Poster Session
Farmers Market Flash: Encouraging Families With Young Children Receiving SNAP Benefits to Shop at Farmers Market Through Youth Art Walk View Digital Media
Poster Session Diane Smith
The Farmers Market Flash (FMF) program incorporates a variety of strategies to encourage families with young children receiving SNAP-benefits to shop at local farmers markets to increase access to locally grown, fresh foods, build community relationships, and support the local economy. Through a partnership with the Museum of Northwest Art (MoNA) and the FMF staff, a youth art program is offered at summer meal sites, after-school programs, and youth camps, highlighting local fruits and vegetables. Collected artwork is displayed at the farmers market, where additional activities including cooking demonstrations, scavenger hunts, and art activities with the Museum of Northwest Art, are available to engage community members in participating at the local farmers market.
Featured Unlocking Creative and Design Thinking Through the Arts: A Qualitative Case Study View Digital Media
Poster Session Catie-Reagan King
This study addresses the literature gap surrounding the arts’ value in developing creative and design thinking. In addition, the research aimed to encourage students to take art courses, universities to support them in doing so, and researchers to continue exploring the effects of arts-based cross-departmental courses on students’ development of 21st-century skills through mediums such as fine arts, culinary arts, and theatre arts. This study’s research design was a qualitative case study using a human-centered approach informed by constructivist theory and design thinking methodologies. Constructivist theory shaped data collection, as the goal of observation and interviewing was to explore the research problem from the perspective of participants directly subjected to the phenomenon and who reflected on the impact that interdisciplinary art education had on their growth and development. A human-centered research approach focused on the community as a whole and generated meaning from lived experience. The researcher examines the implications of university arts courses offered to non-art majors by posing actionable recommendations for university administrators, curriculum designers, faculty, and students. Implementing these recommendations by liberal arts universities will lead to more well-rounded graduates equipped with the 21st-century skills needed for success. The findings indicate that participants benefited from engaging in artistic expression. This triangulated data collection method created a way to analyze the data meaningfully. Positive outcomes, such as newfound confidence, a sense of community, and problem-solving skills were a few of the takeaways from participants. Each participant found value in creating art, working with others, and reflecting.
Understanding Neighborhood Change through Shifting Food Landscapes: A Case Study of Newburgh, NY
Poster Session Amy Richmond, Jason Ridgeway
Gentrification leads to transformations to the food landscape. In gentrifying neighborhoods, established eateries can be replaced by farmers markets, cosmopolitan restaurants, microbreweries and coffee shops that begin to change the existing neighborhood culture and attract outsiders. Existing food options often serve ethnic foods that cater to a neighborhood’s ethnic, and often minority, population. Changes in a neighborhood’s ethnic foods often signal changes in neighborhood demographics. In essence, as neighborhood food outlets transform, they signify whose food matters and thus serve to illustrate neighborhood change and the potential tension such change might bring. Through ethnographic and geospatial information science (GIS) methods, this research attempts to determine how transformations to the food landscape signals not only neighborhood change but also how that change affects access to food and the perception residents have of their neighborhood. Definitions of food security rarely consider diverse populations and the importance of access to culturally relevant foods. We seek to investigate how access to culturally specific food impacts food security as neighborhood demographics shift.
Plant-based Proteins for an Ever-growing Consumer Demand and Hydroponic Propagation of Selected Legumes
Poster Session Narell Vasquez, Flor Henderson
Full of Beans Kitchen, LLC (FOB) was founded in August 2021. FOB is a startup company that creates plant-based products. Consumers seeking high-quality plant-based proteins find these sources primarily in beans and pulses. Food and Sustainability principles are a cornerstone of this initiative. FOB aims to simplify the access and consumption of beans and other legumes and elevate their benefits through whole and natural products while offering healthy and environmentally conscious food options to improve the health of consumers and contribute to the wellness of the planet. Animal-based sources are avoided, as well as plastic packing. Currently, we are working on understanding the operations of the food system, the chain supply involved in the creation of a product and testing new legumes to increase the diversity of plant-based food products of FBO. In addition, we are exploring the possibility of growing three species of legumes (Canavalia ensiformis, Mucuna pruriens, and Vicia fava) under hydroponic conditions. Hydroponic systems are alternatives well suited to urban settings and have the potential of supplying products at a low cost, in a shorter period, and of reducing food miles. This measure has the potential of generating substantial data about the application of hydroponic technology to grow resources for plant-based diets in urban settings, validating the mission of FOB that the consumption of beans provides healthy alternatives for environmentally conscientious consumers.
Potential of Cowpea Leaf and Turkey Berry to Improve Iron Intake Among Women of Reproductive Age in Ghana: Functional Properties and Iron Bioavailability in Cowpea Leaves and Turkey Berry Powders View Digital Media
Poster Session Makafui Borbi
Iron deficiency continues to be a public health concern in Ghana, especially among women of reproductive age; about 14% are iron deficient. An innovative strategy to increase iron intake to support existing efforts is food-to-food fortification. This involves the addition of nutrient-dense local foods mostly fruits and vegetables to culturally acceptable meals. Investigating ways to prolong shelf life and studying the functionality of potential food fortificants is important. This research used turkey berries and cowpea leaves. The study investigated the impact of different processing methods on functional properties, iron content, and bioavailability of iron from turkey berry and cowpea leaves powders. Turkey berries were blanched or osmotically dehydrated prior to air-drying at 70 ℃. Cowpea leaves were pre-treated using four methods followed by air-drying at 60 ℃. Iron content in powders was determined using inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy. Iron bioavailability was done via the Caco-2 cell bioassay. All the vegetable powders showed good water and oil absorption capacity, rehydrated, and dispersed well in water at room temperature. Even though turkey berries are believed to be high in iron in Ghana, cowpea leaves, a lesser-known vegetable, was significantly higher in iron (25.04 ± 0.64 g/100g) than turkey berries (4.36 ± 0.09 mg/100g.) Processing the leaves into powder reduced the iron content for all treatments up to 56.5%. Iron bioavailability was low (0.66 ± 0.127 to 1.47 ± 0.07 ng ferritin/mg cell protein) indicating that iron may be poorly absorbed from the vegetable powders. Additional meal-based bioavailability studies are also needed.
