The FoodSEqual team in Whitley, Reading update on their recent ‘Fun with Food’ event.
The FoodSEqual Whitley team held the second Fun with Food Event at South Reading Community Hub on 9th April 2024 during the spring break. We know, we never mentioned the first one, which was in July 2023, but let’s say, the first one went so well that it warranted the second one!
Fun with Food event is an event that is all about food and it is for and from the community, to get people to engage with us and share knowledge with us over food. Who doesn’t like food, right!
We took 2 months to prepare for this event, making sure we took the feedback we had received from our first event back in summer 2023 to improve this one! We brought more colours (balloons were involved!) and we kept nearly all the activities we had done last year.
We had ‘Ask the Food Scientist’ where there was a REAL food scientist whom anyone could ask any food related questions.
We also had games on matching pictures of vegetables and fruits with the plants, guess our food portion, the poo chart info (yep, you read it right!), apple bobbing, fruits and vegetable tasting, pudding making, salad corner, smoothie making and many more.
We used this event as an opportunity to share what we had learned from the community over the past 2.5 years of the FoodSEqual project in Whitley, using a few posters.
We wanted to let the community know that we listened, and that their voice matters!
Their thoughts and opinions shared with us through workshops, surveys, interviews were captured in these posters, and we asked the community to let us know if we had heard them correctly. The main points are to have access to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, not to have unhealthy chemicals and additives in food, solutions to challenges to keep family well-fed and happy, not to face stigma and inequality, to have community spaces and connection.
There are some actions that we have taken so far, to respond to the feedback.
This event, like the last event in summer, has taught us that if given the opportunity, people, especially children, are curious and explorative about food. Also, people are aware of what makes a healthy diet, and what nutrition their body needs. If given the choice, they would choose healthy nutritious delicious food any day.
However, food in its glorious complexity, is not just about knowing what’s healthy or trying new food/recipes. Based on the conversations we had with people, they have voiced the desire to have access to food that is fresh, chemical free and healthy.
One thing that remains with us, said by one of the visitors to the event is that “You cannot do one without the other. They are all interconnected.”. This profound remark shows that we need collaborative work with everyone in the food system working together. We need to develop a system that will address the concerns of the people, from access to quality food to sustainable food production. Thus, the system will then be able to support the health of the people and our environment.