KIP-3: Adopting “Kift Food Ethos” & Implementing Practical, Healthy Changes to Communal Food Efforts

Authors & Responsible Parties

@faren 🕉#0185 @noami#2900 @wynne.weddell#1995 @MohitK#4333

Motivation

We are all striving to make a positive impact in our community and create a sustainable, healthy way of living, yet we may be unaware of systems of inequity at play that can turn our best intentions into ineffective or even harmful outcomes for some.

Thus, we seek to define the “Kift Food Ethos” and implement healthy, practical changes immediately. We are focused on creating an inclusive space that considers the realities of institutional and structural oppression and our community’s diversity (including class, age, race, gender, sexual identity, religion, other social identifiers, and dietary/health needs).

Kift's aspirations towards sustainability, inclusion, equity, and healthy community culture demands that we make changes to how we source our food, the language/culture/knowledge surrounding communal eating, engage more members in food activities and idea sharing, and take steps towards reducing waste. Education and engagement with the spectrum of humans who make up our beautiful community about their needs, vision and connection to the food system is a great next step. Through these conversations, we commit to being better allies to marginalized community members, who often go unheard or lack a vote in food systems development (amplifying voices and words, not speaking for or over them).

Most importantly, food systems like so many other efforts, are not done in a silo, but rather in partnership with allies committed to equity, sustainable local economies, workers’ rights, land sovereignty, and beyond. We are all bound to one another in this wild and radical way of life and so is our humanity.

A survey was conducted to gather community sentiments surrounding food, and the results have spurred conversation that begs for change to our current food sourcing and protocols.

Principles

Proposed Kift Food Ethos:

We choose to eat together and collectively prepare meals, and invite others in, because it requires less effort, less capital, produces less waste, and is a source of joy and connection for the community.

Communally, we do not intend to provide everything needed to comprise a complete diet - we purchase baseline plant-based staples as part of the Kift membership. Target food budget is $100 per/month/member.

Dairy and eggs and non-staple specialty items can be personally sourced and may be included in community meals, as long as it is clearly labeled and/or members are in clear communication about which food items are vegan/vegetarian. We aim to cook common meals that are accessible and all can share.

Community members are welcome to purchase, store and prepare animal-based products for personal meals. Dairy & eggs can be stored in communal refrigerators provided it is well labeled and kept separate. We do not shame anyone for their choices regarding what they eat. Kift’s food principles are based upon ecological & economic sustainability, but we encourage our members to pursue a diet that honors their cultural/religious/spiritual practices and best serves their body’s needs.

The leadership surrounding this community initiative includes a majority of historically marginalized voices. The co-authors and leads of this proposal are i.e Indigenous, Black, other people of color, and/or people who identify as women/femmes as Kift is committed to unlearning and working towards a decolonized way of living. We believe that food justice is racial justice and nutrition is a human right. We commit to actively seeking out and supporting whenever possible BIPOC farms and businesses.

As much as possible, we buy ethically sourced single, whole ingredients and make some of our own food rather than purchase processed food. Ex: Granola, hummus, Bitchin sauce, salad dressing, etc. are not difficult to make or learn to make. We share these bonding experiences and build this basic knowledge into our culture.

We choose organic, regenerative, and sustainable over petro-fertilizer/pesticide treated produce. We avoid preservatives, GMOs, artificial colors and sweeteners. We choose whole foods over processed foods, dry goods over canned.

We avoid single serve foods. We avoid wasteful packaging, especially plastic. Thus, we buy ingredients in bulk as much as possible and safely store ingredients or communally made food in each Kift house.

We use the following decision tree to determine where we get our food:

1. Can we make it ourselves?
2. Can we find it grown or produced locally? (Farmer/producer/co-op/CSA/BIPOC business)
3. Can we order it direct from producer?
4. Is there a startup aggregating producers that we can work with?
5. If no to all of the above, we ask if we truly need it. And if yes, we will buy it at the chain.

We also explore and expend efforts into the possibility of eventually growing food at our locations, hiring resident gardeners & using community volunteer efforts (gardens, fruit trees, herb boxes, foraging) if/when Kift owns sites, but not currently as part of this proposal. We will get to know the seasons & land at each Kift house, make connections with local food growers/producers and make food choices that work with the seasons and each location. A cost analysis would be performed at the appropriate time to evaluate feasibility.

Steps to Implement:

1. Adopting the outlined principles above, or “Kift Food Ethos”.
2. Co-creation (led by the responsible parties & community survey TBA) of a spreadsheet listing bulk ingredients & items that are approved for ordering, and following the rubric above, determining what we want to order consistently, and as a community, where to purchase it from, and sourcing the best vendor that meets all criteria and setting up accounts with them. Also calls for creation/maintenance of a bulk food storage system that suits each site.
3. Co-creation of a community “Kift Meal Guide”: A simple recipe book with standard nutritious, inexpensive meals based on commonly stocked ingredients that people can reliably and easily cook for large groups.
4. Co-creation of an educational program (led by the responsible parties) including cultural practices, work/cooking parties, tea times, food workshops & conversations, resource document creation & updating, graphics, social media, videos, etc. - To show why we do this and how we do this.
5. 3 month retrospective analysis on cost (January 2023- March 2023), effort, & community consensus on the changes, as well as a continual improvement plan including feedback collection and integration.

Timeline

Starting immediately.

List of approved communal ingredients and goods: End of December 2022

Initial meal guide (10 recipes) creation: End of December

Retrospective cost analysis: End of March 2023

Overall Cost

To be determined by End of December 2022

Overall cost reduction expected due to reduced specialty and one-off purchases.

Additional budget for bulk storage containers & organization required

Success Metrics

Potential indicators:

• Amount of single-use packaging reduction
• Nutritious value increased of our meals
• Food cost reduction
• Simplified ordering process
• Time spent orchestrating grocery pickups reduction
• Inclusive, representative food culture established & embodied in collective meals
• Easily understood & circulated collective Recipe Guide for members’ use

Voting Structure

One Member (unique wallet) = One Vote

Support required:

Support from members to find sustainable, BIPOC-supportive, local and/or organic sources of food.

Voluntary idea/recipe contributions from members to craft the meal guide. Support to promote & update the guide as needed.

Support from members to organize new bulk food storage at each site.