the coordinating producer of the show and this morning celia white is here in the studio good morning celia good morning through that and of course you are the vent cover island university healthy communities coordinators so you have a show on the theme for october i believe and you have a guest on the phone yes so it october steam is how to eat well for your body community and earth and our lovely  toronto she works for meal exchange which is a national youth led organization focusing on access to food and food sustainability hi sarah good morning hello so sarah to begin i'm wondering if you can explain a little bit about your job and how it relates to this month's theme of eating well for one's body community and earth absolutely so  work for a national organization called meal exchange and it was founded in one thousand nine hundred three and so over the past twenty plus years you know change and the individuals working here have been looking  to work with the vibrant communities of students and community partners to reshape the way we have and consider food and making food something that nourishes us all so my particular job i am a program director here and i work on basically any issue that inspires students to care more about food so i ran our campus garden community network connecting through across the country to share learnings and experiences with community gardens on their campuses were themes of support more local and sustainable food on universities across the country  as well as helping to support some of our other programs looking at through banks on campus and in communities and how they can become by bringing the hubs of learning and sharing and supporting lots of troops literacy so that food can be something that nurses of all i think nourishment is an interesting word it's something that i've started using more than food sustainability or food health or global food security i'm really interested in food nourishment and how how it takes a positive spin on some of the really challenging issues that we face on a day to day basis in terms of what we eat and how we think about food why do you choose to use that word and what does it mean to you yeah i think that's a great question i think nourishment to me is very holistic and it can be interpreted in different ways and and i think  everyone sort of healthy eating is not only what you're putting in your body but what's around you and the community you're in are the setting you're in or the mental and physical space that you're and then i  something that we shared as well and so shared with the earth and shared with friends and that's why i like that that you mention how it can be shared because food is i mean everybody eats and it can be such a celebratory a celebratory tool for bringing communities together and feeling good about her body use and enjoying something that is so vital to life and  friendship breaking bread is something that has been connected with nourishment and community since time immemorial so it's it's wonderful to to recognize that food is more than just something that that we can eat well for our bodies but also for communities and for earth which is this month i'm i'm wondering why did you personally become involved  yeah actually i was thinking about this and i originally became involved with food because of my interest in nature i grew up in an urban center and i apologize if you hear some back ground downtown toronto annoyed because but i'm sort of speaks to where i actually physically am and i felt like going out to farms and visiting and spending time on farms was a real way to connect with nature that i hadn't been able to experience in an urban setting as a young child and as someone who really really cared about our earth i felt a bit overwhelmed of how i could contribute through my life my choices and my work to be able to actually contribute and help sustain our planet and build friendships and allies ships and to be able to foster that thought and food when i was a boat about fifteen really came together i realized that food was such a way to be able to really live out my values and almost a gateway to be able to solve a lot of the problems that i hadn't known how to solve previously so in agriculture is present on forty percent of the earth land it utilizes seventy percent of the earth's freshwater it contributes the industrial agriculture system contributes thirty percent of the greenhouse gases in our plant in our atmosphere and in terms of my social value agriculture about eighty percent of the world's poorest people are small hope to hold their farmers and when thinking through sort of all these dilemma's and challenges of climate change of inequality of poverty i really realized that to actually was kind of a positive spin it was something that was at this point contributing to a lot of problems and how did an opportunity to be celebrated and to and to actually act as a solution to a lot of these challenges by the change to more sustainable production and consumption  so it's it's just something that really excited me and over the past ten years really focusing on food i've seen how it's just been and everywhere you go you hear people speaking about food whether they're hungry or not hungry everybody just eaten or they're hoping to do something nice for a friend or have a really great shared experience in life or take a break  to work on these issues every day i'd like to break down the this month's beam into two categories so intuitively i can break it down into three ways how do you well for your body how do you well for your community and how to eat well for your earth can you explain an element of your work that focuses on eating well or nourishing for our bodies for ourselves absolutely  something that we focused on with neal exchanging with our work with anchor island university a mother many other universities is supporting just and sustainable suggestions and making that oftentimes how can everyone eat well for their own body recognizing that everyone is different and they've got different wants and needs and capacity so something that leads to such as the porting community garden or community kitchen or community food bank kind of connect so that everyone can can feel a sense of nourishment and so we're tackling food insecurity four million be able to celebrate that and so everyone can eat well and also understand that they're eating well and and think through the value that to place in their life so when you say that about a million canadians experience some level of food insecurity what does food insecurity mean in that context great story so it's actually actually unfortunately four million cable for me so it's a really really high number and what that basically means to feed their children probably proper and adequate diet folks who are worried about where their next meal will come from or those who are actually not able to purchase food in general and i've heard of a term called food deserts which do you want to explain that a little bit and how it affects canadians absolutely the food deserts are areas physical areas where there  and imagine walking through a quote unquote desert and not doing anything in sight and that can be very worrying and stressful and through something that is so core to our daily life that it's so important for not only gardens or food for an area as or centers that provide food and you know knowing that your neighbors are there to support you go by that we important to to ensure that more canadians are secure and in food deserts there can be food available but it's things like chips and so it's like food that you can purchase at a gas station it's not food that that nourish is your bodies it leads to malnourishment which can be which can be manifested in terms of obesity or being unhealthy it doesn't necessarily have to be manifested in the way that we see on television in terms of being extremely underweight absolutely do you think of that the sustainable food movement so the focus on source scene food from sustainable sources of agriculture or sourcing food locally do you think that movement is enabling individual who wrote the hundred mile diet and and he spoke about that you couldn't convince him to eat anything but local because it is just so good and i think the word that comes to me and thinking of how can this sustainable food movement enable or empower individuals to make healthy choices comes down to connection and when you're able to meet the individual who is helping to who has produced your food or you're able to produce or forward or fish your own food you know exactly what is in it and so you not only have a reduction of pesticides in the food itself  you're likely contributing to a healthier environment and a healthier local environment and you're also able to connect with individuals maybe local farmers or group or processors and sort of on exactly what isn't food if it is process but it also identify where there might be challenges in the food system and understand you know actually this is the last amount of kill for the year so it is time to think through you know what but that means and eating scene the bully and and gorging food has been so part of human history that i think going back to that way is a real opportunity to suddenly enable people to eat healthy but that empower them as well and i had a really profound experience this weekend i took a hunting course where i learned how to skin and butcher and how does orienteer my way through the forest to find animals and to set up camp in and survive in the wilderness and the experience had a huge impact on me in terms of reminding myself to be humble about my own humanity so as i learned how to skin an animal and how to kill an animal so that i could consume it i was reminded that i am also just an animal that instead of instead of differentiating myself like i'm able to do eating food on a plate with a fork and a knife where i distance myself so much from the source of the food and i i don't fully comprehend where the food came from or how i'm impacting the source of the food whether it be farmers or the animals that i'm eating i was able to through this experience in the hunting course recognize my part in the circle of life and recognize exactly what was going into my body and and where that food came from and i felt so much more control over my own health and so much more control also over my impact over the food that i was eating which was a really empowering experience how out of so wonderful and it's wonderful to it's i feel that it's not only healthy in terms of the food that i'm eating but it's healthy in terms of a holistic approach of getting my food where i'm i'm outside hiking i'm outside in the forest i'm i'm getting exercise and and being exposed to the natural elements and that in itself is so healthy instead of wandering through a grocery store and feeling disenchanted by the the lack of options that there are available and trapped in this world of of falsely advertised  foods yeah and i think i think you bring up a really great point and and there's so many opportunities right now are really really lucky both in rural and urban areas of greening program and and you know waste recovery programs where it does take a bit more energy and time but it can be such a positive experience to go out and excessively and affordably get your own s absolutely there is once a week i try and can something with my mom and it's just a magical wonderful experience because it's a time when we get to chat and hang out and and i get to learn so much from her because she has been doing this all of her life and has gleaned knowledge from her mother on how to preserve food so it's it's that in itself is a really healthy experience to get this time with my family and to have knowledge passed on from many generations and then to to be cooking my own food that will last me over the course of the winter wow incredible you know i'm wondering over the course of your work on food have you witnessed any changes in the way people conceptualize what healthy food options are have to have people's understanding of health changed over time yeah yeah great question i think something that i absolutely love about the work i do and actually how i came to meet  celio was through working with students and incredible students are across the country and i working with students there's this incredible wave of creativity and thought and and d so i i have absolutely experienced a lot of changes in how folks vision food systems something that has come up to me recently is  the idea of healthy is what one considers healthy i mean there there is an aspect of to literacy which is so important of learning as you mentioned where goods coming from how it is affecting your body but also  something that makes you feel good and and i really love the way you frame this really a healthy for your body the community and the earth and i think it's it's so interconnected and i mean all of we'll dig into that a little later  but i think i think healthy is i mean i'm one who sort of goes beyond the labels of what is healthy and what is not and i love the narrative so i'm actually the cremation sharing with the history of of the child go with me and that narrative i mean i just absolutely love it and it's because it comes with that story and the history and the tradition there and i think healthy food can often be tied to a really amazing history with either as you mentioned canning the tea or you know your mom's secret salad dressing or you know histories from our elders and so many both in canada and abroad i absolutely love living in toronto there's so many cultures here and getting to learn about new crops and third what some worlds crop programs where we are growing greens that have only been me in china before and being helpful for using those and h so really really creative thing one of my favorite example is at the university of runners and in toronto the executive chef student and what they should be eating in the cafeteria should be just as wonderful and enjoyable as what they're learning and i absolutely love that you know learning what you should be learning or you know what you should be eating we look at county nutrients or counting calories and and broadening that horizon to health in a more holistic perspective of how it affects our wellbeing our souls our minds are the people that we share the food with so one example is people make an argument for genetically engineered rice i believe because they can create rice with a certain nutrient in it that's a lacking in communities where people are are getting ill because of this lack of vitamin d you know the specific example that i'm talking about yet is that i didn't say yes yeah thank you for remembering that it wasn't on the top of my head so that is more of a reduction of perspective of health that people need vitamin a and so they're going to create genetically engineer rice that has vitamin a to support these communities and yet there's so many alternatives alternative solutions that don't require genetic engineering such as eating ancient grains that would benefit the community because they've it that grain has grown in that ecosystem for many generations and the people have more control over their food source and don't have to purchase this rice from an organization that brings it in from abroad so it's more healthy for the environment in the community as well as health for the individual body by getting vitamin a through these other anc he's in a very different camp from many geneticists but he believes that that's sort of exactly a view that genetic splicing that taking the vitamin a and out of some other organism and putting it into rice is similar to taking mick see your myopic vision is that someone needs vitamin a it leaves out all of the political aspects of health and the economic aspects of health and the environmental impact so how is is bringing this introduced genetically engineered rice into the communit a as well so that could be a much simpler less expensive way of addressing that problem but that's a very good point the economy of it is rarely addressed think that's even bigger question mark about things like that and it's important to look why are these people going hungry in the first place that resoundingly through every piece of evidence you can find it's not because there's a lack of food in the world it's not because a lot of vitamin a accessible to them it's because of political systems of food of any quality and food distribution or or their inability to afford food or their their lack of access to land to grow their own food it doesn't the solution is not in the bandaid of creating another food that has vitamin a and that's a fully and i think of you raise i mean because it's so interconnected and the amazing thing that we're see  specially on campuses via you being one of them is the fact that everyone no matter what their position are has a stake in the food system and can contribute so whether your food insecure or whether you are a top level administrator  of you both care about the food system and the health of your planet you both prepare and drink water and and it's a real connector and i think i think for the past hundred years there's been a strong disconnect  between those individuals and and we're we're finally coming to a place where everyone actually realizes that this could be a really wonderful galvanizing point now i'd like to move from how do  program called trickery so it is a play on trick or treat and that is to get university high school and community groups out on the night of halloween which is the only time of year when folks expect you to knock on their door and ask for something and instead of collecting candy this brilliant idea got started about fifteen years ago where  you would knock on doors and ask for food donation to help support community groups as i mentioned four million canadians are in some ways food insecure and food banks have played a vital role in  providing immediate through for the and so this is a really exciting time where we're able to see a problem and try to figure out ways of reciprocity and community building  around reshaping things been helping to contribute to politically healthy communities and something this year that we're doing a little bit differently as we realize that collecting through donations and bringing them to eventual spot and having folks new funds know it is so vitally important for food access at this point in time it isn't a long term solution we hope i mean the goal of most food banks in the world is to become obsolete  and so our hope is here is to not only raise through donations but also raise voices and get folks to start talking about what are some of the reasons as you just mentioned some of the  everything from raising minimum wage to thinking about social security network to think about nutrition programs and so there are so many opportunities i think to  te conversation and get things going and i think are great which is happening on october thirty first as a really exciting time to be able to use opening doors of neighbors to really spark an amazing conversation and be able to support each other such an exciting initiative and i i believe via you is taking part in trick or treat this year so if there's any students out there that are interested please feel free to email tag trick or two and that's that's where you can see all the amazing responses cool what's exciting sarah have you had any personal experiences either at home or abroad where the impact of people's food choices what they personally was clearly manifested in the overall well being of the community absolutely this really makes me think of a time i spent four m creating a community seeding during my time there and it was one of the most amazing experiences to be have food was really building into every aspect of the community so the central meeting spot all of a sudden had their opportunity to celebrate their history and celebrate their their present work so it resulted in meeting community leaders who were able to help share knowledge with others it resulted in students and mothers being able to decide which crops actually not only yielded the best but the ones that their children and families actually enjoyed the most have allowed for elders to be able to share histories of where these seeds had come from and how they had grown in years past it allows the community also to identify  meijer climate change issues that they were facing and we were able to bring that forward to the government and say actually these farmers are incredibly tied to the land and we can see that with climate change there's a lot of changes i would dance and and party to this the song of the core and so that for me really really showed it was on a micro scale but how vital things can be for communities and how much food for about a month and and it was an opportunity over five years creating and connecting them focusing so much on the soil the air quality the water our ability to be able to sustain and actually have extra food for her neighbors it sounds like it was quite a small community is that correct exactly that to the individual so it would be a lot easier to witness the impact of  people's food choices on the community affording do you see any in a city like toronto where there's so much diversity in and it's probably more difficult to  see tangible impact of one individual's day to day food choices are there any examples that you can think of in toronto of how who'd impacts the community wellbeing absolutely tronto is a very vibrant city with so many of them mentioned i think every nation in the world is represented in toronto yet over fifty percent of individuals living in toronto were born outside of canada so we're very diverse and i think food is one of the most amazing ways to invite cultures and then and share and learn from each other so some really amazing initiatives happening here a place called the stopped and the regent park together and actually share skills and learning and experiences and stories and something that has happened here we've created a world crop garden at the stop and so they have the garden the italian garden the portuguese garden the philip you know our day and seeing folks come to the garden many of whom don't speak english and many who previously felt isolated something as part of their culture and they've done studies that the stops where participants ninety eight percent feel like they've created a community after participating in one of the programs and i i think that is such an amazing indicator that food and break all barriers of cultural religious social language barriers everything and bring people together so it's not only creating community wellbeing but it's simply creating community exactly no what about what about eating well for the environment can you explain the moment of your work that focuses on environmental sustainability through food absolutely so i love these three themes and i love how you've phrased them together body community and earth and how we can evolve for all of them together and there's so linked that we that we're doing one where again right that really what the campus food systems project is promoting universities across the country to purchase more local sustainable  and equitable sue and what that means is actually knowing where the food comes from so to do a bit of a supply chain audit of where food is coming from and shifting some of that food to war is more like local and sustainable and as i mentioned food you know uses seventy percent of the earth's water and produces thirty percent of the greenhouse gases with with transportation being about twenty percent of that  production being farming jordi that if institutions which are purchasing five hundred million dollars a food a year in canada start shifting things and supporting local farmers and protecting local farmland and also giving students the the knowledge and opportunities to meet the healthy food we are doing something so profound for our environment as well as you know supporting it is so vital to produce to protect not only our land water and air but also the amazing networks of millions of insects and other microorganisms that help support our food system so i think you know being a food as a gateway to protect the planet is it's so possible and there are so many i mean being farmers for gers fishers elk there that are so in tune with the land and as i mentioned in honduras farmers are often the first to notice when changes in our planet are happening when the rivers start running dry when the snow and freeze comes too late and there's a need to have in fact impact i think i think we really need to listen closely to those amazing stewards of our land and really support i know i often hear feedback that many people feel a tension between making choices that are healthy for the environment and making choices that are healthy for our bodies that perhaps purchasing organic is is more expensive and so it's it's not affordable and therefore inaccessible and therefore not healthy for our body can you speak to this tension at all and can you also speak to how people might be able to reconcile this tension in their daily food habits fully and i would love to hear more of those tensions because i think that i interesting and something that we need to talk about as a as as a population of the community of you know where are these bears where these different food systems conflict but i but i do feel that food is woven through many many aspects of our life and that it has the possibility of creating holistic health it just depends on how you look at it and folks who feel that tension to to a pressing because i'd love to hear sort of some of the content conflicting ideas but be think about sort of that a triad that you mentioned how it all connects together so if if  feeling inaccessible and potentially into the eye i think it would be a great time to do your about your farmer program but but connect with farmers or start growing your own food or spread and in   constraint in our life both financial and time constraints and culture of a restraint and ability you know physical barriers and i believe and to be able to bring that all together  but i think maybe we need to talk about some of the underlying issues rather than just thinking that healthy and sustainable through our conflicting potentially that area of need to get a new transportation to be able to actually go out to a farm and or maybe it's actually the price of land or our minimum wage or there's so many different issues i think  population so some of the things that vi you that were were doing to try and synergize eating well for our bodies communities on earth or one project is the view you gleam team so partnering with and  o food share and their clean organization aware there is an abundance of fruit and nuts and also vegetables in people's gardens that property owners either don't have time to process or don't have any desire to eat themselves because there's so much of it or maybe aren't interested in the food the green team brings together a group of volunteers who will go and pick the food for the property owner and then the property owner is allowed to take one third of that one third goes to the volunteer and then the last third often goes to community organizations such as a food bank now via you is actually an outlet for food distribution from cleaning so we hand out free local food to students during various activities such as new student orientation or farmer's market days and the v glean team is is encouraging students to sign up for free usually there's a small fee to sign up for gleaning but you were waving that field we're subsidizing it actually so students can  join a team of their peers get a brief orientation session for me and i'm a food share of how to climb ladders safely and and be respectful of the property owners and then go out and pick this abundance of food for free and not only connect with nature and learn about what nuts look like on the tree or or what it feels like to be outside picking your own food but then also have access to all of this free food that they can then process or they can  share with their family and friends and and take for lunches so it's not only empowering people to eat well for their bodies but also eat well for the earth and community at absolutely no cost and another program is the farm to you field trip at v a you wear this weekend is a field trip actually this saturday and it's every other saturday until early december where for seven dollars a student can sign up and it's it's actually only five dollars if you sign up in person at the gym or seven if you register online and we meet at the bus loop so really accessible to students if anyone's able to get to via you they're also able to come on the field trip so bus comes and picks students up and we go to growing opportunities farm in south and imo and for about three to four hours students volunteer and the farm is set up specifically for volunteers of of any experience or capacity so even if you've never set foot on a farm before and you know absolutely nothing there's nothing to be intimidated intimidated about because there will be a job for us at your comfort level so people can work inside a greenhouse or outside there's simpler tasks or more physically demanding tasks and at the end of the field trip students are guaranteed to take home a food box valued at twenty dollars and in all honesty it ends up being a lot more than that because there's so much food available at this farm that the students themselves have helped to pick and help to grow that there's a lot more than twenty dollars worth of each student has access to take home and the farmers say like please take more and take more we have so much to share so this field trip is also a route to synergize these these aspects of health and to build a bridge over the tensions that we feel so when when local and sustainably sourced food often feels more expensive because it is more expensive than food processed food or food that's coming from places where the people aren't paid fair wages or maybe the animals don't have human standards of living the food that we're accessing through farm to you field trips or the green program is absolutely free and there's many opportunities that exist out there like you said sir it's just about identifying what the real barriers are that often affordability is not the ultimate barrier but access so transportation that's why we offer these field trips or understanding where free food actually exists in your community and that's why and i'm sure it's so amazing for facilitating compiling the information of who has access produce in their backyard absolutely i am so incredibly inspired by these types of  but go on that i think are creative but also you know are really enjoyable processes for for folks to build community through through these initiatives and new friends and i think connections over you know of forty years so i think there's a lot of amazing people in this movement and so many more to join on through programs like the one we've created that we are you i'd like to finish with one question  so in reality when we know that making a choice you will for your body are making the choice for your earthly or making a choice to eat well for your community they're not compartmentalize there are six extremely intertwined with one another so it's never really a decision will have to make to either prioritize one or the other because personal community and environmental health or are in extra in extra put in extr linked so as consumers we have the power to positive positively impact our bodies communities and environments but we're often encouraged to follow the path o or jump on the concept of voting with our dollars and i think that the concept of voting with their dollars is actually quite a limited one for it neither accounts for the role of our governments and food companies that are providing their food in terms of offering healthier choices and it also doesn't account for the role of us as citizens it merely sees us as consumers i'm wondering if you can speak to the concept of voting with our dollar and how it can be a positive one but also how we can move move beyond this frame of mind into something much more empowering celia you've definitely hit it on the head there of them the multi dimensional aspect of this and we need to shift our foods we need everyone on board i heard an amazing poem yesterday that says to save a bird to save an earth we need an art and we need to all work together to be able to to shape a system so i think number one comes from the individual level either you know making the choices to support the food systems you'd like to see so going to the farmer market or joining the greening program or cooking a meal together or thinking about food waste if you have extra leftover could you either be saving it or freezing it or giving it to someone else and in terms of reciprocity that individual level is go important because it sends a message and if you're not able to achieve that for example if there is a food desert and you're in your area your neighborhood to share that out as well to i think voting with your voice and we're doing with your dollars is so valuable and then in terms of corporate concentration and government role i think it is so important for there there's an amazing organization called secure canada and that is made up of many networks and folks across the country from coast to coast the b p crews this and that work is that is a member and i think there is is so much value that happening there and such a strong the government and they've developed something called the people's food policy i which discusses issues that are important to two individuals and and we to think about you know when you are voting think about how this will impact at your life your livelihood and really we all need to eat and we all need to feel nourished and we all need healthy and safe and clean environment  and the exciting thing about it for those who want to argue is the food actually is an amazing builder for the economy and the green economy through our work we've created over twenty two at a solid position for students in gardens and greenhouses the food sector employees one people in canada so we can ship those more sustainable options we can not only create more jobs but also more and joyful jobs for both our environment and individuals so i think on an individual level but also on a national level there is so much you can do and really just encouraging folks to start talking and  find out where those communities are where you can collectively create a really strong voice for jobs in sustainable food systems i like that i like seeing ourselves as more than just consumers we're we're citizens we're leaders it's not just about going to the grocery store and and making a financial decision it's about making that decision with our communities with our mouths with our hearts and our bodies and that is so much more powerful than that simply being a consumer and making a purchase absolutely well sara thank you so much for your time you're really knowledgeable it's inspiring to listen to you and to show and then imo there's there's so much going on for thank you everyone out there for being an inspiration and helping to sustain our work and we'll continue working together absolutely wonderful day you too sarah by and that was sarah archibald with meal exchange in toronto talking today with celia white who is the vancouver island university healthy communities coordinator so thank you so much to both of you thanks for being here once again before we go i would just like to mention harbor living dot ca has a number of food related events mentioned if you go to harbor living dot ca and just on their on their home page actually there's  something well there's a whole colon ary section they call it and it's just i think it's the second one down four or maybe it's dropped down a little bit on the page but if you go there there are there is cheese making workshops mushroom foraging events coming up this weekend so do check those out but that is our show changes as heard every tuesday morning at eleven here on c h o i do check us out on facebook and on behalf of our production team thinks so much for joining us