Changing the way we eat

David Schwartz wants to get real about food.

Schwartz is the co-founder of the organization Real Food Challenge, that’s goal is to reform the current food system from the production to the consumption of food.

The Real Food Challenge will be holding a training conference beginning this Saturday and continuing to Monday in Ames. The group will also make a trip to Marshalltown.

Schwartz said the goal of the organization is to shift the money spent on food to more local and socially just food practices.

The Real Food Challenge has a goal to get colleges and universities to have 20 percent of food purchased be “Real Food,” which is approximately $1 billion, by 2020.

“The problems I see are many,” Schwartz said about the current food system.

The Real Food Challenge wants to bring changes to the food system on four fronts: producers, communities, consumers and the environment.

Schwartz said the problem with food in this global system is not about the fact that some people have food and some do not. The design of the system is what is flawed, he said.

He compared the current financial crisis to the current food crisis.

“When it comes to food, we built an increasingly globalized and industrialized food system that basically treats everything like a commodity,” he said. “Where profit is valued over people.”

Schwartz said people’s health is a serious concern with the current system, from the rise in diabetes to the high rate of obesity in the United States.

“From every point in the chain,” something needs to change, he said.

“We use the term ‘real food’ to talk about food that is good for the people that are growing it, the people who are consuming it, our communities in terms of revitalizing our economies and the planet,” he said.

Nancy Levandowski, director of ISU Dining, said Iowa State is doing a number of things to contribute to the sustainability side of the food industry, through the Farm to ISU program.

Of Iowa State’s nearly $7 million food budget, Iowa State has spent about $500,000 on local, sustainable or organic food.

“Obviously local is our main focus because we want to support local businesses,” she said.

Levandowski said ISU Dining will begin composting sites in the fall at three locations: Knapp-Storm dining hall, Union Drive Market Place and the new Seasons Marketplace.

Schwartz, who grew up in Boston, said being in the city, agriculture was far from his consciousness. However, being Jewish gave him a strong sense of his immigrant heritage. The other factor was the first summer job he got when he was 14.

“It just happened that the organization I applied with was called the food project,” he said.

“[It] was this group that brought together kids from the city and kids from the suburbs to work together on farms.”

Schwartz said this job showed him the power of agriculture.

“That was sort of the beginning for me,” he said.