Fresh Food in the City

Good news for students, staff, and faculty of Ryerson University: a brand new MyMarket® farmers' market is coming to you starting tomorrow!

The new Ryerson market will run weekly on Tuesday evenings throughout the summer and early fall. Featuring locally grown produce as well as meats, cheeses, honey, maple syrup, baked goods, artisanal breads, and skin care products, the Yonge & Dundas community will finally have a place to shop that is much more local and sustainable than the Eaton Centre mall!

Time: Tuesdays between 3:30 and 7:30 pm from June 14th to October 25th

Location: Gould Street just east of Yonge Street

Special Events: official grand opening and strawberry fest on June 28th, corn boil on July 19th, peach delight on August 23rd, and applemania on September 13th.

Volunteers: the market needs volunteers. Please get in touch with Diana at diana.mymarket(at)gmail.com if you're interested.

Three of my friends live ten minutes away on foot, and I'm excited that they'll have fresh, local food options that should keep their trips to the supermarket to a minimum. Congrats to Ryerson and everyone in the neighbourhood!


Photo used under Creative Commons from Thomas Hawk (Thomas Hawk/flickr).

Day 4 - Food

This week I'm experimenting with No Impact Week, exploring some of my past successes at decreasing my carbon footprint and generating even better ideas for the future. My goal is to challenge myself to redo the week later this year when it will have the greatest impact on my day-to-day life. Click here for a review of Day 1 - Consumption, Day 2 - Trash, and Day 3 - Transportation.

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Day 4 - Food

This could be a very long post. When it comes to environmental issues, problems with the way we grow, process, market, consume, and waste food pretty much top the list for me. So instead of writing until 2012, I'll keep things brief by giving you a bullet-point list of the things I do to lower my food-related carbon footprint. Get comfy, this will still be long.

A selection of produce from my CSA share, late July 2010.

• I'm a big fan of eating locally and seasonally, and I held true to my values over the summer by participating in Young Urban Farmers CSA. In the fall, I went to my local farmers' market as often as I could, but since it's open on Saturdays and the past two fell on holidays... let's say my fridge doesn't have a lot of Ontario-grown produce in it right now.

• I'm happy to state that I've made big strides in the direction of vegetarianism! My general rules are to avoid meat altogether when I'm dining out, unless the restaurant uses a local, hormone- and antibiotic-free, non-factory farm source for their meat. I try to keep to the same criteria when I find myself in front of a butcher counter, and when I can afford it, I cross town to visit butchers who sell organic meat from farmers they actually know. Raising cows is one of the most resource-intensive and polluting agricultural activities, so I have almost completely cut beef out of my diet - and between you and me (and the entire internet, haha) I find Betsy kinda boring, with the exception of using slices of flank steak for a stir-fry. Will I eventually become a vegetarian? It's quite likely.

• I carry a pocket guide that indicates which fish have been caught/raised in environmentally sustainable ways and have a low mercury content (three cheers for Toronto Public Health) to make smart decisions. Goodbye salmon, shrimp, red snapper, and tuna. Those are the losses I feel most acutely. Sea urchin, on the other hand - my brother can attest to this - I am not sad to see in the "bad choice" column.

• The bad news? Off the top of my head, these are some of the foods from outside of Ontario that I currently can't bring myself to give up: avocados, bananas, citrus (lemons, oranges, and clementines), mangoes, olives and olive oil, pineapples, rice, salt, and wheat (bread). The good news? I don't have to feel too guilty about my consumption of chocolate if I switch from a fancy Swiss brand to Chocosol, purveyors of artisanal chocolate made from cacao beans that have been fairly traded for in a socially just way, plus other ingredients that are grown locally. And the real kicker is that the final product is delivered to your door by bike! Be still my beating heart...

• The big dilemma: what to do about coffee and tea. I mostly quit coffee in 2006 for health reasons (consuming either too much or too little caffeine in coffee format was causing migraines as a withdrawal/overdose symptom) and I continue to avoid it most days of the week - not an easy feat considering I'm tempted every day, living in a neighbourhood with some of the best espresso outside of Italy. But what about tea, that warming, soothing, nourishing beverage that I can't go without for more than a few hours at a time? Does it help that half of what I own is organic? Does it matter that I sometimes drink a tisane made entirely from Ontario-grown herbs (thank you for cluing me in on this blend, Karen at Stratford Tea Leaves)? Am I making a noticeable difference by drinking loose leaf teas rather than using tea bags, which require extra resources and much more processing? What about the fact that unlike coffee, I don't add any milk or sugar to tea? Or, consider this: isn't tea responsible for lower transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions than coffee (on a cup for cup basis, due to how much less tea you need, and how much less it weighs than coffee)? I'll need some time to better research this topic!

• Let's not forget alcoholic beverages. I buy local wines from Niagara and über-local beer from downtown (Steam Whistle, Mill St., and Amsterdam). Enough said.

• For the most part, I don't buy a lot of processed foods; I ate my last McMeal over ten years ago and will never go back; I cook at home rather than order in; I brown-bag my lunch instead of heading to the food court; I occasionally bake my own bread and pizza dough (like today!); and when I dine out, I prefer restaurants that respect the slow food approach and I'm always on lookout for restaurants that serve Local Food Plus certified food.

I couldn't write this post without talking about the importance of developing local food systems. In fact, besides trying to cut out more meat, dairy, and non-local, unseasonal produce from my diet, working to change our food system can have a big impact on my carbon footprint, and yours, too. To that effect, check out these eleven great ideas for contributing to the good food movement, brought to you by Food Forward. You don't have to make eleven changes; just choose the ones that are practical and achievable for you, and pass on the list to your family, friends, and colleagues. We're all in this together.

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When it comes to our impact on the planet, despite the bad news and warnings that we've passed the point where we can fix this mess we're in, I remain inspired, heartened, motivated, grateful for, and deeply happy that we live in an age where it is possible to make the kinds of choices I've been talking about all week. Thank you, humanity.

Photo credits: Tsukiji tuna market; coffee/tea/sugar containers.

Pushing Forward with 100 Hands

This afternoon I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on developing a career in the sustainable food movement. "Pushing Forward" was organized by Food Forward Advocacy Alliance, a food system advocacy group based out of Toronto working with the public, politicians, and those involved in the food sector to strengthen the city's food movement. The workshop doubled as a fundraiser, with proceeds supporting Food Forward's work and programming.

Eglinton Park Heritage Garden

The goal of the event was to provide interactive sessions for people interested in getting a meaningful job or starting a social enterprise in the food or environmental sector. The day was structured around a series of educational talks delivered by speakers whose enthusiasm for their work was infectious. The 50 workshop participants (that's where the 100 hands in my title came from) heard four great success stories:

Chris Wong, co-founder of Young Urban Farmers (helping residents grow their own food in the city) and its non-profit sibling CSA, told us about the importance of being passionate and having a can-do spirit when trying to make it as an entrepreneur. He pointed out that starting a business often brings about a fear of failure, but that this fear can be transformed into motivation because the worst case scenario is spending the rest of one's life regretting never having tried.

Anne Freeman, coordinator of the Dufferin Grove Farmers' Market and the Greenbelt Farmers' Market Network, explained the myriad of details involved in creating and operating farmers' markets and other small food business start-ups. In addition to passion and drive, she underscored the need for planning and cost analysis before venturing into business. Anne also provided great tips and directed us to useful resources, including the Toronto Food Strategy project / Food Connections and Toronto Public Health food handler training courses.

Melissa Shin, Managing Editor for Corporate Knights Magazine (a.k.a. the "magazine for clean capitalism", showcasing the leaders and losers of the corporate world with respect to their environmental and social impacts), spoke about facing adversity with passion and being gutsy enough to do what you love. She remarked that while we may not want corporations to run the world, they current do; so it's necessary to work with them to achieve our goals.

Nogah Kornberg, Executive Director of Young Social Entrepreneurs of Canada (a hub for connections, education, and support for young people in social enterprise), remarked that as a high school teacher, she has often been asked by students how to choose between pursuing a career that interests them vs. one that pays the bills. Outraged that youth are convinced these are mutually exclusive concepts, Nogah became a big proponent of social enterprise: working towards meeting social and economic goals simultaneously.

Riverdale Farm Farmers' Market

After these four informative talks, we moved on to the more interactive portion of the day. In order to take advantage of the great wealth of knowledge present in the room, Nogah invited five workshop participants to briefly outline their ideas for pushing the sustainable food movement forward. The rest of us created little groups around these "masterminds" and furthered their ideas through feedback, questions, and the raising of problems that needed solving. It was incredible how in ten short minutes, one person's vision was boosted by eight brains coming at the idea from a variety of perspectives. I sat with a driver for FoodShare's Good Food Box program who wants to distribute healthy snack packs to convenience stores in food deserts, and our group came up with lots of suggestions to improve the feasibility of his idea.

Finally, although I could not stay for the post-event social at a nearby pub (serving local beers, naturally), I had a chance to chat with Food Forward volunteer Michelle Gruda (whose blog you should read). We talked about how exciting it was to hear from people who have been able to pursue careers they love, but agreed that the missing piece is knowing how to turn an idea into a successful business. Between the two of us, we were easily able to identify areas that desperately need change and come up with half a dozen objectives, but how do these concepts become detailed proposals?

In the coming weeks and months I hope to devote more time and energy to answering this question, and with some luck I will find myself working on a project and keeping you up to speed on my progress through this blog!


Photo credit: Eglinton Park Heritage Garden - Toronto Community Garden Network ; Riverdale Farm Farmers' Market - The Friends of Riverdale Farm.

Summer Happiness in a Basket

After what felt like an endless week of high heat, high humidity, and daily smog warnings, today’s clear blue sky and pleasant breezes made for just about perfect conditions for a trip out of town – carpooling in a fuel-efficient vehicle, of course – to pick raspberries.


While there are many things that make me happy, opportunities to escape the city and breathe fresh air are pretty high up on my list. There’s something really appealing about resting my eyes, gazing at green hills that roll on into the horizon instead of right angles of steel and pavement. Sometimes I forget how much chronic strain I feel in my shoulder and neck muscles (which I believe is a result of the rushed, hustle and bustle pace of city life, despite my best efforts at resisting this lifestyle) until I get a chance to take a few deep breaths of clean air and find the tension slowly recede. The countryside is my spa!

Today’s little expedition reinforced my already strong belief in the value of harvesting fruit and veggies for immediate consumption, baking, cooking, and preserving. Sure, you may end up spending more money than if you had visited your local grocer: farmers have to charge you not only for what you pick but also for what you eat in the field, and you have to factor in the cost of fuel (and unforeseen expenses such as splurging on freshly baked pie). But think of what you’re getting in return! The freshest possible produce, a reduction in stress, a generally fun time, and bonus: a sense of pride and satisfaction for having supported your local economy. What a deal!

Obviously, while I’m a big proponent of heading out to pick your own tasty berries, it’s not a good idea to do this on a regular basis. Mother Nature probably prefers it when one truck carries the fruit to supply a number of centrally located stores, rather than having the downtown-dwelling masses drive a one-hour round trip in their cars every weekend. Concerned that the big-box grocery chain doesn’t offer a fresh selection? Then visit your local farmers’ market. It’s a fun activity in itself, especially if you grab your bike, find a scenic route to get you there, and invite your friends to join you.

So, the next time you find yourself heading out of town to bring home summer happiness in a basket, take a look around and smile when you see families teaching their children where food comes from, how much work goes into growing it, and how much fun it can be to harvest it. We need to pass these values on to the next generation, and encourage everyone to grow what they can in their own backyards (more on that in another post).

To find a pick-your-own farm near you, check out PickYourOwn.org. Happy picking!