Supporting Good, Clean, and Fair Food

RAFT

Become a Food Detective

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RAFT partners invite you and your friends—rural or urban, food enthusiast, farmer, fisher, historian, scientist or educator—to help us more thoroughly document the history and current status of America's endangered foods, and propose other foods for listing.

  • What place-based foods have unique traditions in your landscape, seascape and culture?
  • Which of these foods offer flavors, textures and pleasures cherished in the your foodshed that can't be found anywhere else on the continent?
  • How many of these foods—traditionally foraged, fished, hunted or grown—might now be at risk in their home place?
  • What can we do to collectively ensure their survival, and to support their original stewards in their struggles toward food sovereignty?

We encourage you to:

  • Add, amend or adopt "at risk" foods listed in RAFT publications and become allies with those individuals, communities or cultures who remain their stewards
  • Grow RAFT-listed foods in your garden or on your farm
  • Organize a field trip to see out the rare foods in your area
  • Plan a meal with endangered foods
  • Become a seed saver or fruit explorer and organize seasonal events to exchange varieties with others in your community
  • Nominate a RAFT-listed food with outstanding flavor and commercial potential to the Ark of Taste, Slow Food's catalogue of delicious endangered foods with market potential
  • Encourage a local chef or restaurant in your area to use heirloom or heritage foods
  • Adopt a food --Start a recovery project for an endangered food or food production method. Encourage farmers to grow/raise the food, chefs to serve it and retailers to sell it in your community and beyond
  • Celebrate the unique foods of your region by hosting an endangered foods meal or American Traditions Picnic

Join us in restoring and celebrating America's diverse foods and food traditions!