Mission, Vision, and a Poll

Not quite in that order

My family’s pumpkin-picking excursion fall of 2021

Hi friends,

As I gear up for what I hope will be an invigorating period of professional development, I want to take a step back and explain briefly my current mission for this newsletter, share my vision for what it could become, and ask for less than a minute of your time to respond to a quick poll (yes, I tried to lure you in with a picture of my kids).

Back when I started this newsletter early last year, I wrote a brief entry/edition that explained why I was writing Balanced Diet. I updated it recently in order to further clarify what I write about and why:

Born partly out of my love to learn about food and partly out of my own complicated history and relationship with eating, Balanced Diet is first and foremost a place of safe learning and discovery: a place where we can balance the pleasures of eating with an exploration of the political, social, economic, environmental, cultural, and ethical (whether real or perceived) forces and implications of our food choices. It is therefore, not a newsletter that has anything to do with “dieting” or the culture that surrounds it. I am not here to tell you all what you should or shouldn’t eat.

Instead I hope to enrich your eating habits by either inspiring you to cook or bake or sparking a thought about food (or the system behind it) that you hadn’t considered before. Together, I hope we can redefine what a “balanced diet” means in the broader and incredibly complex conversation about food.

Thus, I want this to be a place you can come for inspiration and information in equal measure. The former I aim to achieve by sharing recipes I develop myself and by curating a weekly selection of recipes around a particular theme or ingredient (Friday Food Finds). The latter has so far come in the form of sharing my thoughts and relevant news pieces in order to raise awareness about a particular issue related to food.

The Friday Food Finds editions have been hitting your inboxes most consistently, while my own recipes and the food-related awareness pieces have been more sporadic. What I’m interested to know is whether this cadence and mix of content works for all of you? Do you get what you come for with Balanced Diet editions?

I’m genuinely curious, and I’m absolutely willing to change my approach if it means you’ll finish reading each edition feeling more inspired and informed. So if you have a minute or two, I’d appreciate it if you could answer the following quick questions and share any other feedback in the comments or by replying directly via email to this edition.

Looking towards the future, I’d love to continue to build this community of Balanced Diet subscribers. There is so much I want to share with you, and I love hearing from you about your beloved recipes and what food-related issues matter to you.

I have ideas about bringing us together virtually and in person; about bake sale fundraisers; about helping to tackle your burning (no pun intended) cooking and baking questions; about developing and curating recipes that are specific to your needs and wishes; and about so much more. Above all, I want everyone to feel safe, invited, and included here. No community can thrive without equity.

So that’s it from me. Thank you all in advance for taking the time to answer these questions, supporting my work, and tolerating this non-food-related edition of Balanced Diet.

Best,
Charlotte