Some thoughts....

1. Our food system is not very transparent. Even working here on this very local scale, it is really hard to get solid information about where our food comes from. I had the idea it would be pretty easy to run the numbers on the "Real Food Calculator"- just get the info on where our food comes from, plug it in, and voila! Turns out that no one really knows where our food comes from- the people at Sodexho don't know because the people at the distribution company don't know, so no one can tell us. This is frustrating. But also interesting. And problematic.

2. The Sodexho people were very nice, and expressed interest in working on sustainability, but they perceive some barriers, such as cost, consumer expectations, and the necessity of meeting certain standardizations, as being insurmountable. Rather than start with sustainability as being a thing that needs to happen and working from there, they are starting with cost, consumer expectations, etc, and trying to do as much as they can within those parameters, instead of rethinking and reworking the barriers. I think there is only so much we can do if that's the mindset... it will take some mind-changing and paradigm-shifting in order to accomplish our goals. They also see themselves as already doing a lot for sustainability, because of the waste reduction efforts etc, and can't quite get why we want them to do more- I think they see themselves as already doing their part, whereas we see it as drastically in need of improvement.

3. Umm.. out of thoughts for now. More later. Thanks for the blog Liz! keep em coming folks!

Meeting Frustration

We are feeling stuck! Or at least I am. How do we work within such oppressive systems as capitalism and everything tied to it and still do important work to make change?! It is so hard to stay inspired. Inspire us, world!