The weather was gray and windy, but spirits were warm and bright at our first workday of the semester. With tendrils of spring sprouting across the Farm, students broke ground in our fields, using shovels and hoes to turn and level the soil in preparation for peas and other crops. Others headed to the strawberry patch to gather leaf litter and give the berries space to grow. Many of the strawberries are sending off runners, or horizontal sprouts that must be pruned to leave room for others. Although their leaves are still brown, the plants are hale and hearty: according to farm manager Jacob Slaughter ’24, “they just haven’t woken up yet.” Meanwhile, our newest culinary events managers, proudly wearing our new YSFP hoodies, went for a tour of the Old Acre, where they learned about the many pizza toppings we can anticipate in coming weeks — garlic chives, anyone? On the other side of the Farm, Slifka Center affiliates gathered to harvest parsley and horseradish for Passover seder.
With dirt under their fingernails and smiles on their faces, students returned to the Lazarus Pavilion for some long-awaited pizza. The team did not disappoint, slinging out pies layered with roasted garlic, sweet potato puree, caramelized onion, kale, and much, much more. Attendees then sat down for an engaging knead 2 know by YSE doctoral candidate Samara Brock and former Lazarus fellow Austin Bryniarski '16 YSE '19, in which they discussed their article, “How anti-fatness crept into the environmental sustainability movement.” Brock and Bryniarski explained that a growing number of environmentalists have started to promote the concept of “metabolic food waste”—the idea that fat people eat too much and therefore have a greater negative impact on the environment. The flaws with this theory are manifold. Firstly, it misunderstands the science of weight and metabolism while perpetuating fatphobia, discrimination, and the erroneous and damaging belief that fat people are “failed thin people.” The speakers quoted author and fat activist Virgie Tovar, who said, “Fat people are a natural part of human diversity, and if there are not fat people in the future, then that future has failed on some level.” In addition, it maintains a focus on individual consumption decisions rather than on systemic change to food systems, choosing to scrutinize the fat body while obscuring the bodies of farmworkers and others who are harmed by unsafe labor conditions, pesticide use, and more.
After a thoughtful Q&A, attendees returned to conversations over pizza, accompanied by the songs of a cappella group Something Extra.
Thank you to Brock and Bryniarski for their presentation, and to all those who spent the afternoon with us. Next week, we’ll be back on the Farm for a workday at 2:00 and a knead 2 know at 4:15 by Nisreen Abo-Sido MEM '23. Photos from Friday can be found here.