If you’re a food lover like me, you may already also be a feminist. There’s a wave of academia, which focuses on the “green” food movement and how it can link eating locally to feminism.
So, how can chowing down at the Jones link to women’s equality? Here I’ll provide some easy ways that you can employ feminism in your daily life through food.
In my personal experience from shopping locally at Ward’s I have found that it’s both empowering and good for the environment when I know where my food is from. It’s healthful to understand what chemicals are going in my body and the selection at Ward’s lets me choose exactly what I want, all while knowing the food was harvested humanly and as locally as possible.
Well then...is this ecofeminism?
Ecology feminism, as it’s sometimes called, is a movement that connects women and nature through a shared history of oppression. The environment and women have both been mistreated throughout time and in this subjugation they share a common history. In other words, ecofeminism explains that industrialism has been deemed by corporations, creating a world where the environment and women are not always thought of first.
By eating locally, we gain both the healthy benefits of providing ourselves with healthy, tasty food, while stimulating small businesses in our community. The local business side is important, because industrialism also caused a boom in huge corporations. While some remain powerful and humane, many become depersonalized and remain disconnected from our local food needs.
Whether you choose to shop at Ward’s, eat at local restaurants throughout Gainesville or grow your own food in the student gardens, you are helping to achieve equality, in good, sound business practices that can help the environment, your body and even women’s equality.
If you are interested in becoming more involved in Gainesville in a global movement, there is a group called Slow Food that works to educate, support and celebrate food traditions and sustainable food production while encouraging local businesses to provide “slow food” (coined because it serves as the opposite of our everyday “fast food”).
Slow Food Gainesville believes that pleasure and quality in everyday life can be achieved by slowing down, respecting the convivial traditions of the table and celebrating the diversity of the earth’s bounty and the community. Because of these ideals the group is having a Lebanese Culture Event. Come out to Half Cork’d on April 16th from 6 p.m. — 10 p.m. to experience a film, dancing and, of course, food.
