This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Northwestern chapter.
A few of my friends are involved in Northwestern University Real Food, and they invited me to a Food and Friends, a free, vegetarian, sustainably-sourced dinner on Monday. After having such an amazing experience and delicious fod, I had the amazing opportunity to interview Morgan McFall-Johnsen, a co-president of the club and organizer of the event.
Name: Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Year: Sophomore
Major: Journalism, Environmental Policy & Culture, and French
Hi Morgan, can you introduce yourself?
My name is Morgan McFall-Johnsen. I’m a sophomore studying Journalism, Environmental Policy & Culture, and French. I’m from Chicago.
How did you become passionate about food issues in America?
I became passionate about environmental issues in high school after I did some volunteer conservation work in a national forest and took AP Environmental Science. I really wanted to do something about climate change and I realized that the biggest immediate change I could make in my life was to stop eating meat. That’s when I started to care about food issues. I watched a lot of documentaries on Netflix about industrial agriculture and the food system, and my eyes were opened to all the other issues in our food system. Real Food seemed like the best way to address all those issues.
How was NURF created?
Real Food at NU (NURF) was founded by a handful of passionate students in 2014. They’d heard about the Real Food Challenge (the national organization of which we are a chapter) and how it was spreading through universities across the country. They spent over a year gathering community support and campaigning for President Morton Schapiro to sign the Real Food Commitment, and he signed it in spring 2015! The commitment states that the university will source 20% Real Food in its dining halls by 2020. Since then we’ve been working on implementing that commitment. We work directly with Sodexo and Northwestern staff to bring food that is local, humane, sustainable, or fair to the dining halls.
You can find out more at our website: http://realfoodnu.wixsite.com/realfoodnu
Can you tell me about the Food and Friends dinner event?
Food & Friends was a way to bring the community together around a Real Food meal to talk about food in their lives and communities. This event aligns perfectly with our theme for the quarter: community. We raised over $4000 for Food & Friends during spring quarter through the Catalyzer project. Sodexo catered the event with a Real Food meal of local and organic food. It was a great opportunity for people from all parts of our community to talk to each other about food issues and get a taste of Real Food.
How do you plan on continuing to work with issues of food in the future/after graduation?
I have no idea what I’m going to do after graduation! But I’d like to work on issues of social justice and environmental advocacy.
How can students get involved with these issues on campus and in Chicagoland?
Students can get involved with these issues by joining NURF and/or coming to our meetings! You can get involved with other social justice issues on campus through Student Action at NU or through the divestment movements. Student Action can also connect you to social justice movements in Chicago. You can get involved with issues of food accessibility in Chicago by volunteering with the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
Thank you so much Morgan for facilitating this interview! It was very enlightening to hear about your involvement on food issues on campus!