Sharing food is an incredibly satisfying and natural part of being human. We love to share food, break bread & gift food abundances to any and everyone. Currently we share food via our foraging, gleaning & food preservation events as well as through mutual aid networks. Stay tuned as we develop our in-the-works physical home base this season.

We are well aware that there is no shortage of food on this planet for all beings; there is simply an imbalanced, unhealthy distribution. We contribute to the dismantling of systems of greed, fear, scarcity mentality and structural racism against folks from the global majority by offering an affordable membership model. No one is turned away due to lack of funds.

Approximately 50% of foraged foods will be distributed to members present at events, 40% will go in our collective storage for future processing & preservation and 10% will be gifted & distributed through local mutual aid networks. We strongly believe that by upleveling our collective skillsets, we can build an interdependent, collectively-run, hyper-local food system.

If we are going to thrive in this rapidly changing and uncertain world, we are going to need to collectively up-level our food and land skills. This will require relying on each other despite of (and because of) our various perspectives, backgrounds, cultural and political differences. We have to work together.

We acknowledge that many of us may have grown up in environments where food was scarce, inconsistent, unappetizing, unhealthy, no-longer-living and generally disconnected from source. We acknowledge that many of us may have grown up in food apartheid*, without access to any fresh or living foods. At True Foods events, we work with folks to gently rekindle the flame and natural-intuition of working with food and the land that is our collective birthright.

We are proud to host events on topics from “seed-to-compost”, to re-familiarize ourselves with the whole cycle of growing, harvesting and making use of the beautiful life-giving plants in our area. These skills include but are not limited to foraging wild and abundant foods, no-till & organic gardening, seeding, harvesting, food preservation (drying, canning, freezing, fermenting), perennial foods, composting, saving seeds, meal prep, cooking, basic kitchen skills, food storage, healing through food and more.

_________________________

*Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm chooses this term—food apartheid instead of food desert—very intentionally to describe impoverished neighborhoods that lack healthy food options, because deserts are natural ecosystems while this lack of access is human-created segregation. SOURCE

Our efforts:

• decrease food waste in the Hudson Valley

• harvest & gather foods which meet as many of these as possible: organic, fresh, local, nutritious, medicinal, no/low-packaging, healthy (i.e. low/no sugar, chemically processed foods)

• shorten supply-chains by meeting food needs locally

• increasing community resilience by building food & land-based skills

• introduce & incorporate wild, seasonally appropriate & less popularly known foods into our diets 

• reduce our dependence on food from grocery stores or pantries

• improve physical, mental & spiritual health through cooperative work & by spending more time outdoors, connecting with nature and connecting with each other

• create spaces for authentic, safe, inter-generational learning. We feel strongly about treating youth (and all people) with care and mutual respect 

• acknowledge the past and current impacts of systemic racism, the pharmaceutical-industrial-military system, tactics of political division, dis-empowerment and other exploitation and extraction (past and present) of Black & indigenous communities, separating people from the land and our cultural life-ways. We come together as a practice in rekindling our birthright to healthy food and healthy soils