Mindful Farming and Sustainable Food Advocates for Urban Foodsheds to Confront Preventable Diet-Related Diseases

Program Type: 
Farm Based, Garden Classrooms, School Cafeterias, Academic Classrooms, Support Organization
Grade Level/Age Group: 
Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, Lower Elementary, Upper Elementary, Middle School, High School, College/University, Adults/Professionals, Other
Number of Individuals Program Serves: 
500
Year Founded: 
2016
About the Program: 

Sustainable Food Advocates promotes nutrition education to strengthen the innate healing instinct of the body through healthy eating, adherence and literacy strategies that reduce preventable diet-related diseases and promote nourishing potentials that improve access to nutrient dense vitamins, minerals and the medicinal qualities of carotenoids, flavonoids, and polyphenols found in healthy vegetables, fruits, herbs, and nuts.  Through personalized counseling, workshops and conferences, member-households receive guidance in labeling information and nutrition facts, cooking tips and health benefits, and budget plans to use food expenditures and health spending to invest in food as medicine.  Moreover, Sustainable Food Advocates promotes urban sustainable agriculture that builds small-scale gardens and farms that renovate  brownfields and optimize space including container gardening, window sills, and rooftops to equip residents and people with no farming experience to grow food where they live, work and play as a public health strategy for food sovereignty and community food security to increase access to affordable, resilient, and quality, local food systems.  Furthermore,  Sustainable Food Advocates inspires capacity building for underserved, socioeconomically, disadvantaged neighborhoods to equip local stakeholders with employment, management and ownership of residential infrastructures to establish local economies representative of the cultural identities of people who live in the neighborhood.