Appetite for Food Equity Could Be Cropping Up at Skyline College By Phil Ho
Staff Contiributor
In an effort to endorse the consumption of vegetables, it is shown that people who grow their own their own food are more likely to eat healthier. Hunter Feiner/The Skyline View
The children ambled forth, both intrepid and trepidatious, towards the alien form. A yellow-speckled crown and the sinister, sickle-shaped edges of its wardrobe adorned a bulbous green head. Vein-protruding limbs shook amid the salt-kissed breeze and moaning seas. This was the first time many of the kids in Paul Summers’ fourth grade class had seen a broccoli plant in its unprocessed form. This field trip to The HEAL Project farm in Half Moon Bay was an introduction to a concept that has been part of human existence since the days of Babylon — farming. “Perhaps one of the kids descended from a lineage of Mesopotamian rulers who owned acres of farmland,” said Paul Summers, an educator with the South San Francisco Unified School District. “With excursions like these, we hope to make broccoli and beans as familiar as Fortnite and Minecraft. Education about fruits and vegetables is pretty important. I mean, I can’t go to all their homes and make salads.” Grade schoolers have little sovereignty over processed, sodium-rich or high-fat diets — but college students do. Choices concerning human food consumption are choices about equality, justice and sustainability. Urban farms, community gardens and the Agrarian Movement are finding sustainable solutions where industrialized, commercial agriculture has failed. Urban farms and gardens are fixing the inequities regarding lack of healthy foods in lower socioeconomic zones by providing affordable fruits and vegetables as well as promoting community self-sufficiency. Beyond the humanistic approach, urban farms operate without the environmental toll that large-scale agriculture exerts. Take all the one minute showers you want, and flush your toilet once a week. These measures amount to the proverbial drop in a bucket. In California, commercial agriculture uses nearly four times the amount of water that urban consumption does. Nitrous oxide emissions from industrial fertilizers add to greenhouse
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gases, and runoff from pesticides are not very polite. It is not always easy to know what fertilizers and pesticides go into food production. That’s why informed consumers, like the family of Skyline journalism major Adriana Hernandez, shop at a Mexican grocery store that sells natural produce. “We try and pick places where they have fresh groceries,” Hernandez said. “I don’t know whether you’ve heard of those types of fruits or vegetables that aren’t naturally grown, and they have chemicals injected into them because this makes them grow bigger. If you’re trying to eat healthier, you have to be informed about that stuff.” Global agriculture can be harmful on a wide scale basis: E. coli outbreaks, overplanting and high-demand water crops like avocados (guacamole — now, the Devil’s dip). Global food distribution packs semi-trucks bound for supermarkets, but does not pack healthy foods into communities that need it the most. The lack of access to healthy foods has created nutritional inequities. Even many Skyline students look for ways to supplement deficient diets. To address student hunger, SparkPoint Center sponsors Baskets Around Campus which distributes free snacks. They also work with the Associated Students of Skyline to offer a reduced price lunch package (sandwich and bottle of water) and provide free lunch cards. The staff at the Skyline Educational Access Center (EAC) took it upon themselves to provide snacks to students. “Usually, the types of snacks were based on what Costco had on sale that week,” E.A.C. Coordinator Melissa Mathews said. “Students were coming in to request specific snacks: ‘Do you have the hot Cheetos today?’” Mathews expressed how the snacks made the EAC a cool place for students and their friends to come. She explained how the snacks not only fed students, but they garnered an appreciation and connectivity with the EAC.
Volume 6
