Eating for the Future

Handouts and Faith Community Action Guides

• The Congregational Health Index by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon is a survey tool and guide to help congregations discover opportunities for improving health, and challenges to getting there. The CHI shows how to make healthy eating and physical activity choices available to everyone in a faith community.
• EcoSikh Plan: A Sikh Response to Global Warming and Climate Change and Pledge contains ideas for Sikhs in how to reduce individual, family, and community impact on climate change, partly through food-purchasing and other food-related activities (see pages 9 through 12).
• Environmental Guide for Christian Congregations, their Buildings, and Grounds by Web of Creation. This guide includes a  section on how to make a coffee hour, potlucks and other food-related events more sustainable.
• Greenfaith’s Ten Key Hindu Environmental Teachings - includes mention of a vegetarian diet as a way to practice Ahimsa, or non-violence (Teaching #8).
• Greening Synagogues Resources from the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) – Check out ideas for making more sustainable and just food choices:
  
  • Celebrations: In particular, visit the section on Sukkot and Ecology for text studies, action tips, and program suggestions for synagogues and schools. 
  • Coffee
  • Composting/Gardening
  • Organic and Organic Kosher Meats: (scroll down a little ways to find this section)

• Green and Just Celebrations: A Purchasing Guide for Washington's Jewish Families – This guide created by Jews United for Justice has ideas for how to host a wedding, bat mitzvah, or other celebration in a sustainable and socially and economically just way for families living in the greater D.C. area. Pages 24 to 26 and 28 deal specifically with food.
• The Hazon Food Guide seeks to help synagogues approach the daily act of feeding themselves and their communities with the kind of sanctity, satisfaction and gratitude the Jewish tradition celebrates. This comprehensive guide contains information about sourcing and serving food sustainably, cooking, composting, food justice, and ideas for projects like gardens, field trips, and preparing communal meals.
• Muslim Green Guide to Reducing Climate Change has a short section on how food choices can help to reduce one’s impact on global warming.
• Repairing Eden: Sustainable Food Practices for Faith-Based Institutions by Greenfaith contains dozens of ideas and tips to help houses of worship and faith-based schools develop healthy, sustainable food practices, and serve as leaders in their communities. It also includes inspiring success stories, and an extensive list of resources to help make next steps as easy and effective as possible.
• Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce
• Sustainable Seafood Info. and Guide
• Sustainable Table Meat Production Guide is a glossary of meat production methods that you can carry in your wallet when shopping to help you find the best food for you and your family.
• Ten Reasons to Eat Local Food
• To Till It and Keep It: New Models for Congregational Involvement with the Land, by Dan Guenther, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Land Stewardship Project. This publication explores various models for church- sponsored agricultural stewardship projects, such as community supported agriculture, community gardening, youth gardening, support for local food systems, church food purchase policy, seed saving, preservation of farm land, and environmental tithing. Available from the Land Stewardship Project, 2200 Fourth St., White Bear Lake, MN 55110. (612) 653-0618. $5
• Words to Eat By: A Guide to Farming, Food Processing, and Animal Husbandry 

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