My connection to the Slow Food mentality and network has assisted and guided me in countless periods of my life.
Slow food….
Helped me recover from anorexia,
Connected me with my greatest mentors,
Led me to study sustainable agriculture at Green Mountain College (which I now consider home),
Facilitated the creation of a network of friends who are passionate about enjoyment and activism in the Green Mountain College Slow Food chapter.
With 19 moves under my belt and nearing the age of 20, change is something I have come to value and love. But in my early high school years, constant change and familial/societal pressure led me to develop the eating disorder anorexia. I viewed food as an enemy, strategically planning how I could consume as little as possible, while maximizing exercise. Flavor was of little importance- only the numbers, the caloric impact. Anxiety accompanied the ED monster, and as a budding environmental activist I fretted over humanity’s ever-destructive footprint. The shackles of anorexia and anxiety left little room for enjoyment or constructive activism.
Upon moving to North Carolina at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, I met through a chance encounter an incredible mentor, Lydia Atkins. As a Foodcorps member in the county, Lydia was intertwined with the sustainable food and agriculture movement of the area. Through working with Lydia and interning on two farms in the Appalachian Mountains that summer, I rediscovered a healthy relationship to delicious, nourishing food and I recognized that my place as an environmental activist was in the sustainable agriculture field.
Since that first farm intern position, where I explored the biodiversity and importance of heirloom apples in Appalachia and initially heard about Slow Food and Terra Madre from David Kendall of Troutlily Farm, I have milked with ganaderos of an organic dairy cooperative in the Andes of Peru, harvested and processed coffee at a farm in the cloud forest of Ecuador, led student field trips through an urban farm in Washington D.C., and become the president of Green Mountain College’s Slow Food Chapter in Vermont. Slow Food- the movement, the mentality, the network- has been with me all the way.
The grand power of Slow Food and of mentors is something I want to share with others. I am overjoyed to have the opportunity to attend Terra Madre and connect with people from all over the world who can relate to each other through shared passions, and learn from each other’s diverse backgrounds. I will bring back the emotions, knowledge, and connections of Terra Madre to the Slow Food chapter of Green Mountain College, to inspire our journeys. I will bring back the stories of migrations- how they have enlightened our lives with the people, plants, products, and more that they diffuse. I will bring back a broadened worldview, friends, and ideas, to guide me in my future as an environmentalist, activist, and Slow Food snail☺