Fall harvest celebrations are around the corner. These present great opportunities to share a Cool Harvest with your faith community — that is, food choices that are healthier for people, the planet, and the climate.
Interfaith Power & Light’s has an official 2014 free kit for hosting a Cool Harvest potluck with your friends or faith community.
There are many ways our food system and our food choices affect the climate. Factory farms are not only terrible places for animals, they create a huge amount of pollution. From cattle methane emissions to hog waste “lagoons” that foul waterways, the way we produce meat, and the huge quantity of it, contributes a large portion of global warming pollution.
One of the first and simplest things we can do to reduce our carbon “foodprints” is to eat less meat. Another step in cooling our diet is even simpler: reducing waste. It’s estimated that nearly half of food produced in the U.S. is eventually thrown away. That means all that energy used to grow, transport, prepare, and package that food was wasted, too. With too many people in our country still hungry or food insecure, this is another unjust consequence of our modern industrial food system.
Also available, our free Cool Movie and Discussion Kit — with suggestions and descriptions of films to introduce your faith community to some of the issues around food production in our country. The kits are supported by a companion website, coolharvest.org with inspirational food stories from the faith community, sustainable recipes and shopping guides, and much more.
Food that’s healthier for the planet doesn’t need to be complicated or hard to find — often it’s in our own backyards. Make organic seasonal vegetables the centerpiece of your meal and get produce from local organic farms when possible. Finding new ways to connect with and support your community through food can be very rewarding. We hope that you find one or both of the Cool Harvest kits useful in helping you to lead a food, faith and climate activity for your friends, family, or congregation this fall.