Marga Roldán, promoter of the project MENUdaTIERRA of the Vida Sana Association "By consuming green, I'm betting on the kind of planet I want."

In a fast-paced society in which haste often leads us to neglect our nutrition, the agricultural engineer proposes, through projects such as MENUdaTIERRA of the Asociación Vida Sana, to stop and pay attention to the food we eat, its origin and the way we cook it, to build healthier and more sustainable habits that allow us to enjoy more the art of eating.

"The moment you feel nature, you're going to protect yourself and start looking at the planet in a different way."

By Carmen Gómez-Cotta

When she started studying Agricultural Engineering, nothing made her think that this was precisely what she was not going to do. Thanks to the education she received from her parents when she was a child, Marga Roldán has always been close to organic food. So much so, that for her it is a way of life. Sustainable, organic, accessible, local, seasonal and healthy food are the tools with which she pursues a positive change (both for people and the planet) in the way we nourish ourselves. And they are also the principles on which MENUdaTIERRA, the project of the Vida Sana Association coordinated by Roldán, is based.

You have been dedicating your career to organic farming and responsible consumption for almost 20 years. What led you to focus your professional life in this sector? Would you say that this way of understanding food is also part of your personal life?

I have been doing this for well over 20 years. Since I was a child, there was an interest in organic food at home; my father already consumed this way and was concerned about what he ate and about health. This led me to study agronomy, with which I thought I was going to learn some things that would help me in the future; but I realized that this was not what I wanted, because it was not in line with what I lived at home. This is the origin of my passion for a different type of food consumption and, above all, a different way of life.

You are currently involved in the project MENUdaTIERRA, which defends the "farm-to-table" philosophy as a vehicle to lead a healthier life and protect the environment. Could you elaborate a little more on this philosophy?

From the MENUdaTIERRA project we believe that more than a philosophy, it is a way of life, a personal choice. Our project aims to show that there are alternatives so that everyone can choose what is best for them to live in a more sustainable way. We want to show that it is much easier if everyone decides what they want to do and has the necessary tools to do it.

In your project, you defend organic products over local or seasonal products. But sometimes such products are more expensive and many people are not willing to bear the cost. How to convince consumers to opt for organic food?

For more than 20 years I’ve been hearing the sentence "consuming organic is more expensive". Have we not considered that, perhaps, we are paying an indirect cost in the other type of consumption we make? There are more and more organic producers who are making these foods reach our homes, because prices are reduced as there is more production. Something that’s very important, which we also explain in our project, is the quality of the food and the comparison between organic and conventional food: if to consume the nutrients of an organic apple I need to buy five conventional ones, in the end, the price is not the problem. We have a great distrust and think that behind organic food there is someone trying to cheat, when in most cases it is people committed to the environment and health. There is also a lack of knowledge of what an organic product is, beyond certification. In the end, by consuming in this way, I am betting on the kind of planet I want. Our project wants to make it easier for you to buy in different ways, either in a cooperative, in a small store or directly from the producer.

In one of your brochures, Support a living rural world with your diet, you mention the situation of "food vulnerability" in which 21st century societies find themselves. What exactly does this concept refer to?

From the Vida Sana Association we consider that food vulnerability is that situation in which the individuals of a society do not have the right to consume healthy, local and seasonal food, because they do not have that access. Food sovereignty is the right of all peoples to feed themselves in a healthy and sustainable way.

Most of the food that reaches the cities comes from the rural world. On the other hand, it seems that urban environments are not yet aware of this reality and that there is a disconnection between the two worlds. Do you agree? If so, how can we foster a closer relationship between the countryside and the city?

I think that in big cities we are losing sight of where the food we eat comes from and we are not giving it the importance it deserves. Hence our project: we have opted to present the producers so that consumers can see where what we eat comes from and make this rural world more visible in the city. More and more of us are consuming in a more conscious way.

Do you think this disconnection may be behind unhealthy or unsustainable habits? Do you find that reconnecting with nature more often can help? How can those who live in a city or far from natural environments do it?

I believe that to facilitate this process of awareness or sensitization about nature and how our consumption impacts the environment, we must feel nature, because we are nature. The moment you feel nature, you will protect yourself and begin to look at the planet in a different way, to take care of the space, the home where you are. I think that reconnection is more about finding ourselves and who we are.

Is it possible to move towards a wilder model in which food production, care for biodiversity and the fight against climate change converge?

We are wild animals; even living in cities, we can be wild. This way of looking at the world will cause us to shift our priorities when choosing what we consume and, above all, in this case: what we eat. In this way we would bet on foods that we have not dared to consume for a long time, such as wild plants, which are increasingly present in high-class restaurants.

At MENUdaTIERRA, traditional recipes are an important inspiration. Could "grandma's teachings" help us build more sustainable food systems and habits?

To acquire more sustainable habits and consume in a healthier way, we simply have to look back and recover part of those processes. More and more people are betting on this traditional cuisine adapted to modern times. In our recipes we give the option of using already cooked legumes; then we also talk about nutritional issues and whether it is better or worse, but everyone can choose whatever they want. When you eat well, you feel good and when you feel good, you are encouraged to cook better. Let's start little by little, but let's look back; because we all have grandma's cooking in mind.

Food waste is another major challenge we face. Despite the fact that Spaniards wasted 8.6% less food than in the previous year the figures are still high, 7.7 million tons of food wasted each year. How can we stop this waste? What habits would you recommend applying on a daily basis?

To reduce food waste we have to stop and breathe. We forget to stop and breathe and start buying compulsively, because there are so many stimuli. In MENUdaTIERRA we have a podcast with Alf Mota, where we explain all these little tricks. One of them is not to go shopping; I wait until I'm low and then I start looking in the cupboard, taking things out of the fridge and with that I prepare a trash-cooking recipe. Another trick is to prepare broth with the leftover vegetables that we don't want, because, perhaps, they are a little bit overripe.

We are seeing more and more young chefs refusing to settle in big cities and returning to their homes in rural environments with the intention of recovering traditions through livestock farms, vineyards and orchards that are next to their restaurants, and which they turn into their pantries. They promote a more sustainable proximity and seasonal cuisine, within the trend of kilometer 0 restaurants. Do you think this is a new trend or are they still very specific cases?

Catering today is doing a great job in raising awareness and making us passionate again about food and traditional cuisine that we had forgotten. Great chefs are recovering food close to them, which they take care of and pamper when cooking, and place value on something that’s very important: seasonal and local food. In addition, they are betting on a short distribution model in which there is no pollution –which is what is really sustainable– and favoring a rural fabric where there are people who are starting to make a living. And more and more hotel and catering schools are encouraging the product rather than the culinary technique.