Food Literacy and Crew

August 10, 2026

The first few months at the garden were pleasant and peaceful, not just because of the work itself (the jobs varied and weren’t always the easiest) but because I’d grown accustomed to it. Wake up at 8, get there by 9, do garden work, leave by 12. Repeat. I’m a fanatic for routine, and it’s easy to get lost in the structure of predictability. I would’ve been content with it if it weren’t for the blistering sun. The heat made simple tasks like standing in place and watering tomatoes feel like a 12 hour shift in Lucifer’s left nostril.

That’s why I was excited for Root and Seed Crew to start, even if it put an end to my comfy regimented bubble.

Crew consisted of young volunteers, middle to high school aged, who would spend the rest of the summer getting passed all the hardest jobs I didn’t feel like doing (Just kidding). It was a big help and a lot of things like harvesting, watering, and weeding got done a whole lot quicker.

Along with the crew, I was also introduced to the beginning of food literacy class.

What is food literacy, you ask?

You probably didn’t know, and I didn’t know either, so I did a quick google search just now and food literacy is the everyday knowledge, practical skills, and behaviors needed to plan, source, cook, and make healthy decisions about food.

If you asked me a few months ago, my go-to snack would’ve been a 15.5 oz yoohoo, a tall can of pizza-flavored pringles, oodles and noodles (shrimp flavored) and a snicker’s bar for dessert, because you’re not you when you’re hungry. Usually after a nice calorie-ful, nutrition-less meal, I’d fall face first on the bed and not move for hours, then have the audacity to be confused why I felt so sluggish.

Every Tuesday and Thursday during food literacy class with Crew, we learned that the first step to eating healthier is knowledge. Knowing not just what is healthy, but why you should eat healthily and how to make yourself enjoy it, so “healthy,” doesn’t look like eating the grass off your lawn.

In the mornings we learn facts about the different plants that grow in the garden. Tomatoes, for example, were considered poisonous until 1820, when Robert Gibbon Johnson, a colonel and resident of Salem, New Jersey, stood on the steps of the Salem county courthouse and ate a basket full in front of everyone to prove they weren’t poisonous. Fact or fiction? Historians lean more toward fiction, but how can they be sure when they weren’t there? After the brief lesson, we do garden work, and once that’s finished and the produce is harvested, we sit in the kitchen and learn a new recipe. A healthy alternative to what we’re used to eating—and it actually tastes great! Each dish is always better than I expect. I’ve even seen a few kids who hadn’t tasted the vegetable or had a bad experience with it before asking for seconds.

So far we’ve made pesto pasta with tomatoes and parm, herb salt, kale salad with oven roasted rosemary potatoes, lemony swiss chard pasta with parmesan, mediterranean bowls, egg foo young, and the list goes on. I still can’t decide which dish I like most, but I have gotten good reviews from my family when I brought back the kale salad, and swiss chard with a side of eggs has become a regular at my house.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we not only learned how to make delicious healthy meals, but other things we would've never considered before. Like understanding the process of food in America. Looking at this can of chickpeas beside me, for example, it’s easy to overlook the full process that went into getting it here, but it might’ve done more travelling in a few months than I’ve done in a few years. From the northern plains of Montana or North Dakota, to Wal-mart Store, INC., in Arkansas for distribution to Salem, New Jersey. Why is that important to know? Because it matters whether we keep money in our community to support local businesses, or throw our money to the abyss of commercialized products, environmentally harmful procedures, and non-fresh food.

Being knowledgeable and healthy is not only beneficial to us, it’s good for everyone and everything around us. After all, we can only give what we already have. You can’t give sound advice on a subject you have no clue about. Can’t lend anyone money you don’t have. Can’t help your family or loved ones get healthy if you yourself don’t know what that looks like. 

I once heard a man say to another that if he came to him from out of a desert, suffering from heat and dying of dehydration, he’d give him a soda. It’s kind of malicious the more you think about it, but some people have only that to give. As 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “your bodies are a temple of the holy spirit,” and the more we care for it, the better we care for others. Through understanding the importance of being healthy, not only in body, but in mind, we have the ability to be the water to someone else, right when they need it most.

One of the things I appreciate most about interning at the garden is understanding the many ways I can help myself and others. The first step to achieving anything in life, whether it be a goal, a life’s purpose, or simple contentment, is establishing a good foundation, knowing the fundamentals of having a healthy mind, body, and spirit. It’s especially nice to see these ideas being taught to the garden crew. Usually when you’re younger is the pivotal time for convictions to take root. This way, there’s a chance to instill in the younger generations an innate urge to be healthy and crave what is good for them as opposed to unlearning bad habits much later in life.

by Arriyannah Herring

Lighthouse Ministry Summer Intern 2026