Abstract
Industrial agriculture and food corporations have produced an abundance of food that is highly processed, nutritionally poor, and environmentally burdensome. As part of a healthy campus initiative, generated to address these and other food production and consumption dilemmas, a student-run “local and sustainable” food establishment called Food Next Door (FND) was created. This intrinsic case study evaluated food literacy in health science students, faculty, and staff first as a pilot to build the case for FND and further explicated customers’, volunteers’, and leads’ experiences with FND, identifying potential pathways from food literacy to citizenship. Ten returning customers, eight recurring nutrition student volunteers, and three graduate student leads participated in interviews that were analyzed for themes and subthemes. The findings show a progression in themes. Customers’ experiences highlight FND’s fresh, flavorful food, smiling and supportive staff, and personal transformation. Volunteers’ themes identified greater awareness of new foods and plant-based eating, acquiring new knowledge and skills in commercial kitchens, and deepening their connection to food, each other, and to where food comes from. Leads’ themes show opportunities to gain managerial skills, a deeper understanding of food and skills from being immersed in value-based food systems, and confidence in peer teaching. Experiencing and becoming part of the food value chain through FND built food literacy, shifted values, and transformed students into food citizens.
Highlights
In the last decade, attention to integrate sustainability in nutrition has increased.A sustainable diet was first defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization based on a trans-disciplinary workshop among professionals in environmental and nutritional sciences [1]
An intrinsic case study design was appropriate for our purpose, as this method focuses on a situation or a program and produces knowledge that is nondeterministic in nature—knowledge where “reality is constructed by individuals interacting with their social worlds” [39] (p.6)
As is common in case study research, we drew our data from multiple sources and utilized purposeful sampling in order to illuminate our understanding of the Food Next Door (FND) experience [40]
Summary
Attention to integrate sustainability in nutrition has increased. A sustainable diet was first defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization based on a trans-disciplinary workshop among professionals in environmental and nutritional sciences [1]. There have been numerous calls to nutrition organizations to include sustainability considerations in food-based dietary guidelines [2,3]. Several practice and concept papers have been published recently to raise awareness in nutrition practitioners and organizations for curricular and practice integration of sustainable food systems topics and experiences around the globe [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13].
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