CSU Sponsoring Public Forum on Shared Food System

Colorado State University Extension and the Center for Public Deliberation are sponsoring, “On the Tip of Your Fork: A Conversation about Your Role in Our Shared Food System” from 7-9 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14, at the Carter Lake Room in the Larimer County Courthouse, 200 West Oak St. in Fort Collins.

The facilitated discussion on food choices is designed to begin a broader community conversation and gather information on how the public decides what food choices to make and how they talk about these decisions.

“Each one of us thinks about food at least three times a day and probably more than 1,000 times per year,” said Martin Carcasson, director of the Center for Public Deliberation and an associate professor of Communication Studies. “We divide our days reserving times for breakfast, lunch or dinner even when we choose to shirk dreaded responsibilities or pass on beloved avocations. Like our need for air and water, we need food to live. No matter how technologically advanced our lives become, the simple need for food is not optional.”

Carcasson said the event will include discussions on such topics as food choices, availability, cost, preparation, portion size and safety. Consciously or unconsciously, he added, our thoughts about food influence decisions each time we shop at a grocery store or choose a restaurant. The choices have profound social and political ramifications.

“Although our food choices are an individual decision, when we make our food choices we become an active participant in many important social and political issues: health care, energy production and consumption, natural resource protection, global warming, economic development, international trade, obesity, population growth, animal welfare, immigration and labor,” Carcasson said. “We can’t tackle these social issues without talking about food and we cannot talk about food without considering the contribution to these social issues.”

The event is free and open to the public. RSVP online at http://bit.ly/vcUvit or call CSU’s Center for Public Deliberation at (970) 491-5628.

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