National food day featured at Lincoln School event
Lincoln eighth graders ran a bake sale at the Food Day event. CHLOE JEPSEN/SAGAMORE STAFF
October 25, 2015
By Chloe Jepsen
Local food justice organization Bountiful Brookline partnered with the Brookline Public Schools Food Services Department to organize an event dedicated to the issues of food waste at the Lincoln School on Oct. 25, following National Food Day, which was the day before. Bake sales, raffles, and stands were set up along the corridor leading to the auditorium where there was a screening of Grant Baldwin’s documentary “Just Eat It.” The documentary brings light to the topics of food waste and how food gets from the farm to the fridge. After the showing, a panel discussion was held on these topics.
Director of Bountiful Brookline Cathy Neal said that the event was focused on the issue of food waste because the discrepancy of wasted food and hunger in this country is so great.
“Approximately 40 percent of our edible food end up in landfills,” she said. “And there are many hungry people in this country, it’s a travesty.”
Panelist and farmer Nataka Crayton-Walker said that people have a preconceived idea of what it is to be poor.
“I was homeless most of my life,” she said. “I brought that up to say that there’s often this image in people’s heads about people who are poor and people who are hungry.”
Crayton-Walker also said that through the Urban Farming Institute, she is able to have more conversations discouraging food waste in order for people in need to have access to more food.
Some Lincoln students also attended the event, selling baked goods in support of their school garden. According to eighth grader Marina Seoane, the food they baked was made with “rescued” food, or food that would otherwise have been thrown out.
“We asked people if they could bring in any rescued bananas or apples so then we would use them to bake these,” she said. “Since the whole thing is on not wasting food, we decided to do that.”
Eighth grader Michele Hughes said that some of the food came from their school cafeteria.
“We took apples that weren’t getting taken in our school cafeteria but were still perfectly good or bananas that people think are too brown but are actually perfectly fine on the inside,” she said.
According to Crayton-Walker, many people unnecessarily avoid buying unattractive foods.
“When you go to the store and you see an ugly carrot and you don’t want to buy it, but you’re only going to eat it, so why does it matter?” Crayton-Walker said. “I want to bring the sexy back to ugly foods.”
