“Despite healthy lifestyle trends, there is growing concern about a general lack of time, knowledge and skills to prepare healthful, affordable meals at home.” ~ Ontario Home Economics Association
When was the last time you cooked a full meal from scratch? What it prepared with locally and sustainably grown, seasonal food? Did you and your loved ones take the time to savour it? Did they share in the preparation?
How many children know where their food comes from? How many adults know how to eat healthy in a budget? How many have enough kitchen skills to enjoy cooking healthy and not perceiving it as another burden in their daily to-do list?
This is a skill (preparing food that is healthy, seasonal and local in a budget) and a joy (preparing it with family and enjoying it without rush) that many families have lost.
Home cooking is no longer taught at home or even at school. Family recipes are not longer treasured. We think we have abundance because we find “everything” in the supermarkets, from mangoes to bananas to strawberries in January, but we ignore the hundreds of varieties of fruits and vegetables we have lost due to the commodification of food and the industrialization of agriculture. We buy things that look appealing and convenient, ignoring that most of them are not food at all.
While fast foods and processed meals increase, so do obesity, type II diabetes and heart disease. Along with all this apparent abundance, there is malnutrition and hunger. How can that be?
There is only one way to change this, and it is through food literacy. Many organizations in Canada are addressing food literacy through programs that include awareness and information campaigns and resources (such as this blog!), practical workshops to learn different food skills, advocacy and partnership with schools.
But…what is food literacy, you may ask?
Food literacy includes:
- Knowledge about food and nutrition
- Food Skills
- Self-efficacy and confidence
- Ecologic factors
- Food decisions
Sounds cryptic? Don’t worry! We will write about this in next blog posts, giving you ideas and resources and inviting you to share with us.
Let’s now explore what can be done in your household and community and how you can take the lead to increase your own food literacy:
- Start with curiosity: what is in your breakfast? lunch? snack? dinner? Where do the ingredients come from? What do they do to your body?
- Try a meal journal and track what you eat, where and when, how long it takes you and how do you feel afterwards
- Eat meals using mindfulness: eat in a clean and uncluttered space with no screens or noises, take your time, relish each bite slowly and try to guess the ingredients through the smell, texture, flavour and aspect of what you are eating
- Start by cooking at least one meal from scratch a week, then increase it to two, then three and so on, ask for the support of other people in your household
- Learn how to read food labels and understand the nutritious content as well as the things that are not so good for you
- Start a community kitchen or a sharing skills group in your workplace, school or community and learn to cook together, exchange recipes and stories about food from their culture or families.
- Start a skills-sharing group and learn together about how your food choices affect ecosystems, climate, other beings and peoples in the world. Learn how the food choices affect your health.
- Organize local community workshops and teach each other (or invite someone who has the skills) to grow and preserve food, meal planning, food fermentation, pickling, canning, making things from scratch like bread, yogurt, cheese, vinegars and more.
- Consider joining or starting a local food sovereignty group to create awareness and share resources with others in your community, particularly those more vulnerable, like newcomers, seniors, single parents, indigenous peoples, people with disabilities and children.
- Take a tour to your local supermarket, look at the food they sell and make notes: what percentage of that food is whole, and you can recognize in its more “natural” state? How many of those foods are local and seasonal? How much of it comes in packages that will be discarded, impacting ecosystems and other beings?
- Learn what local plants, animals, insects and fungi did the native peoples of your region eat
Do you have more ideas? Questions?
Contact us! We want to learn from you!
Tell us your ideas! Go to our Facebook Page, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, sign up to receive our Newsletter or drop us a line: seedsofchangesurrey@gmail.com (or post a comment below)
Read more:
A community-based solution to improve food literacy: http://lcrc.on.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/CSL-Report.brittany.pdf
Food Literacy, Fraser Health: https://www.fraserhealth.ca/health-info/health-topics/school-health/healthy-living/healthy-eating/food-literacy/
Food Literacy for Life: https://www.odph.ca/upload/editor/Food-Literacy-Call-to-Action-FINAL.pdf
Food Literacy Center: https://www.foodliteracycenter.org/
What to eat? Improving Food Literacy in Canada: http://opha.on.ca/getmedia/0dde51a8-d0a0-47f2-b567-8d385ac095f8/Improving-Food-Literacy-in-Canada.pdf.aspx?ext=.pdf