Food Matters

Food is a connecting point between sustainability (since food production is inextricably earth-based and ecological) and nutrition (since human physiology is inextricably bound to food inputs).

Ecological Sustainability

• Food Matters Summary: production, consumption, and food type impacts resource use, environmental health, and carbon footprint.
• Institutional Commitments: Auraria Sustainable Campus Program, LEED Certification of the Confluence building.
• Student Commitments: Composting Club, Community Garden.
• Individual Choices: how we consume is a reflection of our values (how we relate our individual life to everyone/everything else).
• CCD Choices: ecological sustainability often correlates with financial sustainability within our offices.
• Student Advising: one’s environment affects one’s health, energy levels, and life opportunity (World Health Organization: approximately one-quarter of the global disease burden, and more than one-third of the burden among children, is due to modifiable environmental factors).
• Student Advising: careers in sustainability, resource management, renewable energies, research (NREL). 
• How can we – in our various roles as higher education professionals – incorporate sustainability into our student learning outcomes?

Human Nutrition

• Food Matters Summary: less processed food, more fruits and vegetables, complex grains, and proportional lean protein leads to better health.
• Institutional Commitments: CCD Health and Wellness Committee, Be Well Auraria.
• Student Commitments: advocacy for more healthy food options on campus, family nutrition.
• Individual Choices: good nutrition improves your physical and psychological quality of life. 
• CCD Choices: good nutrition leads to more energy and less sick days.
• Student Advising: nutrition (and healthy lifestyle choices overall) impacts cognitive functioning. 
• Student Advising: careers in nutrition, healthcare, public health, exercise science, research (NIH). 
• How can we build the capacity of our students to utilize healthy living as an academic success strategy?

Social Justice

• Sustainability and nutrition tend to track along socioeconomic lines. For one, there tends to be an increased cost to sustainable or nutritious purchases. Additionally, differences in political advocacy and educational opportunity –which tend to track along socioeconomic lines – variously impact access to and awareness of sustainability and nutrition. Moreover, on the flip side of the same coin, the burdens of unsustainability and poor nutrition disproportionately fall along socioeconomic lines, whether we are talking about cardiovascular disease, Type II Diabetes, or the location of landfills. And so, for me, it is contingent upon us, as advocates for equity and opportunity in our society, to not only include sustainability and nutrition in our own lives and our own offices, but to be able to take these issues into account as we advise our students about careers, about resources, and about their own self-advocacy on campus and in society.   
• What role does education play in creating a more healthy and ecologically sustainable future for our community?  In particular, how does the mission and vision of the community college relate, if at all, to socioeconomic disparities within nutrition and sustainability?

* As part of a college-wide conversation, CCD faculty and staff are encouraged to read Food Matters, by Mark Bittman.