2nd Year Session with CRAVE

Hi, I’m Hallie! I’m an AGE-UP second-year. Tuesday was our third second-year session this year and it was YUMMY! We had four guests from CRAVE (Cultivating Radical Activism, Vitality, and Education), an organization that promotes food justice through awareness, who taught us about the food we eat and helped us make a wonderful Mexican feast.

We learned from Stephany about the first three vegetables to be cultivated in Mexico—corn, beans, and squash—and how they provided each other with necessary things to survive. We related this network of support to AGE-UP and discussed which role we each played in comparison to the plants. We then packed ourselves into the kitchen where our guests showed us how to cube and dice vegetables and make tortillas. Cooking talent and lack thereof was brought to light before we sat down to eat Spanish rice, beans, squash, tortillas, and pico de gallo.

After we had all served ourselves, the table became abruptly much quieter as we were all too busy chowing down on the wonderful, local, healthy, and cultural meal to talk.

Following dinner, Stephany educated us with her un-ending enthusiasm and passion about the difference between local produce and mass produced products with regards to their making, origins, sustainability, health, and how workers were treated. She exposed the harsh conditions of commercial farm labor and acknowledged unfairness in access to good food choices as being an issue of health and culture.

We ended the session with full bellies and a round of intentions, where everyone had something to say about what changes they could make in their lifestyle to support food justice.