Interested students took the next step in bringing locally-produced food to MU after participating in the “Real Food forum at Mizzou” over the weekend.
The Real Food Challenge defines “real food” as food that truly nourishes the consumers, producers, communities and the planet. RFC’s goal is to make the difference between food and real food known and implement this idea into college campus dining halls by encouraging $1 billion of food purchases to be spent on what they define as real food.
MU SustainaRep Monica Everett organized workshops for students by bringing in RFC representatives Katie Blanchard and Katelyn Hale. The RFC campaign is made up of over 3,900 students at over 340 colleges.
“We (Blanchard and Hale) came here to unify and give students the skills to be successful in the campaign,” Hale said.
Forty-two students attended the workshops over the weekend.
“I was interested in the topic and wanted to learn more,” freshman Wilson McNeary said. “I had heard of RFC, but I really wanted to learn more about what it was about and see if it was realistic to bring to our campus.”
Friday night began with Blanchard and Hale’s presentation, “A Whole, Healthy Food System: Real Food Challenge 101,” which introduced the student movement for real food on campus.
“Students should get involved, because they have a really unique power to change the way the economics of food works, and that’s because college universities like Mizzou spend a ton of money on food, so shifting that food money towards real food can make a huge impact,” Blanchard said.
Wellness Resource Center dietitians Heidi Williams and Cindy Foley spoke about the nutritional advantages eating locally provides. The final presenters were Campus Dining Services Association Director Steve Simpson and CDS chef Eric Cartwright. They discussed how CDS works and presented their past, present and future goals. Attendees also received dinner after the presentations, courtesy of CDS.
“We wanted to start conversations on campus about the food system and reached out to Campus Dining to get their word out and their plans,” Student Sustainability Adviser Ben Datema said.
Blanchard and Hale led a hands-on session Saturday morning to plan a real food campaign at MU. Everyone had a chance to share their ideas and hopes for the future of food on campus.
Senior Rachel Brunner said this planning portion was what she most enjoyed about the weekend.
“I really liked the action plans, so we can take our knowledge and put it into action,” she said.
After a lunch provided by Farmer’s Daughter Catering, there was more brainstorming, which concluded with scheduling the first meeting to take the next steps in bringing real food to MU. The meeting was scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 9 in the Arts & Science building.
“This is the first step, the movement doesn’t end with this conference,” Everett said. “It’s the beginning of building a cohesive group to work on real food issues at Mizzou.”
