PODCAST: Food Insecurity in College Students, Part B

Originally posted 3/4/19

About the Episode

The second episode of two discussing the topic of food insecurity in university students, featuring an exploration of one student’s first-hand experiences with food insecurity while pursuing his degree. Featuring UMN senior undergraduate student, Dakota Noel. 

Dakota and I explore his experience as a food insecure college student, including what caused his food insecurity, where he was able to find food and resources around campus, and how he got out of it.

Behind the Scenes

It was only by happenstance that Dakota Noel ended up being a guest on my podcast. He and I met through a mutual friend at a social dancing event several years ago. He’s full of energy, very thoughtful and philosophical, and we never run out of things to talk about! He was over for dinner sometime last fall, and I was explaining about my honors project, and the different topics for the podcasts I was doing. When I mentioned food insecurity, he casually commented “Oh, I was food insecure once”.

The conversation switched to other topics shortly after, but it stuck in my mind. In talking about food insecurity, I’d been wanting a student perspective, but since I work so closely with food insecure students on my own campus, it felt inappropriate to approach any of them and potentially invade their privacy.

But I asked Dakota a couple of days later if he would be willing to be on my podcast to talk about his experience with food insecurity, and he was all for it!

We had a really great conversation, though we did manage to get completely off-topic multiple times. I’m so grateful that he was willing to share his experience with me, and I think it made for an authentic and interesting podcast episode. Enjoy!