Rarely in college classes do students get to sit down for a few minutes and absorb the materials that they learn in lecture. We sit through an hour or two of lecture and immediately leave when the bell rings without thinking about the impacts that the learning materials have on us as individuals. In a class that explores the environmental,… Read more »
Contemplative practices, as trivial as they may seem to others, have the power to inform in an interactive manner as well as generate thoughts about one’s role within regard to the rest of the food system. I personally have found our contemplative practices thus far to be very engaging and necessary. With an act as simple as being told to… Read more »
Sometimes, it’s easy to forget both where your food comes from and how it gets to your table. Our contemplative activities are moments when we get to stop for a moment and actually focus on food and the way we view it, consume it, and create it. The first contemplative practice we did in class was the raisin activity. When… Read more »
Busyness has become a virtue in western society – a society that demands constant productivity as a means for constant consumption. The lack of “free-time” and an ever-expanding market of distractions discourages the practice of mindfulness, but when it comes to our habits of consumption, particularly of food, the lack of careful contemplation can leave us ignorant to the larger… Read more »
Life is like a box of chocolates. This might mean something to your average first world consumer but to cacao producers in Africa the saying has no context. If it’s not obvious by the title the contemplative practice I found the most helpful was the chocolate practice. The combination of having both raw cacao and a piece of chocolate itself… Read more »
The use of contemplative practices in a class that focuses on a subject so expansive and with so many interlocking parts that is the global food system at first seemed to me to be a waste of time. To some extent I’m still not convinced by it, but the exercise we did with the raisin was at least an interesting… Read more »
The world is a fast pace complex place where finding time for self-contemplation is often challenging. This contemplation time is an important part of understanding the world around us. For my first contemplative practice I was skeptical because I had never participated in this type of deeper reflection and engagement before, but it really opened my eyes to the way… Read more »
Contemplative practices have been an interesting approach to understanding larger food systems. In particular, it has helped me understand food “culture” in America on a much deeper level. Food culture (and generally culture as well) in America is dominated by on the go, fast paced ideals. We want success, a beautiful body, and our good, healthy food and we want… Read more »
***Click HERE to take a listen — Hoodia Rap*** Here is a rap song I wrote from the contemplative practice about industrialized food process, hunger, and its aftermath. The Hoodia plant grows naturally in the southern region of Africa. The San people traditionally consume the bitter plant as an appetite suppressant, to help survive in desert conditions where food resources… Read more »
Our contemplative practice with chocolate in Lecture 7 left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. This may be because we were ingesting raw cocoa nibs, but it was mostly due to the new information I received from this lecture that was difficult to digest. Prior to this contemplative practice, I loved eating, or baking/cooking with chocolate. I’ve always… Read more »