Cultivating Cooking Transcript

Rowan Jackson: This podcast is part of the Roads College Just Food series, which addresses food inequality through discussion of production, access distribution and consumption in Memphis and beyond. In this semester, long project students and community members have come together to promote empowerment through awareness and equity. My name is Rowan Jackson, and I will be hosting this episode cultivating cooking. I'm from Dallas, Texas, along with two of my group members, Meghna, Lauren, we were able to learn more about food justice and what that looks like in the city of Memphis. We were interested in finding out on how to bring about more awareness to this food justice movement and to learn about different ways we can incorporate food justice education into Memphis communities. We felt that it was important to focus on food, justice, education, as many people have little to no exposure to different ways to contribute to the food justice movement and by discussing different ways people can get involved or even what their involvement is necessary. We could bring more exposure to this important topic that has such a wide influence on the people of Memphis. As such, we decided to deep dove into the importance of food, justice, education and awareness. However, before we move forward with understanding the importance of food, justice, education, we wanted to understand what food justice actually is based on discussions with various food justice community partners in Memphis, along with our own research. We were able to understand food justice as a means to provide healthy food to individuals as access to healthy food should be a basic human right. We can see how different structural, environmental, political, cultural and societal barriers may influence this access to healthy food and therefore create food insecurity across different communities. One way we can improve access to healthy food is by creating different initiatives that bring healthy food to various communities. And one way that can be done is by starting up community gardens or farmer's markets. The people not only have the opportunity to support local farmers, but they get the opportunity to have healthy local food fight outside their neighborhoods in a more affordable, accessible way. It is important to talk about food justice as food related societal issues tend to be on the rise across the United States. However, the communities that are most impacted by food are the African-American households, which are twice as likely to be experiencing food insecurity than white households. Furthermore, one out of five people in the Latino community is food insecure as compared to the one in 10 white people that are likely to be food insecure. So seeing different communities have more consequences as compared to other communities. It is important not only to spread awareness about food insecurity, but to understand the different ways that it will impact different communities, and then from there, take the necessary steps needed to bring access to healthy food in those communities. One reason why food is education is important is that more people, regardless of their age, background, culture, race or other identities, can contribute to not only changing their own food habits but also work on a community level to bring a more sustainable food system to life. That is why we decided to speak to a local organization in Memphis that actively works towards creating healthy food environments, along with incorporating food justice education into their programs here. In this episode, we are going to speak to three members of landmark farms and get an opportunity to understand the impact this organization has had on the local Memphis community. First, we will speak to Mr. Mike Minnis, who is one of the founders of this organization, along with his wife, Karen Minnis, as well as another member of the landmark Farms family. Sheryl White in this episode. We wanted to highlight how Landmark Farms came to be the organization it is today, the role this organization has had in shaping food justice in Memphis and further, and how we can push food justice education in different parts of Memphis and encourage more individuals to participate in this movement.

Mike Minnis: But it's an essential aspect, as we discovered during the shelter in place proclamation. Right? You know, and we have a saying that if a person drives up in a Maserati or Rolls Royce long as they meet their qualification we give them food, we go we don't judge. And that's another part of why no strings attached mentality. We don't operate by zip code. We operate based on need. And there was one point where this group of Latin Americans came to our pantry and it was right after they'd been kicked out of the line at Shelby County Schools headquarters or Hollywood. And I was told the reason they were kicked out loud is because they were undocumented. Now, mind you, the food that was being given out on Hollywood was a direct result of Zach Randolph donation, which he did not make that donation to only documented people he made for Memphians period. But the police outfit pulled these people out of there, and they came to Landmark, and all humanity is also the most vulnerable people had ever seen. They were so fragile. It really hurt to hear that story, and they got food and they came back and hopefully come back again in a speech in which they had an interpreter with them, which we remain friends with even today. But that, to me, money came back. When a person can have that level of comfort and confidence, even though there's a language barrier, we understand each other. And there's very few things that I have discovered in her life that supersede. Language barriers, music is one of. Food is enough. You know, you can take people from all over the world and put them in one room together and put the same music out, and everybody understands you people all over the world in the same room and put the food out and everybody knows what to do with it. Yeah. So that would be one of the three.

Rowan Jackson: How would you define food justice and how do you feel that your work ties into the larger food justice movement?

Mike Minnis: Food justice would be more of a socialistic type of positioning for food distribution than the current capitalistic methodology, there's in existence. Food justice is something that we're working towards to the extent that we've got. As I mentioned before, these obstacles that relate to mentality as it pertains to the stigma associated with agriculture through slavery and the mentality of certain African-American males who feel like they have to be in the dominant seat by themselves rather than cooperatively working with others. So those are some of the things that are hurdles to get us towards the place where a food justice can become a reality between the underserved communities and those who have the resources. Otherwise, in a perfect world, food justice will start with nutritional education so that whether you are in an under-resourced community or in an established sector, you understand good food choices versus bad food choices, and so many of us don't, irrespective of our station in life. So many of us don't understand nutritional education to make good food choices. Of course, not having having financial resources, people can stumble upon it by saying that, you know, they're willing to be willing to pay the high price. They'll stumble upon good food choices without even realizing it. But many times, to get to the essence of food justice, we have to go backwards in time to a different morality. That is when you take into consideration the family. And one of the basic morals of the family is community. One of the main aspects of community was dinner when everybody said at the dinner table again and had conversations about their day, particularly as it pertains to parents and children, because parents want to teach their children things that they know well. At the same time, the children go out and they get interspersed with all this other information be good or bad to the educational system or to their friends, and they come home. And quite often they may come home with big question marks in their mind and nobody to help them erase those questions. Whereas, when you have that interaction at the dinner table, the more structural the family becomes stronger as a result of providing them with good information and where there's some deep programing and reprograming necessary that's performed through communication. That breakdown has led to a lack of food justice. Because. part of the basic makeup of our society, deals with our social movements when the morals break down. What do we have to go? Forward on. So you have a kamikaze of people going in all directions with no real goal in sight. That's confusion. So to eradicate confusion would be one aspect of food justice in that in my mind goes back to nutritional education, eradicate confusion through nutritional education. To me, that's a form of the world food justice without having to take that into consideration. Financial displacement. Because let's face the facts. Changing the financial structure of our society is less likely to take place than enhancing nutritional education, nutrition education enhancement. To me, seems more plausible that change the financial structure of our society.

Rowan Jackson: Next, we'll hear what Karen Minnis, second founder of Landmark Farms and wife of Mike Minnis, has to say about our topic of interest.

Rowan Jackson: How do you feel the landmark farms connects like the individuals in the community to the food, justice movement and food justice?

Karen Minnis: Well, each person that comes I and the biggest thing that I enjoy about the farmer's market is each person who comes in, they come for a different reason, but we like to give out information about healthy foods and, you know, we have with medicinal teas. So we love to tell people, go some come in and "hey, what do I need for this, that or the other?" And just this past Saturday, we had a young lady to come in and for the first time, we knew her, but she just happened to be in a neighborhood come in and she was talking about, oh, just cleaning her system out. And I told her, yes, we can give you some detox tea, and this is something we tell people, you can buy the medicinal teas, you can buy the teas this afternoon to help with your blood pressure. You can buy something that will help with your diabetes if you want to detox your body? But you have to come back to healthy eating because whatever took you to that place where you need this remedy because you have high blood pressure or diabetes, or you need to clean out you still, you need to know what it takes to keep you from going back to that place, or you'll be back there again needing this stuff. But there are some very simple things. Drinking water, eating fresh raw fruits, vegetables, whole foods. Those are the things that clean you out. Keep you from having to go to places. You know, like that and when there is education on healthy eating. The food just is there, and all of those pieces that need to come together out there, their education, if the education isn't there, there's going to be ignorance and in it ignorance about healthy food. You can be the wealthiest person out there, you know, thinking that there there's this stuff that you can put in your body. That's not the best thing, and it doesn't matter, you know, so it's education.

Sheryl White: I don't know how I would really define it, but what they teach and landmark about the healthy eating, the the benefits of all natural products and food is just awesome. Is this something that once you learn that I began to change the whole way that I eat, that I begin to eat now because. About a year ago, I think I was in about a size 13 carrying around all this excess weight and not feeling healthy, not being not having energy and they just little stuff and while using some of their products and learning how to eat or just learning the benefits of the vegetables, fruits and vegetables that they are, the medicines being away from medicines, I don't like taking medicine. So there is something that I can eat that'll counter at the medicine I would much rather take what's natural. So those are the things that I've learned from them and know that things that you can passion to anybody. It doesn't cost anything to share some information about some food because as he said, we all like to eat

Rowan Jackson: Today, to speak with these change makers in our community, we now feel like we have a more clear understanding of the food justice movement in Memphis. And now we know some ways that we can contribute to shaping our Memphis community into a more healthy, sustainable food system.