Gonna be used,
Mrs John England. I'm here with, go ahead and say your name Cindy Gentry.
And today's date is July 17th,
19th July 19th, 2016. And we're here in uh downtown Phoenix uh discussing
the uh dinner 2040 project. Uh So, Cindy, if you could tell me a little
bit about um your early years where you were born and, and when, if you
feel comfortable with that, oh, I was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1951
and grew up in and around the city in the northern suburbs of Skokie. And
when I was a sophomore in high school, my parents moved to Glencoe.
Yeah, I went down state to school to Champaign Havana. Oh, ok, great. Um
Tell me a little bit about your, your schooling and education. Um
I came of a, I was 12 when the civil rights movement happened and um we
lived in kind of a, um, a ghetto about 40% of the people that um came from
um Germany and Eastern Europe that survived the camps, um came to Skokie
and yet it was still, um, mostly Jewish enclave. And so when the first um
African American families moved in, everybody was up in arms. And so I
remember um the, the shift in the community and uh my parents going to
welcome uh a couple of these families, but unfortunately, some of their
neighbors had thrown rocks through their windows and done some other
unwelcoming things. And so there was that kind of pretty normal middle
class life and then um the chance to really start looking at um injustice
and inequity in that way.
So you had sort of a, a civil or, or so your education, a lot of it took
place outside of the school atmosphere is, well, some of the more
memorable I had to go to school and um I had younger brothers and we all
had to do all the things that you're supposed to. My parents were active
in the um PT A and volunteered in the community and um did homework and I
was the only, although oldest um girl and my brothers were smarter than me
and skipped in the grades and stuff and were good in math. Um I was not, I
was good in reading and um the soft sciences, right? Ok. Um What about uh
your um your college education? Uh Maybe you could talk a little bit about
that. What, what your college years were like? Um Again, I got, I went
downstate to the University of Illinois right about the time that the
Vietnam War was heating up um in this case, my, my, um, education was a
lot more out of the classroom than in, than in it. And I spent, um, it, it
was in an engineering school. There was a lot of scientific stuff going on.
There was a lot of war machine stuff going on and, um, the chance to, um
understand that the next generation of people didn't really want to carry
that on and let our voices be heard. So I spent um 17 years getting my
bachelor's degree in sociology and my, I find I stopped and um finally
finished up here at a su OK. So, so you were involved in a lot of uh uh
you were involved politically in, in the community? Wow, that's exciting.
Um So where does, where do you think food plays into that? Maybe you could
talk about um one or some of your f your most fond food memories?
Um
I came from a loud, noisy Jewish family and food was the center of
everything. And that's how the dinners, the, the art, the exchanges of
ideas, the hearing of politics, the friendly and unfriendly arguments, the
really bad jokes, everything kind of centered around um
normal dinner and then celebration dinners and um food was a big part of
how we knew who we were. Ok. So did you have a lot of family like beyond
just your immediate family, like cousins, aunts and uncles? And yeah,
nobody was really scattered in those days. And these days everybody is an
airplane rider too away. But, um, my dad, um, friends that he hung out
with were from the neighborhood where he grew up and my, he had a pretty
good extended family and my mom had, um, she's a little more independent
but she was still kind of not very far away from her, um, parents and, and
so we grew up with cousins and aunts and uncles and it's different today,
I think. Yeah. Yeah, great. So, so during these formative years, um and
while you're getting your education, were you involved in any sustainable
organization or anything to do with the environment?
Hm. I don't think so. I think it had more to do with social justice. I
think we were shown and taught and a, and asked to volunteer uh to help
people who had less um access to what they needed than we did. Um You know
, I lived in the city and then I lived in a suburb where my dad gardened.
Um,
but it was, and then, you know, it wasn't really about the environment at
that time or s or knowing where your food came from, at least in our
household, I became a vegetarian when I was about 15 and shocked the heck
out of everybody. And um and at that time, joined food first, which was
just coming into being and um I don't know if you've ever heard of Frances
Mo Lape? Now, her daughter Anna has taken over. Um, but at that time, they
were starting to talk about, um, eating lower on the food chain so that
people could, uh, more people could get what they needed and learn that
you could get. Just, no, my parents didn't believe this, but you could get
just as much protein from eating rice and beans and cheese as you could
from, um,
from me, my father was first generation American. And so the thing that
you wanted to make sure as a good provider was that you had meat on the
table and potatoes and all that and vegetable. But then not too long after
that, it became clear that we were consuming a lot of resources. Um And by
having that model, ok, so, um, maybe talk a little bit more about why and
you, you made the switch to vegetarianism. Um What, what prompted that? Um
I got a hold of some reading material and it was probably not food first,
but it could have been Mother Earth News. It could have been anything, it
could have been a recipe book, um, died for a small plane. It was big then.
And um, it was sort of like, wow. And I really didn't care for big heavy
meat meals or anything. I mean, I liked it but it was just easy. Um,
nobody else followed suit and I was the cook in the house. Um And so I
still cook whatever, everybody else like to eat. But, um, I didn't eat the
meat part. Ok. Uh, was that more of a, a dietary choice or was it, uh,
sort of a social justice choice or? Yeah, it had to do with understanding
that. Um, there are way too many people, um, starving and we were
consuming in our country way more than our share of the natural resources
available. And part of that had to do with what it took to um produce meat.
Um And it seemed like maybe we could do more with less. Ok. Is that sort
of what started you on the path towards becoming interested in food
sustainability or sustainable food systems? No, I think just noticing from
being a, a little kid that some people um I lived pretty rough and just
understanding that it was um important to try to figure out how to change
that. Ok, great. So you're very cognizant at a young age of social welfare
welfare. That's great. Um So, so what did uh what was the catalyst that
got you interested in in sustainable food systems?
Um
When I was, I already had moved out here and I was trying to find a job in
sustainable food systems. And the only job I could find was with the Food
Bank Association. Um and it turned out to be a wonderful thing to have
happened, but um there wasn't a ASU school of sustainability, there wasn't
um a chapter of food first here, there wasn't local. First, there wasn't
anything, um, that I could find and I looked pretty hard. Um, there
weren't even farmers markets in 1977 7884
and I graduated in a su in 86. And so I guess, um, there weren't even
farmers markets here. And so the idea of, um, well, what could I do to
begin to help? Um,
mm, a people who needed to access food do that better. So I was lucky, I
got a good job with um the Association of Arizona Food Banks. But I came
in there. Um um The director is still a dear friend and was my mentor and
some as were some of the other people there. Um But I came in there with
the idea of, oh, we're doing heroic efforts
to get people through the next 3 to 5 days. But where's the space for what
got them in that fix in the, in the beginning? And um some of the food
banks were more open to addressing that than others. There's a great model
um in Tucson Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona that um in addition
to their emergency
network, they call it, it's a line from Feeding America, which is a
National Food Relief Organization. It's called Feed the Line and Shorten
the line. And so they're working very strongly on shorten the line. Um And
then somewhere in there, my job turned to get out into um, with the
statewide cleaning project to go out into the fields and help recover what
would have been disked under or just thrown away or go to the coolers down
in Casa Grande. Eloy Nogales ya, all that and help, um, that project
rescue food and get it on the tables with hungry people.
And one morning just about first light, I was standing out in the West
Valley talking to a guy and I, oh thank you for, for your donation and he
plants extra to feed the food banks. He don't thank me. I'm not making
enough to take the tax credit. And I'm just thinking, all right, there's
all this food out here. There are all these people hungry
and that guy's not even making a living farming. He is now. But um the
idea is that it is less about lack of food than it is about um
distribution and access. And the light will just switched on like that if
the producers aren't making a living and there's all this food and we
can't get it to where it needs to get to. Um we need to do some shifts.
And so I um spent a couple more years doing that pro program and then
started my own organization called Community Food Connections. And um the
idea was to and still is to increase um food access for vulnerable
Children and adults at the same time as building economic and community
development for um everybody including keeping farmers on the land. Oh,
wow, that's great. Uh That's um So you mentioned that when you came here,
there were no farmers markets. Um Maybe you could talk a little bit about
that. Um Were you involved in farmers' markets before you came here to
Arizona? Um No, but I had seen them around the country. I had a good
privilege of traveling to California, to the northwest, to the east coast
and I had seen them and let's see, 1991 I think the first market started
here. D Logan started the first market um with her husband. Um and I think
it was at Heritage Square. Um And shortly thereafter, Roadrunner at 36th
Street in Cactus and then Mesa, so she's been doing it for a long time. Um
But before that,
I didn't find any, I didn't know about it. I like markets. My, my
grandfather um
didn't finish seventh grade. He came to this country baby. He had to stop
it when he was 12 and help support his family. And I was at some point
rebellious and thinking of um dropping out of high school and he took me
in his Cadillac um down to the Maxwell Street market which is on the west
side of Chicago. And it's this wholesale market. Half the mob has families
there. It was quite a colorful place. And he said, if you don't finish
high school, you're gonna end up down here and the irony was that, you
know, how many years later, 3525
years later, I did end up starting a market and getting involved in
supporting the whole market system in our state with some, uh, federal
programs. And so, um, he was gone by then. He, he died when I was 18, but
it was, it has not stopped me chuckling from time to time. Yeah, that's a
great story. Um, So maybe you could talk a little bit about starting the,
was it the community Food connections? Um How did that come about? Well,
it had to do with talking to that grower and just saying, OK, the Food
Bank Network is heroic. The greening project is um doing some amazing
things. But I really, by that time, the Community Food Security Coalition
had come about in 1996 and I was part of that.
Yeah. Um and I was just getting an itch to go focus on um some other
aspects of food access. And um in 2002, I retired from the Food Bank
Association and started um that organization.
Um and, and we focused on um a Food Policy Council. I had contracts from
different and farm to school. I had contracts from different friends um
here in New Mexico and nationally that kept me afloat until we got the
proper paperwork um in place the 501 C three and then um
brought in with friends programs like the Farmers Market Nutrition Program
and snap at the market's food stamps is what it was called and got some
equipment going for them. And, uh, so that different markets around the
state could begin to process food stamps. And, um, a federal program
called Farmers Market Nutrition Program, which is for low income moms and
kids on work and for seniors, um, we got, we got the first part of that
going, a bunch of us and um then got the idea that um I should start a
public market as kind of a central place for um not only the market,
you know, like building it up to be a seven day week market. Have it be
like a have storage and be like a food hub where food could be aggregated
food could be distributed. It would be a place for local food and we were
on our way to that and I ran into um when you're a nonprofit who's really
in charge is the board of directors and we had a differing opinion in 2012
and when went our different ways. Um But the downtown Phoenix public
market is um part of is what, where that started. And it was meant to
expand into a community kitchen and to have um you know, pick up spaces
for schools and chefs do come there now. Um Still, but it was meant to be
a lot more organized around being a hub for local food.
Wow. So, uh, you mentioned a little bit of opposition, what, what kind of
opposition? Um, or maybe you could just talk about the kinds of opposition
that, that you've encountered in, in setting up these organizations.
Well, oh, my brother, um, is an anthropologist and he decided to go off on
his own somewhere back, um,
in the early two thousands. And he set up an LLC and I said, why, why
didn't you make it a nonprofit? Because then you can write for grants and
do all that. And he said, because, um, I want to
do what I want to do and I don't want to have to worry about a board
trying to direct me or govern me. And I said, oh, that'll never happen.
I've worked for nonprofits for my whole, um, you know, most of my adult
career. And, um, and so of another buddy of mine said, well, just pick who
you want, who you, who you trust with your life to be on your board. And I
said, ok, that makes sense. And that, but those people got tired after a
few years or they moved away or something and then other people came in
and, um, they had different idea of community service. They had a
different, they were called, uh, got burned out. Some of them thought, um
, like there was a little power thing, like they thought I was trying to,
um, do things for my own behalf where I wasn't, I was just trying to share
my experience. Um And so there that that can happen, money troubles can
happen. Um
And at the end of the day,
they said, well, it's gonna be this way or no way and I didn't pop them in
the nose as I should have done or fire them or whatever. Um, there were
only a few left by that time and so that organization and I were, was not
strong enough to, to, um, move on forward. Right. Um And then you're
making healthy food more accessible to lower income families, like
incorporating the snaps into farmers markets and that sort of thing. Did
you encounter any opposition with that? No. Um, is, you know, at the same
time that you're bringing access to people, you're bringing income to
growers. You know, at first I'd hear these little comments from the
farmers and they'd be like, oh, they drive a better car than I do and all
this kind of thing. And I, all right, maybe they have that car today,
maybe it's not even theirs, maybe they borrowed it. And next time you see
them, they might not have it. And then they started thinking about um,
their sister-in-law who was on wick or their other family circumstances
that might have led somebody to be compromised in a little way. And pretty
soon it was like, the most annoying thing was, well, people forget there's
a certain, for part of the program of Farmers Market Nutrition program.
There's a window from March to the end of October and a lot of people
just swamp at the end of October and our produce season is kind of lean at
that time here in the valley. Um So they would gripe about that. But um at
the end of the day, it became like a li for me, it's like a little social
experiment. Markets can help bring people together who not normally
wouldn't be in the same place. Excellent. So, um so that leads into
another question which is how do you build bridges um between other
activists and organizations uh with the goal of, of making food more
accessible.
Um
I think that's the crux of the matter. How do you make it normal for
people to come and use their food benefits at markets and have access? Do
you bring the food to the neighborhoods? Do you make transportation
arrangements? But you have to um find people in the neighborhood that
people, other people look up to that are willing to um kind of lead the
charge. And it's like, well, if Grandma Nelson says this, then we're gonna
do it um because it isn't normal right now, people were using um bribery
um incentive items. If you use your E BT, they call it or um the Farmers
Market Nutrition Program coupons, you'll get a gift at certain markets um
which this office now provides um the, a nonprofit here called Pinnacle
Prevention. Just got a federal grant. Um, it's called Food and Security
Nutrition Incentive Program. And it will match, um, up to $10
A S A purchase with somebody using their snap card at specific markets and
C SAS. It's just starting, there's funding for some of it in, uh Tucson
right now through a different source. And the International Rescue
Committee has the market that I work with. Um that already has matching
dollars through the same federal grant. So we're trying to um in other
parts of the country, it's been wildly successful. Um And I saw it this
morning, I was at the market. Um You use um $10.00 of s of Snapper or FMNP
and you get $10 of food free. So you stretch your food dollars enormously.
So not to skirt the question. It's really tricky and it's really slow and
you have to go where people are and they have to come to trust you. I do
two markets. I work with two groups that do markets in uh at w offices in
low income neighborhoods and it takes a minimum of a year for, for people
to catch on. Um And just think you're not trying to give them that produce.
So you're not trying to the pri you know, there's still this, the prices
are too high at farmers markets. Um It's only for white, middle class. She
people, whatever. Um So there's a lot of perceptions to overcome and,
you know, the verdict is still kind of out for me about whether, like I'd
like to try um a mobile market, like Fresh Express but just do local food
on it and see if um that if people would respond to it. Um But I'm not
sure if they will. Well, that's interesting. Yeah, some, some good ideas.
Um What about, uh, have you tried to incorporate um different or, or, or
rather are there other agencies that are more localized here, sort of
organizations or groups that you've tried to incorporate into, into making
food more accessible? Um I personally work with three right now at the, at
the various markets and then they work with and they work with and expands
out, expands out. Um And I think that having them involved helps you need
to have people that look like you. If you're in a Spanish speaking
neighborhood, you need to be able to speak to the people. Um People need
to feel comfortable. Great. Um So this is a very broad question, you can
answer it however you want. But how do you think this is important for the
future of food?
I think that um
everybody deserves to have access to healthy food and everybody want most
people want to eat healthy and provide healthy food for their Children. Um
I've heard older ladies like look at the market table and oh, where's the
meat? And potatoes. I'll come back when, you know, and it's supposed to be
a giggle. They're just come out and they've had their blood pressure, you
know. So, but I, but I, I think that, um, it has to become normal and
available so that people can change their habits. Everybody didn't always
drink Pepsi Cola, everybody didn't always, um, go to Starbucks for
goodness sake. And it's sort of, some kind of, you can't avoid it. It's
everywhere. It's in the convenience stores, it's in the liquor stores,
whatever. That's where some people buy their food in some areas. Um, and
buy food. We're talking loosely here. But, um, um, slim Jims and whatever.
But, but it's got, there's gotta be AAA shift where people taste, they
remember, um, they know how to basically cook. I was making up printing
out recipes when you came. What do you do with this stuff? Um, oh, I can
do that. It's easy. Um,
and I think that if we want people making healthy food choices, there's
AAA crazy,
about 68% of our population here in Arizona is overweight and some minor,
you know, smaller but not much smaller portion of that wanders into the
range of obesity in 2006. And I realized that's 10 years ago, but it's, um
, a study done by the Department of Health Services. Half of the deaths in
our state had to do with nutrition related disease. They could have been
mitigated by um access to, to better food. Um So if you're thinking about
public health and if you're thinking about um you know, lower insurance
costs for everybody and you're thinking about a cleaner environment that's
less taxing on um whatever contributes to climate change, we should be
making it more possible for people to have healthier food choices, not
just fruits and vegetables, but fruits and vegetables, clean um antibiotic
, free meat because it's been proven that you, if you eat meat, that the
animals that have been treated with antibiotics to make them grow faster
and keep healthy in a herd that your body becomes resistant to the
antibiotics.
Um hormone free because there are um studies showing that little Children
, women, girls that have hormones in their milk are starting their
menstrual cycles earlier, um pesticide free because who knows what the
heck is going on with the things that kill pesticides. And so all of those
things are all connected. And here,
you know, I, I am only been here, I'll be here two years next week is
August 4th.
People have weird ideas. They think that if you're low income, you
shouldn't be buying organic food. They think it's enough to eat vegetables
rather than buy local. And I'm like, this is crazy. You could do two
things at one time. You could buy local food. You could spend the same
amount of money and keep the money here in the community and it, you know
where your food comes from. You're making a choice about it tastes better.
It's picked the day before, you know. And so you want to have more of it.
It should be in our school meals, um, all the time. And at our school
gardens, it's now possible for people to kids to eat what they grow in
their meals. So, so that you're surrounded by healthy choices and it's not
just like food is like this thing that
comes out, you know, it's over processed, it comes out of a bag. You never
feel quite full but you feel um, well salted and, and all that. And so it
, I like ice cream and chips the most is, you know, the next guy. But uh
it's um, I have a choice to, to get those. I don't, I don't eat too much
processed food except pasta because I don't know how to, I haven't sat
down to make it by myself and I buy bread from the store. But the rest of
it, um, rice, I guess we buy rice and bulk beans. But um, people should
have the choice of it and it should be close to them and they shouldn't
have to, um, worry that if they try something new for their kid and the
kid throws it away, they've just put money down the drain that they can't
replace that kind of thing. That, and that's how I think local connects to
making your economy better making your community more connected, making
the environment cleaner and addressing health related disease, nutrition
related disease. Great. Thank you. Yeah, it seems very important then just
all these connections. Um So you've, you've talked a lot about uh working
with other people and organizations and, and you even spoke about um, a
board of uh of directors. Now, when you're working with all those people,
uh how do you decide, um, is, is, or rather how do you create a sort of
list of priorities or which, which food problems do you decide to address
first? Well, I think you have to talk about it. I just had somebody said,
review this policy for the Maricopa County Food System Coalition and they
were gonna be advocates for local food policies. I said, well, how do you
know which ones,
you know, they asked me to comment and I, and I sounds good. How do you
know what, which ones you're gonna have a slew of them? And so you have to
sit down and, and figure out broad categories and then the low hanging
fruit, what can be done here and what can be done here. So there's some
strategic planning involved in it. Um, I'm working with, I was working
with a group in South Phoenix, um, that they're all over the place, their
vision, their charisma, charisma is just fabulous, but it's like I can't
keep up with what they're trying to do and I'm, I told them to call me
when they're ready to do a couple of things. And um I'm working with
another group of farmers right now and we're gonna focus on a couple of
things that we agreed to are the most. Everybody talks and everybody says
this is where I'm coming from. This is what's important to me. Oh, this is
where I'm coming from. It's a little bit different. Let's figure it out.
So it's just a process.
Great. Um So we, we've talked about this a little bit but what do you
think are the biggest challenges to uh creating a sustainable food system
?
Landownership, water access,
most of the growers I know don't own the land they farm on. Um Water is a
big issue. There's some tension between um
use of water for municipal, you know, housing developments and, and
farming and um zoning
for ag lands is uh you know, putting some kind of land into agricultural
production for a long time preservation. So land and water are big. Zoning
is big. Um Where's the next generation of growers gonna come from? It's
hard. Fun is hard, it hurts, it hurts your body, it hurts your mind, it
hurts your pocketbook. Um And yet some people can't be anything but
growers and um ranchers. And so um the next generation of growers and then
getting it to be um a in demand. Um and people wanting it knowing it, it's
like you go to Burlington Vermont and you can't escape it. You walk down
the street and everybody's got um a blackboard in the window. What's on
the menu? And where, what farm it came from? I was just in Madison,
Wisconsin. It's the same. Um at least where I was there. They really
highlighted it here. It's not so much. And then the fourth or fifth piece
is um is policy, it is policy that um state and national policy that
encourages
um local food
distribution, excess consumption and production.
OK. So, so with that in mind, I guess what, what does food sustainability
mean to you
all those pieces that need to be in place? You'd need to have production
capacity, you'd need to have distribution capacity and then you'd need to
have um demand, excess
consumption, prefer ability. Um So it's just of a piece, it has to be able
to be available and then it has to be able to be accessible and then
people have to, to want it and it just keeps going around like that, the
more people want it, the more people are gonna try to make sure that it
happens.
Great. Um
What is dinner 2040?
Um
It seems to be um
a cultural event that um
shows us where we are and where we could be and um involves because of the
people planning it um
local historical context as well as um some kinds of real tangible um
art forms. And I know that the plates and the serving in all the utensils
and stuff to the baroness been integral and putting together. And so
you're gonna get an experience of where we could be and where we hope to
be as a community. Um
24 years from now or whatever it is. And um
and I, I'm not sure then what we have to do to ensure that we get there,
but I hope we figure that part out. Great. Um So why do you think the, the
Dinner 2040 program is important to the community?
Well, because it brings the focus home on, on, on, um,
where we might not be if we don't pay attention for one thing. Um Excuse
me, it, it, I know that there's some tribal folks that have been invited
to be involved and, and I hope that, um it under, it shows the kind of
broad spectrum of people involved in the food system and
people are just gonna have to step up and say if they care, um, enough to
say what could happen in 2040. If we don't pay attention, where's our food
gonna come from? What's it gonna look like? What's gonna happen to our
farmers average age 61 here in our state. Um If we don't
do something now to protect them.
Um So I think for that reason, if that, if they lift that up, I think that
part is important.
Ok. Great. And uh what what do you consider your role to be in, in the, in
2040 program?
At this point? I've just said I'm going to be a volunteer. I, I, um, have
been a Gadfly. I have been an idea expander. I have been, um, a person
pointer. Include this person. How about that person? How about that person
? Somehow they have managed to pull it together. But, um, I got impatient
with the planning process and I stepped back and both the Jones know that
and my, uh, um, I've put on many a conference in my life and I need a
little more structure.
So, um, they, they've got, it, it looks beautiful and at this point I said
, do with me what you will on the day of and, and I'll wash dishes or
whatever you got there, set up tables. But, um, that's how it was. I love
talking with both. Um, it's been Joan and Joan and Maya and me for the
most part, I haven't met most of the students. And, um, and so we've just
been going, oh, no. What? Well, you know, we've just done a lot of back
forth and, and, um, visioning, which is really cool. Um, and so I was
there and then I just kind of said, um, you guys, I need this, I need, uh
, I need, here's a list of things I need
in order for me to understand how we're actually going to pull this off.
Um And they've done it. They, I, from what I can tell from reading the
emails, it looks like they've, you know, I made a grid and is, that's how
my brain works. And I was like, where's the timeline? How are you gonna
come for this? How, how do you do that? Um And it looks like they are,
they've made a, you know, in a parallel universe, a way to make the event
happen so good. Yeah. So, so how did you, um, how did you find out about
it or were introduced to it? Oh, I think John Barron invited me. Um,
I knew her from the market downtown and I knew Maya is like one of my best
friends my daily and, um,
I didn't know Joan but it turns out I know her daughter and, um, she had a
food truck, um, before she went to work with her stepdad and, um,
she made the best food ever and I didn't know they were connected and, um
, I have just been around in the world of local food for a day or two. So
, ok. Um, what were your first thoughts about the idea of, sort of
creating a vision for what the, the, the Arizona food system would look
like in, in 25 years or so?
Well, I think it's good to start with where we're at now and get a
baseline and then try to figure out what needs to happen. Um, and I think
there was an event at a SU for a couple of days, um goodness, several
years ago already now where um a as part when they first got this grant,
um
they brought in Vandana Shiva. Vandana Shiva from India to come and then
they had people from all over the country that were also participating in
this project um in their own communities. And so we sat for two days and
the, so it used to be the sociology building over there at a su and, um
kind of went through
the fast track of what's, um, what will it look like? What would a dinner
look like? What is important to you even down to what the menu would be
and everybody had, you know, how they do that, they split you up and all
that. And so, no,
I, I thought it was worthwhile because there were some pretty out of the
box thinkers at the table and, um, that was kind of fun and then all of a
sudden it was like, ok, well, now we're gonna plan a dinner here. I'm like
, ok. Um, and we've moved the date twice because it wasn't quite, um
gelled yet. Hm. Ok. Um, so there's the, the dinner 2040 is sort of
centered around uh the humanities, right? Um And usually when people think
about food sustainability, it's very scientific or engineering and all
that. Uh Could you talk a little bit about what the humanities have to
offer as far as food sustainability goes.
Um The little I know about it is that um
our relationships to each other um and to the world and to material things
and immaterial things, our religion or our,
a lot of times based in, in history and religion and worldview. And so the
more clear we can become about what worldviews are in play as we
understand, who has access to food and how it's produced. Um the stories,
the traditions, um
the more familiar we can become with options, it's like being a world
traveler. If you just stay in your, in your neighborhood
and you just do what you do. It's one thing can, you can honor and revere
that. But the minute you step out and you visit Scandinavia, Ireland or
West Africa and all of a sudden, people are thinking about things and
doing them differently, then you begin to say, well, gosh, I wonder how
that can apply here. So I think it's about expanding your cultural base
and I think it's about um recognizing
where you've come to
on the continuum from
whatever religious forces and revolutionary forces and everything got us
to this day. I think in, I personally think we're coming out of this, but
in the last 4 to 600 years in the United States,
the um prevailing
point of view that people seem to being a adhered to is that um the more
stuff you have the better person you are and those without are pretty
shameful examples of human beings. And, and
I think that
that has its roots in certain kinds of religions and I organized religions.
And I think that, um
the idea of man, humans being dominant over nature and all that kind of
stuff have led us to the huge amounts of disparity that we see. And so I
think that being able to, um
get some context for that and understand it doesn't always have to be like
that going into the future is maybe where the humanity is coming. Yeah. Um
yeah, when you talk about sort of the cultural expectations that are
associated with food, it, it made me think about what you said about your
father, how being a good provider meant that you were able to put meat on
the table. So that's very interesting. Um Is there anything left that
you'd like to add about
dinner in 2040 or, or food sustainability in general?
No, I, I think in this fast paced world we live in though John, I just
think um sharing a meal with friends and remembering to share it with
others less fortunate. Um is a huge gift.
Great. Thank you. So.