The Power of Your Plate: Understanding Your Food Values
What are your food values?
Every time you choose what to eat, your food values are at play. These values are the personal priorities that influence your daily food decisions—from where you shop to what you buy.
How your choices impact the local food economy
Your individual food choices have a collective impact:
They determine how our community food systems work.
They affect whether people in our communities can get enough nutritious food.
We all eat and we are all food citizens. We have the power to create fair, just, and healthy food systems.
Common food values
People prioritize different things when choosing food. Here are 10 common food values that guide our decisions:
💸 Price
Choosing the absolute cheapest option, regardless of other factors (e.g., shopping where bananas are cheapest).
⏱️ Convenience
Prioritizing food that is fast, easy, and ready to eat (e.g., frozen meals, fast food).
😋 Taste & Quality
Buying foods you genuinely enjoy — considering taste, smell, and texture — and possibly paying more for it.
💖 Familiarity/Comfort
Choosing foods that evoke happy memories, family gatherings, or a sense of comfort.
🌱 Healthy Choices
Motivated by a recent health event or desire to adopt a healthy lifestyle, prioritizing nutritious food over cheapest/easiest.
🌎 Planet/Climate
Making choices to support planet health, such as eating less meat, eating closer to home, or growing one's own food.
🤝 Local Economy
Supporting local businesses by shopping at farmers markets, locally owned restaurants, or local grocers to keep dollars circulating in the community.
👩🌾 Connection to Farmers
A value for knowing the source of food and buying directly from farmers.
🧑🌾 Growing Your Own
Finding alignment with many values through the experience of planting and harvesting a garden each year.
🧬 Personal & Cultural
Values shaped by life experiences, family ties, culture, and the privilege of being able to align purchases with these deeply held beliefs.
Direct Farm Impact
What does that mean? And what does that mean when it comes to wholesale, local food supply chains? FARMWISE Indiana uses the National Farm to Institution Metrics tool to calculate the economic impact of institutional purchases and the dollars spent on Indiana owned and operated food and farm businesses. Whether you are a school, university, hospital, or restaurant, we can quantify your local food values through economic terms.
Key Takeaway
Understanding the values that drive your food choices is the first step toward making more conscious decisions and helping to build a better food system for everyone.
