For the month of November, Pentecost will use Mess Hall as a research station for looking at the politics of food. Activities will focus on converting information into usable tools for individuals and groups interested in understanding and changing the food system.

Though a large amount of information on the global food system has been amassed, special attention will be given to local efforts to create alternatives.

The first event of the project happens this Sunday afternoon (October 29) at 2:00pm. Claire and her guest, writer and activist Brian Holmes, will discuss “Neo-Liberal Appetites and the Food Industry.”

A variety of speakers and more specific topics are coming up.

You are invited to participate. Bring questions, projects, and ideas to the open
house days: Thursdays thru Sundays, 1-6 pm, starting Thursday, November 3.

Underway are

MAPS: some geographic some informational, some strategic, organizing an
understanding of:

--waste streams of the food- and general consumption- shed
--common ingredients in processed food
--the major corporate cartel clusters controlling agricultural inputs, seeds,
pharmaceuticals, feedlots, breeding stock, biotechnology, food processing and
supermarkets
--cycles of energy use and waste and distribution of profit in the food system
--distribution of food resources in Chicago, mapped geographically in relation
to class and race, including food pantries, buying clubs and urban agriculture
projects in the city. [Note from the future: This is the part that really got going.]

A TOUR: of the typical supermarket in which a set of relations to the world is
materially encoded

A WEBSITE:  with database on products, companies, ingredients, toxins and their
effects on workers, consumers and other living things.

Contact Claire: claire@clairepentecost.org