CGFC: What got you motivated to start your Instagram account @With_season?
韦姝然 Shuran : I was born in Inner Mongolia where there used to be countless stars in sky at night and the most beautiful grassland in China. But everything changed due to the pollutions which motivated my initial interests in studying Environmental Engineering at U of I. I hope to hope to bring the clean sky and water back to my hometown so I started the idea to encourage people having a more sustainable lifestyle. With Season is to motivate and encourage people on different ways to practice sustainability. For example, we support local farms and encourage people to buy seasonal food for cooking; shopping with non-packaging to reduce waste. I also want to share the idea that cooking a meal is not only a sustainable way of living, but also to encourage people spending some time with friends and families. We are getting too busy either on studying or working so I wish everyone to have some time to slow down and enjoy the moment with our loved ones.
CGFC: How does the Co-op fit into your idea of living a sustainable lifestyle?
韦姝然 Shuran : Common Ground is really supportive of sustainable living as well as my personal value on sharing.
CGFC: What are upcoming collaborations do you have with the Co-op?
韦姝然 Shuran : I wish to share some of the authentic Chinese dishes with people from other countries and backgrounds, as well as the Chinese cultures and traditions. There are always some interesting stories behind different Chinese dishes that I’ll post on With Season and I love to tell those stories to more people who participate in my cooking class.
CGFC: Why do you think eating local food is important?
韦姝然 Shuran : It supports the local farms and eating local food doesn’t require a lot of energy for shipment. When I was studying Environmental Engineering, one of my courses was related to sustainability and we just calculated what the energy costs are when you ship from far away instead of local its like crazy a lot. And sometimes when it’s shipped from far away the food can become bad pretty quick, especially leafy vegetables and fruits they get bad pretty quick.
CGFC: Local food is sometimes considered as too expensive in comparison to subsidized industrially produced foods. What would you say to a student who has a small budget for groceries?
韦姝然 Shuran : For customers, they can only see the price for sale but actually don’t see the full price of food. The actual cost for the industrially produced food is much more than the local food. For people, it has been a problem for some students who don’t have a lot of money and they might not be able to buy those more expensive local foods.
I want to encourage more people on campus to come to Common Ground to support local farms. Because there are some students who cannot afford the price for local produce, so that’s why I’m teaching the ugly food program where they can be introduced to cook some foods that would be affordable.
CGFC: Who taught you how to cook?
韦姝然 Shuran : I learned from my parents. My parents cook really good dishes made by flour, like dumplings and all these kinds of other dishes. A lot of my friends really liked the dumplings that my parents made and I always invite them to my home to taste all the different kinds of fillings of the dumplings and they just love it. So that’s one of the ideas of With Season, it’s about sharing.
