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Eat Local ProposalBy Meghan Harper/ Grace Kooken/ Joshua Vaughan

East Carolina University has reno-vated the dorms on campus to provide healthier living options for students on campus. Each dorm now has a full sized and fully equipped community kitchens on the first floor or in the basement.

The reason why East Carolina University has taken this approach to promote healthier living style for students, cut costs of meal plans, and dinning halls, and to provide a new level of convenience for stu-dents and faculty.

As a result of this new direction, East Carolina University has be-gun to install various locations on campus fresh commodities carts, or Pirate Produce Carts.

New updated health classes, pass-port events for first year experience students, cooking and technique classes for the new kitchens will be included in the new East Carolina University Healthy Pirates Project.

HEALTHYPiratesProject

Pirate Produce

Educational Materials

College StudentFriendly Recepies

Information materials including booklets, cook books, and cooking information that are college student friendly would also be available in the classrooms as well as with the carts at their various locations.

Our goal is to partner with the University as they partner with the local farmers in Eastern North Carolina to provide and promote a healthier life style choice for East Carolina University students by eating local.

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What is locally grown/locallysourced food?

Local food is food that is grown in a local area, and supports the local economy. It is also considered a principle of sustainabilty relying on consumption of food products that are locally grown. It is a part of the concept of local purchasing, a preference to buy locally produced goods and services.

Unlike organic food, there is no legal or universally accepted definition of Local Food. It is a geographi-cal concept related to distance; however, local food can also be defined in terms of social and supply chain characteristics. It was agreed that local foods were generally those produced and sold in a local area up to a maximum of a 20-50 mile radius from the buyer’s home. Others consider food from their region to be local instead of in theimmediate area.

How does locally-grown/locallysourced food connect with largerissues of sustainability?

Sustainable agriculture is a way of raising food that is healthy for consumers and animals, doesn’t harm the environment, respects workers and animals, is humane for workers and animals, provides a fair wage to the farmer, and supports and enhances rural communities. Foods produced locally are also fresher and contain more nutrients because of that fact. Sustainability also includes buying food as locally as possible, but buying it locally does not guarantee that it is sustainably

produced. Pesticides, chemical fertilizers, factory farming, hormone use, and non-therapeutic use ofantibiotics can all be involved in local farmers or gardeners using sustainable methods.

When considering the sustainability of a product there are a lot of questions to ask:-Do you know where these animals were raised?-Do you know the name and location of the farm where this product was grown?-Do you know if that farm used chemicals and anti-biotics on their product?

Sustainable farming benefits the local community and local economy while supporting the environ-ment by enriching the soil, protecting the air and water quality, and minimizing energy consump-tion. Sustainable farmers sell their produce locally through farmers markets, farm stands, or com-munity supported agriculture (CSA) programs. This prevents environmental damage and humane health problems caused by transportated-generat-ed pollution.Benefits of a sustainable local food economy:-Economic development-Job creation within farming and food sectors-Preservation of open safe-Decreased use of fossil fuel and associated carbon emissions-Preservation and protection of the natural envi-ronment-Increased consumer access to fresh and nutri-tious foods-Greater food security for all people in that region

Research Questions and Answers

What are the benefits of locally-grown/Locally sourced food?

Quality control is in the hands of the consumer: Consumer won’t buy bad fruit ect. It tastes better: Farmers who sell direct-ly to local consumers need not give priority to packing, ship-ping, and shelf-life issues and can instead select, grow and harvest crops to ensure peak qualities of freshness,nutrition and taste. Reduces environmen-tal damage: the average fresh food item on our dinner table travels 1500 miles to get there. Buying locally produced food eliminates the need for fuel-guzzling transportation.

Helps the economy: farmers on average receive 20 cents of each food dollar spent. The rest goes to transportation, processing, packaging, refrigeration and marketing. Farmers who sell food to local customers receive the full retail value, a dollar for each food dollar spent. Animal welfare: large factory farms sometimes confine animals indoors as closely together as

possible, rather than letting them graze on open land. This exposes them to high levels of toxins from decomposing ma-nure. To counteract the disease inherent conditions, animals are given constant low daily doses of antibiotics, which are contributing to problems with antibiotic-resistance bacteria.

A fresh and friendly connec-tion: puts a face behind the foods we consume and keeps us connected to the seasons, as well as the unique flavor and diversity of local crops.Preserves character: Small local farms are a valuable component of a community’s character, helping maintain agricultural heritage, preserve land use diversity, and moder-ate development.

RECAP: It can:-Reduce global warming-Help the economy-Healthier-Reduces pollution-Better variety-Less likely to have preservatives-Eating to the season

Research cont.

What are the options for locally-grown/locally sourced food in Greenville?

Small farms located in the sur-rounding country side protect biodiversity and preserve a wider agriculture gene pool, and in important factor in long-term food security.

Locations in Greenville that sell local food:-Fresh market on Criswell drive off S. Memorial-Food Lion located on 10th and greenville blvd., and then on 10th and State 33-Harris Teeter on 14th and Charles.-Pitt County Farmers Market on Arlington/Country Home road

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Educational Promotion

We want to improve the knowledge of nutritious food and healthy eat-ing habits by introducing local foods into the college lifestyle. With the new fully loaded kitchens located on the bottom floor of the dorms we will be able to conduct seminars and demonstrations on how to cook and how to use the equipment. These classes will be short and to the point lasting no more than an hour. Since most of our meals in the cookbook only take about fifteen minutes we will be able to show our most popular meals in that time. The students will learn how to properly use the stove and fire safety techniques including some first aid.

Nutritionists that teach at East Carolina University will be instruct-ing the classes and will also offer advice to anyone. The classes could be available for passport events that the first year experience programs offer. We found out that to become a passport event you have to fill out a wellness passport application

and submit it to Tywanna Purkett who is the director of the passport events. We will partner with the campus wellness programs to get information out to the students. The new student orientation programs held in the summer are for students and parents and the office is includ-ing a flash drive for the incoming freshmen. We talked to the head office manager Karen Smith and she told us that our cookbook and, or brochure could be included in the flash drive or we could have a link to a page that has the information. Janie Owens who is the dinning hall and nutritionist manager on cam-pus let us know that when they did host a farmer market on campus the students could use their pirate bucks and therefore she said that it wouldn’t be a problem to use pirate bucks for the cart as long as we had the computer software.

The health 1000 class briefly in-cludes knowledge about healthy eating and the effects of not eating a well-balanced meal. By introduc-

ing a way to buy food on campus that comes from local venders and is inexpensive to buy this will persuade students to become more aware of healthy eating. The health 1000, health 2500 and COAD classes will consist of more information about how to choose the right foods for your life style; for example, if you are more ac-tive and play a sport or less active and just want to stay a healthy consistent weight. All of these classes must include the passport events to complete the course. Since most students in their freshman year gain about fifteen pounds or so it is more effective if the health and COAD classes that they take in the first year consist of more information about healthy local foods. This will give them knowledge that they can use throughout their college career and help bring local foods into more peoples diet.

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“Location, Location, Location.”

As part of the Healthy Pirates Project, “Pirate Produce” carts also known as Apple Carts will be stationed in key locations around the University campus.

These carts will be located on College Hill, Central Campus (at Wright Plaza/ The Mall), and West Campus. We feel that these cart locations will provide the best opportunity for students and even faculty to best utilize the fresh, local produce on campus.

Educational materials such ascookbooks and informative brochures will be made available at each Apple Cart. Each Apple Cart will be equipped with easy pull-out/set up features, a weighing station, produce bags, and easy check-out. The Apple Carts are constructed from light-weight,durable plastic.

“Pirate Produce” carts will open forbusiness at 7:00 AM and shutdown at 6:00 PM, Monday through Friday. Saturdays, they will be open from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM. They will be closed on Sundays, holidays and depending onthe weather.

Pirate Produce Carts aka Apple Carts

Line constructions of the Apple Carts

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Color constructions of the Apple Carts

Cookbook, Brochures and Charts

How many college students have time to cook?

An even better question is how many college students actually know how to cook? This part of East Carolina University Healthy Pirates Project will provide college students with quick, easy, nutritious and delicious recipes that they can make in fifteen minutes or less.

The materials would include infor-mational cookbooks, brochures, and seasonal information charts about the fruits and vegetables and their avail-ability throughout the year. These collections will be offered at the three Pirate Produce carts or ‘apple carts’ located across campus, The Croatan by the music building, Wright Place in central campus, and 360 located in Mendenhall on West End. They will also be available at the classes we will conduct in the fully loaded kitchens located in the dorms. We will also teach some of the recipes out of the cookbook and offer additional infor-mation after the classes if students wish to obtain more knowledge about local foods and cooking techniques. The brochures will include basic information about the entire Healthy

Pirates Program and about local food vendors. Introductory information about the classes and passport events for freshmen as well as older students will be included in a short calendar at the back of the brochure. The infor-mational products will be included in the campus wellness activities and will be free to all students. Each one of the brochures and cookbooks will be given to the freshmen as a new student ori-entation gift to start their new life as an East Carolina University student. The cookbooks will include simple, healthy and easy to follow recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and dessert that include the foods that you can buy at the apple carts. They will also include references to other cookbooks for those students wishing to further their recipe library.

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HEALTHYPiratesProject

HEA

LTH

YPira

tes

Proj

ect

HEALTHYPiratesProject

HEALTHYPiratesProject

ApplesBeans, GreenBeans, ButterBlueberriesBrocolliCabbageCantaloupesCornCucumbersEggplantGrapesLeafy GreensOkraPeachesPeanutsPeas, FieldPecansPeppers, GreenPotatoes, WhitePotatoes, SweetPumpkinsSquashStawberriesTomatoesWatermelon

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov DecNorth Carolina Fruit and Vegetable Availability

HEALTHYPiratesProject

ApplesBeans, GreenBeans, ButterBlueberriesBrocolliCabbageCantaloupesCornCucumbersEggplantGrapesLeafy GreensOkraPeachesPeanutsPeas, FieldPecansPeppers, GreenPotatoes, WhitePotatoes, SweetPumpkinsSquashStawberriesTomatoesWatermelon

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov DecNorth Carolina Fruit and Vegetable Availability

HEALTHYPiratesProject