Beyond eating healthy

Courtney Erwin (foreground) and Molly Schaus, with Isabelle Farm, help customers at the Boulder Farmers Market on September 16, 2009. (CU Independent file/Lee Pruitt)

Busy schedules and low budgets tend to push students toward eating out but Slow Food CU offers an alternative to being a fast food junkie.

“Our mission is to connect students with their food,” said Lauren Duncan, senior and founder of the Slow Food CU chapter. “Specifically we want students to get a better sense of where their food comes from and how it is produced.”

Slow Food CU is a social student group at CU that is affiliated with the greater Slow Food International, which was started in Italy as a protest to a McDonald’s opening in Rome, according to the Web site.

The name Slow Food was chosen as a statement against fast food, Duncan said.

Slow Food CU is mostly focused on organizing fun, social activities that incorporate Slow Food principles, but the group also does some community outreach, Duncan said.

“I started it because I really love to cook; we do a lot of cooking at our events,” Duncan said. “We always have some sort of educational aspect tied into our events so the participants are learning something food-related while having fun at the same time.”

Slow Food CU works with the Growe Foundation in Boulder to do community outreach and volunteering.

“[Slow Food CU] is mainly involved [with the Growe Foundation] in coming to the schools and helping weed the gardens,” said Laura Ruby, garden coordinator for the Growe Foundation.

The Growe Foundation has planted vegetable gardens at nine elementary schools, Ruby said.

“This part of Slow Food CU is the actual hands in the dirt,” Ruby said.

While Slow Food CU focuses mostly on the preparation and consumption of a healthy meal, Beyond Organic Farm, a student-run farm in North Boulder, works with the agricultural side of food, according to their Web site.

“Beyond Organic Farm is a fully functioning farm, therefore, although we have similar aspirations and missions as Slow Food CU, our main function serves to grow and provide vegetables, although we also like to offer volunteer and educational opportunities,” said Kyle Baker, a senior environmental studies major involved with the farm.

Started in early 2009 by Baker and John McKenzie, the farmer who owns the property Beyond Organic Farm cultivates, Beyond Organic Farm began with an interest in sustainable agriculture and a handful of CU students, according to a CU news release.

“I was interested in sustainable agriculture and I was seeing many student movements pop up around campus and around the nation,” Baker said. “John encouraged me to have a go at farming and to get the CU students involved.”

Baker says that Beyond Organic Farm is more then just organic food.

“To me going Beyond Organic means to go past meeting the requirements of the USDA organic standards in search of fully sustainable, ecologically friendly ways of growing food,” Baker said.

Slow Food CU and Beyond Organic Farms have teamed up to create fully organic events that included a tour and harvest at Beyond Organic Farms, Duncan said.

Beyond Organic donated some produce to Slow Food CU and because of its connection, Slow Food CU has brought many volunteers onto the Beyond Organic Farm, Baker said.

“Slow Food CU and Beyond Organic share similar goals, at least in my mind,” Baker said. “We both seek to increase awareness surrounding food politics and economics, we both seek to empower students and build community around growing food locally, and we both seek a stronger relationship between consumers and the producers of food.”

Eating organically and locally grown foods isn’t a new concept to most CU students, but some said having the access to it and developing a taste for it is another battle.

“I used to eat organically a lot, but I got sick of all the packaged food—especially peanut butter,” said freshman chemistry major Ronny Sundstrom. “I missed all the foods I grew up with like Easy Mac and Wonder Bread.”

Sundstrom said he enjoys eating foods that aren’t organic.

“Fresh foods taste the best!” Sundstrom said.

Duncan said Slow Food CU does not immediately rule out fast food.

“While some of the chapters are more strict in their adherence to the ‘anti-fast food’ slogan, Slow Food CU helps its members simply take steps in the direction of more locally-produced food,” Duncan said. “The occasional indulgence at Taco Bell is certainly not going to harm anyone.”

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Erica Lindberg at Erica.lindberg@colorado.edu.