Food & Nourishment

The goal of our Food & Nourishment Team is to encourage you to live happily within Earth’s limits enjoying healthy food without squandering away or destroying nature’s wealth for future generations:

Eat more local fresh foods in season. Learn how and where to find them, prepare them, and perhaps how to preserve them. Know your Farmer!
Incorporate some organic foods into your diet. Pay attention to the “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean Sixteen” foods. Check out the EWG.org website.
Learn about the many advantages of raising animals humanely. Those advantages are both for your health and for the health of ecosystems and the environment.
Rediscover the joy of cooking and eating together with family and friends.
Connoisseurs and Conversations (2CONs)… Enjoy a home cooked meal together: Volunteer to host a host a 2 CONS lunch or dinner party. Sign up as a guest at a 2 CONS event.
Heighten your awareness of special dietary needs and how to manage them.
Raise awareness of the relationship between food and health, including food allergies, food sensitivities, diseases that can be caused by, or alleviated, by certain foods and other environmental factors) How about autoimmune diseases, diabetes, MS, ALS, Parkinson’s, etc?
Find out about resources for achieving your nutrition and health goals.
Abundant Harvest Table: On Sunday mornings, donate fresh produce from your garden, as well as home baked and preserved goodies. Please label all of your ingredients.
Abundant Harvest Table: your monetary donations all go to the charities we support: Earthlinks and the Arvada Rising Homeless Day Shelter.

Contacts: Gilla Lachnitt, Laurie Scholl, and Carol Kolesnikoff

Resources

Abundant Harvest Table Nearly every Sunday throughout the year you will see our Abundant Harvest Table in the South Commons after each service. JUC members and friends share the abundance of fresh produce from our organic gardens during harvest seasons to share with you on Sunday mornings. Visit our table to partake of homemade healthy (mostly organic) foods such as soups and baked goods, which you can enjoy at church or take home. We gladly accept monetary goodwill donations to support the Arvada Rising Homeless Day Shelter and to offset our food costs. At our table, we also accept urgently needed items such as new underclothes and hygiene items, used clothing and shoes, all of which we deliver to the shelter.

Selections from our library of books, magazines, articles and films on food preparation, gardening, composting, nutrition, and agriculture, as well as our sustainability study guides (Northwest Earth Institute) are often displayed. These items can be checked out for up to a month at no charge (deposit required). In addition, we often display brochures on various nutritional topics and fliers announcing upcoming events, free for the taking.

Food and Fellowship – Nourishing Connection Luncheon Meetings Bimonthly, on or around the last Saturday mornings of odd months (January, March, May, July, September, and November), we host the popular free Nourishing Connections luncheon meetings. Nourishing Connections is the Denver chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation. The potluck luncheons, held in the South Commons, feature mostly organic foods (please label all ingredients) based on the WAPF guidelines. Featured speakers present on current nutrition/health related topics. Look for announcements on the bulletin board and/or join the email list when you attend the meeting.

Food and Fellowship – Connoisseurs and Conversations (2 CONS) We organize adult dinner and lunch parties set in our members’ private homes on two Saturdays in spring and two Saturdays in the fall. Groups usually average six to ten participants who share good food, beverages such as wine, and great conversation. Meals are an organized pot luck. Hosts choose the time of the gathering and sometimes a theme. They coordinate the contributions each guest will bring by email or by phone. Look for announcements on the Justice bulletin board. Look for the signup information at a table in the South Commons on Sundays or on the signup bulletin board, and in the future: on-line.

Support and Volunteer Opportunities

Abundant Harvest Table/Arvada Rising – Do you like interacting with others? Volunteer on Sunday mornings to help with the Abundant Harvest Table! Help prep food in the kitchen or serve at the table. Donate fresh produce from your garden, as well as homemade goodies. Please label your ingredients, as many of us may have food restrictions or allergies!

As mentioned before, we appreciate both your monetary and in-kind donations at the Abundant Harvest Table. These are essential to support the Arvada Rising Day Shelter and the food we offer to the homeless population there.

Currently, our volunteers take turns preparing and serving food for the shelter and for our table on Sunday mornings. We would love your help! “Many hands make easy work.” We always appreciate additional volunteers to make it all work (one time or regularly).

Earthlinks Colorado – Do you like gardening or arts and crafts? Lots of volunteer opportunities are available at this non-profit in west Denver. The Earthlinks mission is cultivating transformation and self-worth for people experiencing homelessness and poverty. By creating opportunities through earth-centered programs, individuals step out of isolation and into community, restoring each other and the planet. This is lots of fun for old and young volunteers!

Food and Fellowship – Nourishing Connection Luncheon Meetings – Volunteers help before and during the meeting to setup additional tables and chairs, setting up and organizing the serving tables for the buffet luncheon, and the speaker’s table. Electronics assistance with sound and TV monitor display is also helpful. Cleanup involves putting the tables and chairs away, vacuuming, cleaning up a few dishes and the kitchen, taking out the trash and recycling, making sure lights are out and being sure the doors are locked.

Food and Fellowship – Connoisseurs and Conversations (2 CONS) – Volunteers help contact members to determine who wants to host a 2 CONS lunch or dinner on given dates. Volunteers network with and signup guests on Sunday mornings in the South Commons and then post the signup sheets on the Signup bulletin board before leaving on Sunday. Hosts are volunteers who open their homes and contact guests to organize who brings what foods and beverages. Guests participate by contributing food and conversation!

Legislative Action Items – Action items are often time sensitive and may arise at the last minute. Watch this site to find out what actions you can take to make a difference. If you know of an issue related to food, sustainable agriculture, or health that needs action, feel free to let us know so we can post appropriate actions here!

External Links:

Buying on a budget: Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen

Pesticide laden foods: Dirty Dozen

Get poisons out of our Food!

Food news and reviews Eating Ethically – UUWorld

Local Food Shift

UUA: Ethical Eating: Food & Environmental Justice Study Guide

Cornicopia Institute – Economic Justice for Family Scale Farming

Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund

Weston A Price Foundation

Raw Milk Association of Colorado

Fresh local beef, bison, pork, chicken, elk, and lamb