Eat This Michigan

Abstract

The project goal is to create an interactive tool that helps University of Michigan students recognize that their food choices have a significant impact on environmental and social issues. The consequences of what we eat go far beyond simple nutrition and our own bodies, reaching into the realms of social justice and environmental sustainability.

We want to empower students to make a difference by becoming informed, responsible food consumers. In order to reach the students in a format that is both familiar and interactive, we will create an internet blogging website chronicling our daily actions and experiences related to food issues, complemented by the experts we talk to, activities we engage in, and resources that we find along the way. This blog will give students a behind-the- scenes look into the local “food web”, while showing that being a responsible consumer can benefit organic and local growers.

Through interviews with local urban and rural farmers, documentation of the life cycle of some common food stuffs, and exploring research here at U-M, we will connect our actions to the larger issue of responsible consumption as it relates to the environment and community, from the local scale to the global.