Ethical Eating “How we eat determines, t a considerable extent, how the world is used.” —Wendell Berry Environmental Science Practicum 410 Senior Project: Zoe Dagan David Finston Jessica Rendon Chis Stadler 5.8008, Experience our project at troduction & Problem Statement: Food is nov, ast always hasbeen, an integral prt of our human ives, In recent history _major changes have been experienced inthe global production of food and agriculture. One of, the mos influential diving forces of hese changes isthe rapid advancement of technology (PA0 2008), Food! and apicultural elated technologies are acelerating at such apace tat tis challenging forthe average person to Keep current on new developments, Often, not enough ‘nfrmation i provided to them. ‘This makes it dificl to determine how these developments should afect our individual food choices. The process of consumer decision making is arduous, especialy at the individual ve Reasons forthe lack of information ar plentiful, Pertinent information i frequently dite to Yocate, and one must cover many sources to acquire a complete picture. Available information is often disorganized and not presented ina format that is usr fiend. Most scientific ties have fallen short. More research of beter quality is needed than that which is cearently available (Willams 2007) “This lack of information has resulted insignificant consequences. The distance between the consumer and producer has widened significantly. Neal all fod is purchased in supenmarkes, Consumers have litle, if ny, contact wih he farmers and food producers (Brom 2000), This disconnect has grown so extreme that many children have never visited a farm nor seen fod being grown, If asked, most of thes children won't beable to explin where the food atthe supermarket comes from Consumer concerns with respect food and agriculture have never been more prevalent ‘Some people are concerned about certain products because ofthe wider impact these productshave on their society and the world. Others ate concened aout the safety and security othe food they consume Whatever the reasons for concern i is clear we must evaluate how we grow, produce, and purchase our food. By closely examining the fdod we eat and how it eame to our able, we ean Inte discussions about the cost and benefits of our current food production and consumption practices Goals and Objectives: ‘To emp an answer tothe problem of ignorant consumerism is an enormous Lnderiaking. We believe that iis beyond the ability of one person to tackle such an issue in its cniely, However tke a chil leaning to walk aking on step at aime, we have chosen a ‘manageable piece ofthe puzzle 1 pat into place. ‘We Zoe Dagan, Jessica Rendon, Chis Stadler, & David Fnston) have collaborated to reste a resource withthe goto promote ethical eating. “Ethical eating, ke ethical Living, is ‘ot about absolutes. Its about doing the best you'e wiling and able to do ~ and nurtring will to keep doing better." Baume! 2008) This canbe done by (a educating consumers about the ost and benefits ofthe malitde of food choices, and(b) encouraging consumers to wilive this new education to make informed choices when consuming food by thinking globally and ating locally. tn essence: eating ethically. “The Process: ‘The process of building a workable solution was tedious and time consuming and took the better pat of three months. Our inital branstonming tok us in one dretion, yet thee ‘months later our product is very diferent from our original idea.‘We began in January wit the inspiration to focus on biorgional food within the Humbolat County region. We eventually chose to step back from this specific topic, withthe intent create a resource that had the potential tobe useful outside of our immeite region ‘We instead decided vo make the argument for ethical food, (Our fret thought wae to cess a printed handbook which would include perruative essys, local farmer diestory, and cookbook recipes. Abit Inter we came tothe consensus that this format would be limiting for a number of reasons, primarily de to limited dstsibution capabilities and lack of funding for printing “This revelation led tothe determination that we would present our resource vi digital ‘medium instead of hardcopy distribution. We chose the inteet as our digital medium. The {tere is ideal fora numberof reasons. Our resource will ct saison between information lteady existing onthe internet athe consumer. ‘This reduces our redundancy; why reinvent the whet? The interet has wuser-bas tha far surpasses any distribution potential ofa hard copy resource, Uilizing the internet will allow us to update the content as necessary, Which ‘would be nearly imposible with ahaed copy resource. ‘The internet will aso allow people to {nterat withthe resource via discussion forums and surveys. Appropedia.or will host our resource. Appropeia isan interactive site whee you ean search for “collaborative solutions in sustainability, poverty edoction and intemational development.” The materials available on Appropedia ar ie for anyone o use, andthe ste is ‘open for anyone to contbute, To date, there are atta of 10,743 pages. Our page willbe number 10,744 ‘The Project:“The project itself will include a wstten component (short essays, stories) and a graphical component (graphs, images, and charts). The graphical component will assis the reader in understanding the complex ideas presented. To gamer interest in our website, we will adv ‘on appropedia.org, myspace.com, and other memiber-based internet communities. As well, small bookmark style fliers wil be distributed an earns snd in our local community “The project wil detail the following opis: ‘+ Agriculture Production Methods © Organic (nda versus Small Scale) ‘©. Convestional + Local & Seasonal Food Production © Food Safety © ood Security & Farm Security © Humboldt County case study (Farmers markets, CSA) + Cenfcstion & Labeling + Social Responsibility of Individual Food Choices ‘© Vegetarian & Vegan Choices © Health & Nutiion 4+ ergy Use in Food Production + How to Bat ethically ~ Actually Boing it ‘0 Purchasing choices © Questions to ask + Resources & references Monitoring and Evaluation:‘To facilitate monitoring and evaluation of our project, we used a program provided by ‘Google called Google Analytics. This program tracks the people who access your site, and provides you with a collection of data about each user (such as where they ae from, where they aceessed your site from, how long they browsed your site and many other useful statistics). This ‘ill help us to judge whether or not the project actually met our goals and objectives. These statistics ean help us to determine whether or not people are actually looking at and reading our information FFor further monitoring, Appropedia allows users to edit and make comments, We have asked users not to make edits or comments until after May 8" 1o allow us to complete our project, but if usr edits our page, or leaves a comment, they are abe to tell us what they thought of our page and whether or not they found it use In addition to Google analytics, we erated a MySpace page which will serve a dual purpose, The first was to create a location from which people could find out about, and hence access, our ste on Appropedia, The second purpose of the MySpace account was to allow us to ‘make “friends.” These fiends will either voluntarily request friendship, or will receive a {iendship request from us directly. We are assuming that whoever decides to be our friend on ‘MySpace either already hasan interest in eating ethically, or is interested in it and wants to learn Al group members willbe responsible to oversee both the MySpace and Appropedia pages, This will entail visitng the two sites (about once a month), reading over comments and. inputs, and deciding how best address the comments and enhance the two pages? cffectiveness What We Would Have Done Differently:‘While te process that eto this final projet was adurous a times, in the end, it helped to beter focus and structure our project. Inthe beginning ofthe semester, we were constantly ‘questioning what we should do, and what would be the best way to go about tis possible that if we had stuck closely with our origi idea of focusing our project oward the local community, cur product may have been more focused and consce Instexd however, we set ou goals higher ‘ith dhe intent to educate the internet community 1s eifuclt to determine whats the mest effective way to persuade people to make ethical eating choices, and many factors played into our final decision, One of the more compelling reasons we chose to afect the internet ‘community was that many people in the local Humboldt community are sleady fairly knowledgeable about ethical food choices. We wanted to edveate a broader range of people, ‘who may have more need ofthis knowledge. Having more time for brainstorming end implementation of our project woul have beneficial There were many clferent factors we considered, forcing ust strictly budget our available ime, and therefore we hat limit the scope an sizeof tis project de our time constants If we had more time, we would have expanded upon the topics which we covered. ‘We would slo have utilized other ways of dissmeminting our information to get people more connected and excited about th ideas of ethical eating an food choices Summary: In recent history we have experienced major changes in he global prodcton of food and agriculture, One of the major ores driving this change i the rapid development of new technology. The process of consumer decision-making is complex, We ae often not provided ‘with enough information to make informed choices regarding the food products we consume.‘This lack of information has result significant consequences. Our projet propos a solution to these consequences, “This projet was created with the intent to persuade peopl to examine the fod they eat and how i came tothe able. The purpose ofthe examination is to generate discussion about te costs and benefits of our current food production and consumption practices. Hopefully the education will inspire individual change and act as a step toward a brighter future. Avoronedia Link: ‘org/Ethical_eating_and_feod_production up approp MySpace Link: tps/www.myspace.comiethicalfood Nations of Novih America ‘Summary of work 1, David Finston: ‘Total Time: Approximately 40 hours total‘The bulk of my time went into research and working with the group to help plan for and figure out what we wanted our project to be. My contribution to the project included the written ‘portion discussing the pros, cons, and general information about conventional food, as well as the pros, cons, and general information about food labeling. also contributed to the myspace ‘page, which included setting it up, as well as uploading my information onto the appropedia ‘website 2. Jessica Rendon ‘Total Time: Approximately 45 hours total Daring the beginning ofthe project I spent most of my time collaboraing withthe group and brainstorming ideas. [also spent time helping to write and edit documents that were due. ‘Towards the end of the project, the majority of my time was sepnt doing research and writing my portions ofthe website (farmed vs wild and vegetarianism), uploading it, and formating it. ¥ also ‘added information to the myspace page 3. Zoe Dagan ‘Total time: Approximately 42 hours In the start of the semester, much of my work was done during our designated lecture times. During the middle and toward the end of the semester, I also utilized time outside ofthe class to work onthe projet. A majority of my time went into the brainstorming and conceptual stages of our project. I did quite a bit of esearch surrounding our topic, some of which I shared with the other group members. Once implementation began, my focus was creating the sections sliscussing (a) organic food production ona small scale as well as an industrial scale, (b) Fair trade foods, and (e) the nutritional quality of organic vs. conventional foods. I contributed to both the Appropedia site as well asthe Myspace site, References and Sources Cited: Alfalfa: The Thirstiest Crop. 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