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I am a YAV in Boston, working with and learning about food justice and economic discipleship.\u00a0 These topics have me examining how to live out our biblical calls to love our neighbor, care for the poor, the widows, the orphans, and do justice in terms of our food and economic decisions.\u00a0 It gets pretty complex because our food system and economy are so complex in recent decades.<\/p>\n
As food justice advocates we must add our voice to all the Christmas festivities.\u00a0 Food is a big part of the Christmas gift giving.\u00a0 People volunteer at Christmas to serve meals to the needy, donate time and food to food pantries, or even deliver meals to people\u2019s homes on Christmas day.\u00a0 The Christmas dinner with friends and family is part of the tradition.\u00a0 My mom always made fudge to give to our school teachers.\u00a0 Cookie tins, Andes mints, oranges, chocolate peanuts, the famous fruit cake and many others are common gifts to those close to us, or maybe to those we don\u2019t like so much but \u201cneed to give them something\u201d.<\/p>\n
Using food as a just gift is just one way to bring food justice to the Christmas scene.\u00a0 As an edible gift it cuts down on waste because it won\u2019t break and fall apart eventually like any toy.\u00a0 I learned to make apple butter as part of an internship with Nu Beginning Farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and gave it as gifts for my friends last Christmas.\u00a0 It was new, different, and a way to show off my work.\u00a0 I wanted to make blueberry jam for Christmas gifts, but the only fresh blueberries in December in VA were from Mexico.\u00a0 Even though Shenandoah Presbytery\u2019s annual trip to Baja Mexico, (that I\u2019ve been on) probably built a house for one of the workers who picked the berries, I decided to find some local fruit instead, hence the apples.<\/p>\n
In the Boston YAV house we are making applesauce and apple butter to send to friends and family for Christmas because it\u2019s new, different, and a way to show off our work with food justice, and local food.\u00a0 All of our apples were grown in Massachusetts orchards, and we\u2019ve discovered that the different apple varieties make different flavors, and even different colors of applesauce and apple butter.<\/p>\n
Applesauce is very versatile and healthful in recipes, since it can be substituted for oil in baking, and making it yourself you control the sugar.\u00a0 Honestly you don\u2019t need that much, apples have natural sugar, or you could sweeten it with other fruit like a little plum or pear, maybe even some honey and not use any sugar.\u00a0 My roommate Libby does this, and she only started making applesauce in September.\u00a0 It\u2019s not hard to make and you can experiment with the flavor.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t recommend adding vinegar like I did, maybe a little is fine, but too much makes it more like cough syrup.\u00a0 Cooking apples brings us closer to our food than just buying a jar of it from the store, and adds personality and stories to it, which always makes better gifts.<\/p>\n
But food justice goes beyond low sugar, experimenting and storytelling.\u00a0 As part of my internship, and this YAV year, I\u2019ve learned food\u2019s deeper connections with justice.\u00a0 In many places, grocery stores are filling up with apples from large orchards from places like Washington state or California, mainly for the large supply.\u00a0 Think about it. It\u2019s much easier to have fewer suppliers with more apples for ease and efficiency, unfortunately some quality gets cut when apples sit in storage for so long and on a refrigerated truck for so long, and sometimes fruit is picked before it ripens for a longer shelf life.\u00a0 From a biodiversity perspective, rare apple varieties are being lost with this model.\u00a0 The worst of it is small local apple farmers in the Shenandoah Valley, VA and even here in Massachusetts, among other places are struggling to stay in business because workers are so expensive for them with less demand. \u00a0Many sell wholesale to restaurants but not to grocery chains.\u00a0 Most grocery chains won\u2019t buy local apples.\u00a0 We YAVs \u00a0have seen this personally in Massachusetts visiting an orchard where the farmer only can make it because he hires Jamaican workers and the state has a law that allows him to pay them a fair wage and provide housing (less expensive than hiring US citizens).\u00a0 He is also lucky that Whole Foods hires a special person to source local food who buys his apples and cider, something no other large grocery chain will do any more.\u00a0 Whole Foods is the only large one we\u2019ve found with local fresh produce, and they don\u2019t look for apple orchards much smaller than his.<\/p>\n
Why is it that people can buy apples in the supermarket from hundreds of miles away while apple farmers within fifty miles are struggling to pay their workers?<\/p>\n
At this rate the best way to keep local farms in business is to buy from the farm directly if they can\u2019t make it in the large grocery chains.\u00a0 This is just a product of the times and an example of the complexities of food and food justice.<\/p>\n
So right there in choosing which apple to buy for a holiday gift opened a world of options to show justice. \u00a0How complex does it get if we look at multiple ingredients, or if we trace the origin of everything in mom\u2019s fudge, or that wonderful fruitcake? \u00a0\u00a0Come Lord Jesus.\u00a0 We have personally avoided this complexity by buying apples from farmers we’ve met and talked with about food justice.<\/p>\n
Learn the names of your farmers, what grows locally and how you can show them justice.\u00a0 I think you will be surprised.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d encourage you to think of ways to use food as a gift that supports producers and growers you want to support, cook it yourself if you can, control the ingredients as best you can.\u00a0 Try apple butter or applesauce perhaps.\u00a0 If we can do it so can you!<\/p>\n
Bring food justice to the table this Christmas.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"\/media\/uploads\/blogs\/satisfying-the-hunger\/images\/2014-01-03_18.54.43_small200.jpg\")
I am a YAV in Boston, working with and learning about food justice and economic discipleship. These topics have me examining how to live out our biblical calls to love our neighbor, care for the poor, the widows, the orphans, and do justice in terms of our food and economic decisions. It gets pretty complex because our food system and economy are so complex in recent decades.<\/p>\r\n
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Why is it that people can buy apples in the supermarket from hundreds of miles away while apple farmers within fifty miles are struggling to pay their workers? <\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,321],"tags":[178],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-justice","category-young-adults","tag-food-faith-justice-yav-boston-health-young-adult-pcusa"],"yoast_head":"\n