Why Everybody Will Be Talking About Food on Oct. 24
By Laura Holmes Haddad
Students celebrate the opening of a new garden at their school in the South Bronx. (Photo: Philip Greenberg)
October 24 is going to be a busy day for food in the U.S.
In Savannah, Ga., the city will host its fifth Well FED event, with live music, cooking classes, and a farmer’s market. In Hot Springs, Ark., Levi Hospital will host a Food Day Bash, with yoga classes, cooking demos, and a farmer’s market. Online, director Susan Rockefeller will release her short documentary film “Food for Thought, Food for Life” online for free to spotlight the issues of big agriculture.
With more than 5,000 local events that highlight national food issues occurring on a single day, it looks like Food Day is a success.
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Never heard of it? Here’s what you should know and what you can expect this year.
Created in 2011 by scientist and nutritional advocate Michael F. Jacobson and his Center for Science in the Public Interest group, Food Day takes a cue from Earth Day. While Earth Day was the first national attempt to bring environmental issues to the forefront in one day, Jacobson recognized there wasn’t a similar day for food issues.
“Because reforming America’s food system is such a daunting task, organizations need to climb out of their silos and start collaborating with one another to make faster progress,” Jacobson told Yahoo Food.
“There are so many different food groups with so many different issues,” says Food Day Campaign Manager Lilia Smelkova, that it was hard to focus their efforts into one day designed to raise awareness.
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A dinner is held in New York’s Times Square in honor of Food Day. (Photo: Philip Greenberg)
Not to be confused with World Food Day, which is Oct. 16, Food Day limits itself to these issues within the U.S. borders because, as Smelkova notes, “food problems in the U.S. are so specific.”
The group focuses on five issues that are impossible to ignore when you discuss what’s wrong in the food world today: obesity, improved food access, food justice and education, sustainable farming, and agricultural policy.
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Across the U.S., events are held in cities, on farms, in churches, in city halls, and in living rooms — any location that can reach a group of people and help educate them and encourage change in their own diet. In 2013, the town of Livingston, N.J., held a town-wide chili and quinoa cook-off promoting healthy recipes. Last year, there were 8,000 events held in all 50 states.
Some events even go “viral”: Former New York City Mayor Bloomberg created the Big Apple Crunch in 2011, which broke the world record for the “most participants in an apple-eating event.” Michigan, North Dakota, Washington D.C. all took noticed and now host similar events.
How has this relatively young group managed to corral so many people in just 4 years since it launched? While local civic events are crucial to the success of Food Day, the group has a lot of star power support as well.
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Food Day works with a large advisory board that includes members of Congress, professors of nutrition and public policy, and founders of food policy action groups. They have the help of a lot of celebrity chefs as well.
Chef Jamie Oliver’s Jamie Oliver Food Foundation became involved in 2013 and other food luminaries such as chef and activist Alice Waters, chef Jose Andrés, writer Michael Pollan, and chef-turned-TV host Andrew Zimmern support Food Day by promoting the event and the issues behind it.
Students are a big part of Food Day’s efforts; every year students from preschool through college participate, including last year’s “Squash Your Fear,” an event organized for elementary school students in Brooklyn who made dishes with squash donated by Farmigo; in California, 800,000 students in 15 school districts received a lunch sourced entirely from California ingredients, while Chicago Public School students celebrated a weeklong Food Day Festival with a celebration in Chicago’s Daley Plaza.
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Food Day also partners with Real Food Challenge, a food activist group which organizes students on college campuses around food issues. Since 2011, RFC has brought Food Day to more than 300 college campuses nationwide.
Students enjoy a locally sourced snack. (Photo: Kokua Hawaii Foundation)
“Food Day is a national celebration of both Real Food and the power it gives students to initiate change. Colleges spend $5 billion on food annually and consistently lead trends in the food industry,” says Anna Greenberg, Real Food Challenge student leader.
This year Food Day organizers tried a new avenue to reach a wider audience: through crowdfunding. Smelkova’s team approached Barnraiser, a crowdfunding site dedicated to “changing the food system, one project at a time” to set up a project. “Barnraiser thought it was an amazing opportunity to engage our network,” says Smelkova. Food Day posted their goal of reaching 10 million new people through organized events and 60 million people on social media by asking each person to donate $5 by October 24, 2015. Food Day had worked with Barnraiser in 2014, with Barnraiser contributors writing blog posts and articles about the day and food issues that Food Day addresses. “We don’t have a critical mass yet but we hope to change the tide,” says Smelkova.
The Food Day website is a virtual menu for people who want to participate, with opportunities big and small. The site offers organizing guides and webinars as well as news, resources, and a place to share stories, tips, and photos; you can also find Food Day events in your zip code.
Social media has been a big part of raising awareness about FoodDay and its mission. “Using a Twitter hashtag ‘#FoodDay2014’ for the specific day generated Twitter chats–14.1 million unique users–and what we saw was a momentum of people getting involved,” says Smelkova. “It is really a local and grassroots effort and social media really amplifies the national effort.”
By harnessing the power of all generations throughout America, Food Day hopes to affect change in the food system. “Our generation will feel the impact of both a failing food system or one that truly nourishes the earth, producers, consumers, and communities. We have much more power than we realize,” says Greenberg.
