Justin Mest

= Division III =

''This article is part of a Climax Div III Issue. By Dan Clarendon, Layout Editor. ''

As Justin Mest discovered, not all colleges let one pursue academic interests en masse like Hampshire does. After transferring here, Mest found himself free to study his passions. He could focus his studies food and agriculture, from more than just a scientific perspective, while also continuing hobbies like painting and sculpting. “Nobody really gave me a hassle for wanting to study lots of topics,” he said. For his Div III, Mest conducted a nutritional and comparative economic analysis of eating a local-foods diet. “I’ve been into local foods, agriculture, and food politics for a while. I wanted to see if I could eat a local-foods diet from a more scientific basis.” Mest spent the year collecting and preserving vegetables from local farms while meticulously keeping track of his diet—what he was eating, how much it cost, how much of it he ate, and how it was prepared. He then input the information into the computer application FoodPro for nutritional analysis. Mest also compared his intake against comparable food available at large-scale grocery stores, the weekly spending of an average consumer (as detailed in the 2007 Consumer Expenditure Survey done by the Department of Labor), and the food plans proposed for each economic quartile by the USdA. The results, which he has self-published in handmade books, were surprising in a number of way—in particular, the amount of money he saved by buying locally. What Mest will miss most about his time at Hampshire is living in such an accepting community. He advises students to not be afraid to study something weird. “Just do it. This is one of the few places where you can.”