FOOD LITERACY to us means "literacy about food" as well as "literacy through food."
“Literacy about food” is simply knowing what/why/how we eat. It’s about being woke to our daily food choices and understanding where our food comes from and all the trade-offs made to get the food in front of us. It’s about understanding the nested nature of our food systems and the global to local food economies
that are being resourced or not. Food literacy means listening to how your body feels after you eat and in the long-term. It means cooking, growing, fermenting some of the foods you eat when you can, and not just being a “consumer” all the time. It means talking about what you are tasting: comparing flavors and textures, acknowledging the producers and processors, critiquing the cook, creating a food memory with your friends and family.
“Literacy through food” means promoting family reading through something that we do several times everyday. It’s far easier to get parents to read with their children on something that we’re all familiar with. We also feel parents don’t have to build literacy by reading a book. Read a recipe or food labels. They tell a story too. A Harvard School of Education study found that children learn more “rare words”—sophisticated words to build a robust vocabulary—at the family dinner table than reading books. So food, in this case sharing food, is an important vehicle to not only nourish our bodies but our minds too.
