Food makes more than 20% the average individual’s carbon footprint, and it is extremely hard to control or reduce its impact in urban areas, especially when eating out. The food industry is also an important sector in social welfare, with a lot of opportunities, like empowering minorities. And food, obviously, plays a huge role in our personal well being, from enhancing our social life to defining our physical and mental health.
Yet, there is currently no easy way for us to pick a cafe or restaurant, based on how good they are; not only on the yummy side of things, but considering goodness in all things that matter: Fairness and social good, impact on our environment, your own health, and of course, how you enjoy it and makes you feel!
There needs to be an easy, and rewarding way to discover sustainable food options.
Join me in taking on this important mission:
To guide and empower people and businesses towards a more sustainable and delicious food system.
How are we doing this?
The solution is rather simple:
We'll make it super easy for you, as a mindful foodie, to find places that match your sustainable priorities, giving you trust and transparency.
And what counts as sustainable?
I take the broad definition by the UN for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals:
“Peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future”
And all of it fits under 3 main categories:- Environment friendly
Genuinely cares about the planet. For example, aims at reducing emissions by sourcing locally and from regenerative farms, plants are prioritised, minimises single-use, avoids food waste... - Socially responsible
Respects and cares for staff and embraces a social enterprise model. Gives back to society through things like food or money donations, employing disadvantaged, or other awesome things like that - And healthy
Feeds you as they'd feed their own kids. For example: whole, less processed foods, mostly plants, no refined sugars, mindful sizes. Based on scientific agreement, not following a marketing trend
There are many food businesses already doing amazing things on these categories, and they deserve to be openly vouched and supported by food heroes like you.
The app
Mindful eatups will be a platform that acknowledges and celebrates every sustainable effort by food businesses, with a community of foodies that can make recommendations from visible indicators, like receiving discounts when bringing your reusable cup or food container, or being served by a team that includes equally employed people from a vulnerable or disadvantaged community.
The more efforts a business gets vouched for, the better it gets ranked in the app. And don't worry, we do our own research to make sure that what you see in the app is backed up.
Supporting mindful businesses also has its rewards. You will have access to beautiful special deals, designed for sustainable foodies like you.
Restaurants and cafes, together with foodies, will set the bar and become an example for more businesses to offer better food choices and better rewards.
Becoming part of the mindful eatups community, you basically become a sustainable food explorer. While you discover, enjoy, and share your mindful eatups, you can recommend places based on what you observe that is GOOD. You will help other mindful foodies find sustainable places, while making it also nice and easy for yourself to remember food experiences and locations that you truly enjoyed.
And because we are all about mindfulness, we are designing the app with small and gentle touches that remind us to be fully PRESENT, savouring every bite and appreciating the world around us.
Sustainable deals from cafes or restaurants nearby are super convenient! They range from huge discounts on last meals of the day (preventing food waste) or if you BYO (bring your own) cup or container for takeaway, to special meals using only ethical, sustainable, and mostly (or only) plant-based produce, and many other great things that are good for you and for the planet.
Why am I on this mission?
When I grew up it was very important to sit down with the family and enjoy food together. Visiting friends always meant trying their best family dishes with a lot of my best memories relating to food. Most of our social lives revolve around food, and best parties usually take place in the kitchen!
Having lived in four countries across different continents, I have been privileged to experience incredibly diverse cultures through their food. Starting from my own home country, Mexico, with the incredibly rich and authentic kitchen that brought me up, with so many flavours that talk about people's hearts, about our long and complex history, and about its great ethnical diversity, it is cultures and biodiversity that speak to us through food. And that language is the most precious.
This language tells us about the beauty of cultures, people, and ecosystems, but it also tells us about inequalities and about the huge impact on the environment and our health that exists through our very complex modern food systems.
So I am truly passionate about experiencing delicious food, but also about respecting each ingredient an the stories behind it.
Our food choices impact so many aspects of our lives and also the future of our planet, and that is my main motivation for this project.
As a practical foundation, I trust all the learnings and skills from my over 15 years of experience designing digital solutions from working with top consumer brands to government and not-for-profit.
My work includes owning and leading a variety of design projects, as well as shaping concepts and solutions within a large diversity of teams. Some examples are a successful behaviour change digital program to help people change their relationship with alcohol; the very first customisable and colour display dive wrist-computer; possibly the very first location based app to get people to connect and meet face to face more often and easily with their close network; a few projects to create awareness on environmental and animal welfare problems; educational programs, and more. If you're still curious you can check some of my work in here.
And I am not alone...
My dream partner, Sami, has been supporting this idea since the beginning, and he will be supervising the technology with his strong background as a tech team lead.
He has been working in tech and consumer products for over 15 years and is behind the working prototypes, but not only that, he has been key to pivot when needed, to brainstorming and all the important part of killing the wrong ideas and sprouting the good ones! Also, he loves animals and hopes to adopt a few in a not too far future :)
That's Sami petting a lovely rescued lamb
with the couple of rescued alpacas a bit jealous at the back
And we have you!
To actually kick this dream off, we need to team up with developers, business and marketing experts, and to add a little bit of data. This is where you come in!
So how can you help
We need two things to get started:
A little bit of money and a powerful community.
We only need $55,000 to kick off this dream but we need a strong community of mindful foodies.
I need you to support this campaign. and to pledge as much as you believe on shaping the future of our food choices.
If you can't pledge, simply by sharing this to as many as possible and following mindful eatups on social media, you can make a big difference.
I already have prototypes and a website where we can start to add content, even a previous demo app where I tested some ideas and started to gather data. You can bookmark eatups.org to start finding mindful food businesses right now!
Also, as a true mindful foodie, you can help us build the initial list of mindful eating places starting now, even before the app is released, simply by tagging places and categories and sharing them with us on social media.
The next steps depend much on the support I receive in this campaign and the feedback from mindful foodies.
Hope you are as excited as I am to make this happen. You're making this dream a reality...
THANK YOU MINDFULLY!
Even though our first focus is Australia, we already have strong supporters in other countries in Europe, America, and also Asia. So we are designing mindful eatups with a world-wide approach.
If you leave outside Australia, your pledge is also super important! It will be a strong drive for us to make sure we design and deliver considering other locations. Just remember the pledges are in AUD. Please ask google to convert to your own currency to make sure you know what you're pledging.
:)