32.100 --> 01:40:37.885 convenient or whatever. Um You tend to look for what the best price is 01:40:37.918 --> 01:40:43.437 going to be instead of what your best value is going to be. Um And so I 01:40:43.470 --> 01:40:50.277 think that's something that people don't get is um well, even too, I don't 01:40:50.310 --> 01:40:52.786 think people understand from a nutrition perspective that people 01:40:52.819 --> 01:40:58.135 understand that what you, what you choose to fuel your body with um is 01:40:58.168 --> 01:41:02.996 going to impact your health down the road if not directly um, some people 01:41:03.029 --> 01:41:07.496 struggle with disorders to where they see that impact regularly, whether 01:41:07.529 --> 01:41:13.217 they have celiac disease or diabetes or whatever. And they can see that 01:41:13.250 --> 01:41:17.055 their decisions relatively quickly depending on how they're managing that 01:41:17.088 --> 01:41:21.765 disease. Whereas healthier people who maybe don't have an illness or they 01:41:21.798 --> 01:41:24.696 don't go to the doctor, so they don't, maybe know what their illness may 01:41:24.729 --> 01:41:28.536 be. The same could be with high blood pressure and all of that. Um You 01:41:28.569 --> 01:41:32.055 don't see the direct impact in instantaneously. I think we're a society of 01:41:32.088 --> 01:41:36.916 instant gratification. I want change to happen right now. I'm guilty of 01:41:36.949 --> 01:41:42.826 that too. Um And so when you're not being a good steward of your body or 01:41:42.859 --> 01:41:47.546 maybe even if your community, um you don't see the impacts or of the 01:41:47.579 --> 01:41:52.175 choices that you make until sometimes it's too late while you're in the 01:41:52.208 --> 01:41:57.476 hospital have to take medicine or um so and so that you really liked going 01:41:57.509 --> 01:42:01.756 to or buying from like is now out of business and you see that a lot with 01:42:01.789 --> 01:42:06.376 small businesses is that they don't necessarily make it because so and so 01:42:06.409 --> 01:42:10.296 had it cheaper and they're a larger chain store, possibly and not a 01:42:10.329 --> 01:42:17.446 smaller whatever business. And so um kind of supporting again and 01:42:17.479 --> 01:42:22.015 investing in your neighbors and um making sure that they can stay afloat 01:42:22.048 --> 01:42:27.126 is I think important, but that comes from like a people perspective and 01:42:27.159 --> 01:42:31.967 needing, needing people in your life and needing that connection. Um But I 01:42:32.000 --> 01:42:38.296 think we, we tend in general to think almost selfishly. I need to take 01:42:38.329 --> 01:42:42.527 care of me, you know, and my choices are only going to impact me. But the 01:42:42.560 --> 01:42:49.817 reality is that your choices have a long term effect on everyone. So, do 01:42:49.850 --> 01:42:52.765 you have any final closing thoughts? Anything? I anything I didn't cover 01:42:52.798 --> 01:42:56.107 that you would like to discuss, 01:42:56.140 --> 01:43:00.166 you have a question about policy, which I wasn't necessarily going to say 01:43:00.199 --> 01:43:05.046 anything about, but I actually went to is youth sustainability. Um Because 01:43:05.079 --> 01:43:07.156 I'm a nerd, people are like, what are you doing tonight? You're like, I'm 01:43:07.189 --> 01:43:10.826 skipping the gym because I'm going to go to a lecture. 01:43:10.859 --> 01:43:14.496 They had a documentary called Just Eat It. So it was about food waste and 01:43:14.529 --> 01:43:19.135 more, more call to action on the consumer level to eat what you buy and 01:43:19.168 --> 01:43:21.897 kind of value what you buy and don't buy something you're not going to eat 01:43:21.930 --> 01:43:25.626 or don't take more than you're going to eat and waste it because the 01:43:25.659 --> 01:43:31.857 impacts are beyond you. Um And so because of my role at department, 01:43:31.890 --> 01:43:37.237 there's not a whole lot I can do in terms of policy advocacy or policy 01:43:37.270 --> 01:43:41.107 change. I kind of just steer clear from it. I know what rules and I'm just 01:43:41.140 --> 01:43:45.265 like, I just don't, in a lot of ways, I think policy is just something 01:43:45.298 --> 01:43:48.586 that's written on a piece of paper and it's not necessarily enforced. And 01:43:48.619 --> 01:43:51.687 so in some ways I'm like, oh, we work so hard on policy but like at the 01:43:51.720 --> 01:43:55.916 end of the day, people do whatever they want anyway. Um But after that 01:43:55.949 --> 01:44:01.487 documentary, I realized we got into a conversation about, um city of Tempe 01:44:01.520 --> 01:44:06.277 was talking about maybe, maybe developing a compost program in addition to 01:44:06.310 --> 01:44:10.305 recycling and trash. And that's something that San Francisco does. And 01:44:10.338 --> 01:44:12.956 I've always thought that was kind of neat. Like I would be way more 01:44:12.989 --> 01:44:16.737 inclined to compost if someone would take care of the compost part for me 01:44:16.770 --> 01:44:20.567 because I don't want smelly stuff in my backyard. And what if I do it 01:44:20.600 --> 01:44:23.885 wrong? I have to have the right combination of, like, carbon and 01:44:23.918 --> 01:44:27.607 phosphorus and like, ah, what if I don't do it? Right. And I think it's 01:44:27.640 --> 01:44:31.885 probably not that complicated. Um, but it's certainly uncomfortable if 01:44:31.918 --> 01:44:35.467 you're unfamiliar with it. And so, in some ways I'm like, that's a good 01:44:35.500 --> 01:44:40.656 idea, incentivizing, changing a policy within a city government to say 01:44:40.689 --> 01:44:44.607 we're gonna, we're gonna add composting to something that we do on top of 01:44:44.640 --> 01:44:50.116 trash and recycle. Um, and some other policies that I think so. I think 01:44:50.149 --> 01:44:55.046 sometimes it's policy can be smart to where it incentivizes someone to 01:44:55.079 --> 01:45:00.916 change, um, as opposed to and making it like something you can choose to 01:45:00.949 --> 01:45:03.765 do, but not, maybe required to do because I think when you require 01:45:03.798 --> 01:45:07.546 something that not everyone agreed on, there's a lot of backlash and, um, 01:45:07.579 --> 01:45:10.647 who needs more drama. 01:45:10.680 --> 01:45:14.536 Um But the same thing with businesses to kind of incentivizing businesses 01:45:14.569 --> 01:45:19.015 to change to or, or, or we talk about local wellness policies at schools, 01:45:19.048 --> 01:45:23.317 um incentivizing change to happen by making it more something that is 01:45:23.350 --> 01:45:30.006 allowable or normal as opposed to required. So that's all I was going to 01:45:30.039 --> 01:45:33.897 say about that. Ok. Anything else that you'd like to cover? No. All right. 01:45:33.930 --> 01:45:38.515 Well, thank you very much. It was great. 01:45:38.548 --> 01:45:42.567 This is a continuation of our interview on August 28th. You were telling 01:45:42.600 --> 01:45:47.126 me about the gardens on Central. Yes. So, um some of our smaller producers 01:45:47.159 --> 01:45:51.345 actually really interesting their stories. Um One of one in particular is 01:45:51.378 --> 01:45:55.147 our International Rescue Committee. They've kind of banned all of their uh 01:45:55.180 --> 01:46:00.357 international farmers together and called them. They call themselves the 01:46:00.390 --> 01:46:07.546 uh hila blanking now, Hela Cooper or he co op or something like that. But 01:46:07.579 --> 01:46:11.726 they are RRC producers and they come from different countries of various 01:46:11.759 --> 01:46:15.897 backgrounds and they grow really unique products that um grow really well 01:46:15.930 --> 01:46:20.076 in our climate here, which is fascinating. Um And awesome to see. And I 01:46:20.109 --> 01:46:23.805 really encourage them or this cooper to sell to our schools in the 01:46:23.838 --> 01:46:29.226 capacity of our, our fresh produce, our fresh Fruit and Vegetable Grant 01:46:29.259 --> 01:46:32.897 program. Um because that's a taste experience program, there's a little 01:46:32.930 --> 01:46:38.036 bit extra money to spend on specialized items. Um And what better way to 01:46:38.069 --> 01:46:41.046 teach kids about fruits and vegetables. But things that they would never 01:46:41.079 --> 01:46:45.845 see in the grocery store or at home just because you can't access it at 01:46:45.878 --> 01:46:50.647 the grocery store at home. Um, things like Persian cucumbers, which 01:46:50.680 --> 01:46:56.336 they're huge. It's about this big in diameter I'd say. And, um, if you 01:46:56.369 --> 01:47:00.876 were to, it kind of is kind of kinky and it looks like a snake almost. And 01:47:00.909 --> 01:47:06.156 it has these huge ribbons of dark green and light green stripes. Um, so 01:47:06.189 --> 01:47:10.616 they're growing like unique things like that. And those are the places too 01:47:10.649 --> 01:47:14.296 where you'll see things like Amarin being growing and native, native crops 01:47:14.329 --> 01:47:18.506 being grown um outside of um things that you could get at the grocery 01:47:18.539 --> 01:47:22.476 store. And so um what's fascinating about that is not only that, that is a 01:47:22.509 --> 01:47:27.226 great opportunity to buy local in schools but also to support a community 01:47:27.259 --> 01:47:33.196 of um producers who come from different countries um and keep their, their 01:47:33.229 --> 01:47:39.746 , their business or their cooper afloat, which, which is awesome. 01:47:39.779 --> 01:47:44.616 Do you have any other programs that you wanna share about that? 01:47:44.649 --> 01:47:51.135 Um What do you think are unique or creative? Now? I just wanna make sure 01:47:51.168 --> 01:47:58.406 it's so let's talk a little bit about the healthy harvest um project. So, 01:47:58.439 --> 01:48:01.687 something that a lot of states do for farm to school development is to 01:48:01.720 --> 01:48:06.937 encourage food service to buy locally. They do that by um providing 01:48:06.970 --> 01:48:12.095 procurement incentives in some way. Um or focal points, procurement, focal 01:48:12.128 --> 01:48:15.996 points for schools by um developing marketing materials and family 01:48:16.029 --> 01:48:20.555 newsletters that coincide with the growing season of a particular area. Um 01:48:20.588 --> 01:48:23.446 Sometimes you see that coming from like a state department like ourselves 01:48:23.479 --> 01:48:25.786 or you see that coming from a nonprofit that kind of service the whole 01:48:25.819 --> 01:48:32.015 state or just a region of a state. Um It started in California, but the 01:48:32.048 --> 01:48:36.296 idea is that once a month you pick a fruit or vegetable to focus on. 01:48:36.329 --> 01:48:39.897 There's a lot of nutrition and agricultural facts that coincide with that 01:48:39.930 --> 01:48:44.506 item to help kind of bridge the gap of where your food comes from. Um It's 01:48:44.539 --> 01:48:47.687 great for food service because marketing materials are already developed. 01:48:47.720 --> 01:48:51.006 That's something that food service does not have to invest any resources 01:48:51.039 --> 01:48:56.345 in outside of possibly printing it. Um They put that in their um cafeteria 01:48:56.378 --> 01:48:59.147 along with whatever they just choose to menu for that month. They 01:48:59.180 --> 01:49:03.256 highlight it as a special item. Kids get really pumped about it. They 01:49:03.289 --> 01:49:07.206 provide family newsletters that are part of this program back to um 01:49:07.239 --> 01:49:10.555 parents that parents know about it and parents are really psyched about 01:49:10.588 --> 01:49:14.226 food service. Um And often in some cases too, there are some classroom 01:49:14.259 --> 01:49:17.777 material components, something for the teacher to then um correlate 01:49:17.810 --> 01:49:21.857 whatever is happening in the cafeteria or growing in that area um back 01:49:21.890 --> 01:49:25.336 into the classroom and whatever concepts are being learned there. And so 01:49:25.369 --> 01:49:29.777 um we did a pilot project earlier this year with Tempe school district 01:49:29.810 --> 01:49:34.916 where we created um we actually, it was our way of our way at the 01:49:34.949 --> 01:49:38.876 department, helping schools or hopefully helping schools create marketing 01:49:38.909 --> 01:49:41.756 materials that they don't have time to create, but also helping them to 01:49:41.789 --> 01:49:45.277 focus on our vegetable subgroups of the National School lunch program. So 01:49:45.310 --> 01:49:48.376 we chose to focus on vegetables, which is perfect because we grow a lot of 01:49:48.409 --> 01:49:52.666 vegetables here and not a whole lot of fruit. And uh we wanted to focus on 01:49:52.699 --> 01:49:56.826 three main subcategories of the National school lunch program, dark red 01:49:56.859 --> 01:50:01.635 orange vegetables, dark green vegetables and then legumes or bean and pea 01:50:01.668 --> 01:50:05.187 vegetables. The other two categories are other and starchy. So starchy are 01:50:05.220 --> 01:50:10.527 things like corn and potatoes. Um regular potatoes because sweet potatoes 01:50:10.560 --> 01:50:14.086 are considered an orange vegetable. Um but then the other is where things 01:50:14.119 --> 01:50:18.916 like asparagus and red beets and like no bok choy is are green, um like 01:50:18.949 --> 01:50:22.286 green beans end up like the other is kind of like the misfits that don't 01:50:22.319 --> 01:50:27.217 fit into the other categories. So, um anyway, because dark green, dark red 01:50:27.250 --> 01:50:30.246 orange and the bean and pea categories are a struggle point for food 01:50:30.279 --> 01:50:34.546 service to get kids to eat. We thought let's try developing marketing 01:50:34.579 --> 01:50:39.265 materials and special menu items that will get kids excited about the 01:50:39.298 --> 01:50:43.286 specialness of these vegetables. And so we, we developed these marketing 01:50:43.319 --> 01:50:46.616 materials in partnership with Arizona Department of Health Services. Um 01:50:46.649 --> 01:50:51.476 They had a dietitian on staff, they had a Spanish translator on staff and 01:50:51.509 --> 01:50:57.345 um we use, we ended up using both the Arizona Department of Education's um 01:50:57.378 --> 01:51:01.366 graphic design artist, but then also the graphic design artist of, of 01:51:01.399 --> 01:51:05.527 Department of Health. Um just because there was a lot of work to go in 01:51:05.560 --> 01:51:09.567 building these materials and everyone is busy. So we just kind of divided 01:51:09.600 --> 01:51:13.756 projects and, and we got it done. So I mean, it took like six months to 01:51:13.789 --> 01:51:17.437 develop those materials which I way underestimated I was like, so I'll 01:51:17.470 --> 01:51:20.015 just write these things up really quickly and know there's so many 01:51:20.048 --> 01:51:23.857 approvals and everything that we had to get through. But in the long run, 01:51:23.890 --> 01:51:27.456 it was um they, they're beautiful items. I'm really happy that we were 01:51:27.489 --> 01:51:31.385 able to do it. It was something I wanted to do for years. And I'm, we find 01:51:31.418 --> 01:51:34.527 out later this in September if we get to expand that program with some 01:51:34.560 --> 01:51:41.027 grant funds, but we have four categories. We picked five items. Only four 01:51:41.060 --> 01:51:44.626 of them are complete. There's 1/5 item of that. We kind of because with 01:51:44.659 --> 01:51:49.425 the national school lunch program subcategories, um beans are considered a 01:51:49.458 --> 01:51:54.967 vegetable or a meat alternative. And in years prior in lots of USDA 01:51:55.000 --> 01:51:59.546 marketing and nutrition education that um beans were only considered a 01:51:59.579 --> 01:52:04.635 meat alternative for years. And so there was no um we weren't going to, 01:52:04.668 --> 01:52:10.046 there was no pre existing material to look at on how to talk about beans 01:52:10.079 --> 01:52:14.437 as a vegetable like pinto beans or garbanzo beans or something like that. 01:52:14.470 --> 01:52:18.756 And so we decided the Department of Ed decided that we were going to do 01:52:18.789 --> 01:52:21.647 everything. But the family newsletter for that, the family newsletter was 01:52:21.680 --> 01:52:26.616 our most content heavy piece or item that we created out of this series. 01:52:26.649 --> 01:52:31.885 We created um posters for the cafeteria. We created a family newsletter 01:52:31.918 --> 01:52:37.586 and we created a banner and each banner um that's probably 5 ft tall, 01:52:37.619 --> 01:52:42.626 let's say um was just a big, a big item that could be moved around in the 01:52:42.659 --> 01:52:46.437 cafeteria, which is important for food service. Um That then just talked 01:52:46.470 --> 01:52:50.845 in general about each of those categories. So we had a dark green one, a 01:52:50.878 --> 01:52:55.305 bean and pea one and a dark red orange one. And it really just gave why 01:52:55.338 --> 01:52:59.817 it's important to eat from this category. Um Some pictures of some common 01:52:59.850 --> 01:53:03.696 ones that you might see, they had a calendar of Arizona's growing season 01:53:03.729 --> 01:53:09.937 of this particular color of vegetables and just some, it was just really 01:53:09.970 --> 01:53:12.817 nice to look at something that would really grab someone's attention if 01:53:12.850 --> 01:53:15.946 they were going through the lunch line. And then we had little posters for 01:53:15.979 --> 01:53:20.506 each particular item that we chose to focus on for the pilot. Um So we 01:53:20.539 --> 01:53:28.446 focused on winter squash in January, um spinach in February, broccoli in 01:53:28.479 --> 01:53:33.416 March and then carrots in April and then beans in in May. So for the whole 01:53:33.449 --> 01:53:38.527 spring semester, we focused on one item throughout the month and, uh, they 01:53:38.560 --> 01:53:43.076 , we offered it once a week throughout Tempe school district at three 01:53:43.109 --> 01:53:46.437 different. Well, we offered it many, many wide or district wide, they have 01:53:46.470 --> 01:53:50.967 about 20 sites and then we went out and did some, some observational 01:53:51.000 --> 01:53:55.765 studies and coincide with production records from, from food service. What 01:53:55.798 --> 01:53:59.456 so they mark on these production records, what they produce, what's being 01:53:59.489 --> 01:54:02.687 served and what's left over. And then we compared that against what we saw 01:54:02.720 --> 01:54:06.987 in the cafeteria, which was kind of intimidating to like, go and watch 01:54:07.020 --> 01:54:09.717 kids eat food because of course, they're curious and they totally know 01:54:09.750 --> 01:54:12.416 that you're there for that reason. After a while, they're like, you're 01:54:12.449 --> 01:54:16.546 going to watch me eat something and we try to be discreet about it, but it 01:54:16.579 --> 01:54:19.746 did not work for a while. We try to be just like extra aids in the 01:54:19.779 --> 01:54:24.746 cafeteria. But after a while the kids are pretty smart, they're like, what 01:54:24.779 --> 01:54:30.946 are you watching me eat today? And we're like just your spinach salad. 01:54:30.979 --> 01:54:35.397 Um, so anyway, we created that program which is, it's not, I wouldn't say 01:54:35.430 --> 01:54:39.576 it's creative or innovative per se. Um, because other states have done it 01:54:39.609 --> 01:54:43.067 too. But what's different about our program compared to other programs is 01:54:43.100 --> 01:54:48.376 that we chose to focus on vegetables that directly in that are directly, 01:54:48.409 --> 01:54:52.696 um, from the National School Lunch program and that we only focused on 01:54:52.729 --> 01:54:55.786 vegetables and not also fruits. But I mean, I think it would have looked 01:54:55.819 --> 01:54:59.647 similar if we hadn't really particularly thought about that because we're 01:54:59.680 --> 01:55:03.487 such a vegetable heavy state. Why was it important to connect the dots of 01:55:03.520 --> 01:55:08.987 doing the newsletter and like having the um the from the cooking to the 01:55:09.020 --> 01:55:12.586 Children, to the families, to the administration? Why, why was connecting 01:55:12.619 --> 01:55:16.885 all those dots critical? So connecting all the dots are super important 01:55:16.918 --> 01:55:20.467 and they be important outside of primary school too is just that those 01:55:20.500 --> 01:55:26.647 departments within a school are not always known for um communicating well 01:55:26.680 --> 01:55:31.067 with one another. Often cafeteria is very siloed from classroom and 01:55:31.100 --> 01:55:35.256 sometimes even administration is kind of siloed from the other two. Um So 01:55:35.289 --> 01:55:37.675 it's really important when you're doing something like farm to school, 01:55:37.708 --> 01:55:41.796 which is benefit to the entire school community to let parents know that 01:55:41.829 --> 01:55:45.496 this is what's happening in the cafeteria. It brings a connection point 01:55:45.529 --> 01:55:50.175 from parents and teachers and students that the cafeteria is doing 01:55:50.208 --> 01:55:53.857 something really great and different and this is why we're doing it and 01:55:53.890 --> 01:55:57.656 this is what we're doing. Um It's important to have marketing materials in 01:55:57.689 --> 01:56:01.046 the cafeterias that you remember that today is the day we're surfing 01:56:01.079 --> 01:56:06.027 butternut squash. Um And it's really important for administration to be on 01:56:06.060 --> 01:56:10.746 board too because they obviously want to serve a really great program in 01:56:10.779 --> 01:56:14.336 all of their schools. And the better conducted, all of those departments 01:56:14.369 --> 01:56:17.726 are the stronger that program is going to be. And the I think just in 01:56:17.759 --> 01:56:20.095 general, the happier everyone is going to be because everyone is on the 01:56:20.128 --> 01:56:24.046 same page at that point. So, so let's talk a little bit about the farm to 01:56:24.079 --> 01:56:30.296 preschool. So farm to preschool is a relatively new, new uh era of pharm 01:56:30.329 --> 01:56:33.706 to school. I'd say for a long time. And this happens, I think too in 01:56:33.739 --> 01:56:38.076 general with like national school lunch program. Um 01:56:38.109 --> 01:56:42.515 we, we saw changes of the national school lunch nutrition requirements 01:56:42.548 --> 01:56:46.546 change 10 years ago in 2010 with the healthy younger Free Kids Act. Um but 01:56:46.579 --> 01:56:50.786 we didn't see similar changes with our our child and adult care program. 01:56:50.819 --> 01:56:54.175 Um So they kind of got like this second like, oh ok, this works. So let's 01:56:54.208 --> 01:56:57.876 try, you know, working with our younger kids, which is so interesting 01:56:57.909 --> 01:57:03.305 because developmentally um 0 to 5 is so important for kids development. 01:57:03.338 --> 01:57:07.546 And so why are we not using things like gardens in their education or 01:57:07.579 --> 01:57:11.717 their learning, sensory learning is super important for those kids. And so 01:57:11.750 --> 01:57:16.366 um it's kind of a growing movement now to to focus beyond K through 12 and 01:57:16.399 --> 01:57:19.817 working with that younger population to understand where their food is 01:57:19.850 --> 01:57:24.107 coming from, but more likely to, but maybe more importantly to get them to 01:57:24.140 --> 01:57:28.586 invest in being more open minded palate wise with their their vegetables. 01:57:28.619 --> 01:57:33.286 Um and to try new things because it is only going to invest in what kind 01:57:33.319 --> 01:57:38.836 of kids or palates. We we, we have adapted when they grow older and, and 01:57:38.869 --> 01:57:44.187 you know, enter elementary school. So um we are beginning those works now 01:57:44.220 --> 01:57:49.696 to, to focus on those um those clients or those kiddos. And uh our 01:57:49.729 --> 01:57:55.416 Maricopa County Health Department is actually doing a focus group with 01:57:55.449 --> 01:58:02.156 homes and centers of who operate uh like a preschool type setting. And uh 01:58:02.189 --> 01:58:05.987 we're talking with owners and we're talking with staff about what is their 01:58:06.020 --> 01:58:09.845 interest or prior knowledge of under preschool and what is their interest 01:58:09.878 --> 01:58:14.015 in implementing and what barriers are, are what would make them hesitant 01:58:14.048 --> 01:58:19.536 to start and how can we help um bridge that gap kind of and so that's 01:58:19.569 --> 01:58:24.876 pretty exciting um news for sure. I, I imagine that many of them will want 01:58:24.909 --> 01:58:30.385 to start gardens, which is fun. Um because like I had mentioned, kids get 01:58:30.418 --> 01:58:33.946 so excited about growing things, but what's also interesting is that 01:58:33.979 --> 01:58:39.107 adults get so excited to watch kids get excited about growing food. So, um 01:58:39.140 --> 01:58:42.746 then everyone's learning together too. So like little kids are so much 01:58:42.779 --> 01:58:49.126 more um adaptable, it seems to a failure, you know, all that failed. It's 01:58:49.159 --> 01:58:52.796 ok, you know, and, and because you're an adult trying to make it ok for a 01:58:52.829 --> 01:58:57.076 little kid, you're almost more, more ok with that failure and like, um 01:58:57.109 --> 01:59:01.527 it's just, it's just trial and error, but I think that everyone's happier 01:59:01.560 --> 01:59:07.175 with that failure than, than maybe in other instances. Ok. Do you have 01:59:07.208 --> 01:59:12.635 anything else? To share that just came to mind 01:59:12.668 --> 01:59:17.635 that we didn't cover any of the programs projects. There is one thing and 01:59:17.668 --> 01:59:21.175 it's not done yet. So I work for that Holy Harvest program. I will 01:59:21.208 --> 01:59:26.135 eventually have a report available that showcases what we've seen. So did 01:59:26.168 --> 01:59:28.897 we see increased consumption or did we not really see much of a difference 01:59:28.930 --> 01:59:35.147 ? Um And I'm also gonna finish right now. We have a school garden map 01:59:35.180 --> 01:59:39.416 which is not innovative or anything but other states have that too. Um, a 01:59:39.449 --> 01:59:42.706 map of where all of our school gardens are in Arizona and that's K through 01:59:42.739 --> 01:59:46.425 12. It doesn't include preschool, but it's, and it's just a Google map at 01:59:46.458 --> 01:59:50.406 this point. I have to justify spending money on something that's better, 01:59:50.439 --> 01:59:55.756 um um more expensive than free. 01:59:55.789 --> 02:00:00.135 But uh we have about 200 school gardens in Arizona. From what, from the 02:00:00.168 --> 02:00:06.095 information we've gathered that is about about 2000 schools in Arizona. So 02:00:06.128 --> 02:00:09.366 it's about 10% of our schools have school gardens, active school gardens. 02:00:09.399 --> 02:00:14.156 We verified that earlier this year. Um 02:00:14.189 --> 02:00:17.357 And we have garden maps so you can see where, where it is. So on our 02:00:17.390 --> 02:00:22.286 website A zed.gov, um You can look at our garden map right now. You can 02:00:22.319 --> 02:00:25.696 only look at gardens in Maricopa County, but Maricopa County and Pima 02:00:25.729 --> 02:00:29.265 County are our most populated counties and that's where most of our 02:00:29.298 --> 02:00:33.187 gardens are located. But we do have some that are more rural or other 02:00:33.220 --> 02:00:36.836 counties. So that's exciting. 02:00:36.869 --> 02:00:39.467 Anything else? 02:00:39.500 --> 02:00:43.449 No. Ok. Thank you.