Connecting Youth with Jobs in the Good Food Movement

I'm delighted to announce two exciting events that will help young people who advocate for a better food system find with meaningful work!

Youth Food Fair

The Toronto Youth Food Policy Council (TYFPC) will be hosting its second annual Youth Food Fair to help "the food leaders of tomorrow meet the food leaders of today". At last year's event, nearly 300 youth and 30 food organizations came together to network the evening away. I'm betting the event will be even bigger this year! Just take a look at some of the participating organizations:

• Food Share Toronto
• Local Food Plus
• Real Food for Real Kids
• Green Thumbs Growing Kids
• Young Urban Farmers and Young Urban Farmers CSA
• Food Forward
• Everdale Organic Farm and Environmental Learning Center
• Slow Food Toronto
• Afri-Can Food Basket
• Meal Exchange
• Toronto Food Policy Council
• Sustain Ontario
• Second Harvest
• Not Far From the Tree

I've heard that this year, the structure will be similar to a speed-dating session where youth participants will have a chance to pitch their ideas (and themselves as job candidates!) to the organizations they're interested in. The pessimist in me is expecting chaos while the optimist in me is really excited! The foodie in me is looking forward to the light snacks provided by the Hot Yam!

Date: Thursday, April 7th, 2011

Time: 6:00 - 9:00 pm

Location: Wilson Lounge, New College, University of Toronto

Cost: free.

Registration: none required, just show up!

Pushing Further

Right on the heels of the Youth Food Fair, Food Forward will be hosting a mini-conference for those interested in starting a career in the food sector while making a difference in society - hey, that sounds like me! Similar to last year's Pushing Forward event, this session will feature both educational and interactive sessions to help participants discover new opportunities, learn about social entrepreneurship, get advice from business owners, and share strategies for new initiatives. Take a look at the line-up of speakers:

• Harriet Friedmann: leading food policy researcher, Geography Professor, and Fellow of the Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto
• Nogah Kornberg, Executive Director of Young Social Entrepreneurs of Canada
• Kathleen Mackintosh, Founder and Owner of Culinarium, Toronto's all-local food store
• Noelle Munaretto, Operations Manager of the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance and Event Coordinator with Young Urban Farmers CSA

At the last event, I found the networking opportunities to be the most useful, though I learned a lot from the speakers, too. You never know what kinds of conversations you're going to have in a room full of good food movement supporters!

Date: Saturday, April 9th, 2011

Time: 11:30 am - 5:00 pm

Location: Room 5260, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Cost: $45 for Food Forward members, $50 for non-members, $5 for Food Forward supporting members

Registration: head over to the Get Involved page; e-mail questions to darcy (at) pushfoodforward.com


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Wow, April is shaping up to be an exciting month!


Photo credits: carrots; tomatoes.

Maple in the County

I know what you're thinking: what does a sweet substance have to do with health and the environment? Easy!

• Maple syrup is a local food in Ontario - sometimes as local as your neighbour's back yard.
• It's much healthier than refined sugar when used as a sweetener.
• It is 100% pure and contains no synthetic additives such as preservatives or colour.
• Growing sugar maple trees is typically an organic process, with no dependence on fertilizers or pesticides, and it doesn't deplete the quality of the soil or reduce biodiversity.

I'm sure there are other pro-health, environmentally-friendly arguments that could be made, but this is meant to be a pretty short post. I organized a little road trip to Prince Edward County over the weekend to partake in maple products of all kinds. After eating maple-smoked pulled pork sandwiches with cornbread and homemade waffles with maple syrup and berries, we found the pièce de résistance: maple taffy!

For those who don't know, you take maple syrup, which has already been boiled down from maple sap at a ratio of 20:1 (if you're lucky), then boil it down some more to make it more candy-like. Pour some onto snow (in this case "old" snow that was "harvested" back when we still had some, then stored in a freezer until now) in a line pattern with a popsicle stick firmly embedded on one end, wait until it hardens, roll up the taffy with the stick, and consume. Repeat. Repeat again. Repeat one more time for good measure. Smile. No, laugh. Laugh giddily like you're five years old again. Savour the moment, because you won't be experiencing it again until this time next year. Sigh.

If that wasn't enough, what made our trip to Vader's Maple Syrup (no Star Wars jokes please) even more memorable was the maple kettle corn! I've never seen so many kernels popping at once, and it never occurred to me to season popcorn with maple syrup and salt! The result wasn't a sticky, gooey mess, thanks to the professional stirring skills you can see in the image above. The maple flavour permeated every popped kernel without being overwhelming, and I can't wait to try this at home.

With some luck, I'll find time in the near future to bake a loaf of bread using a couple tablespoons of the maple syrup I bought. The recipe will remain a secret for now!

What are some uncommon applications of maple syrup you've experimented with?


Thanks to Diana for snapping these pictures while I was too busy drooling.

The Tuesday Toxin Talk

I'm currently reading Slow Death by Rubber Duck, by Rick Smith (Executive Director of Environmental Defence) and Bruce Lourie (President of the Ivey Foundation). The book examines the toxins that leach out of commonplace items in our homes and workplaces and wind up in our bodies. Smith and Lourie experiment on themselves, purposely exposing themselves to everyday products over a four-day period, and use the results to raise awareness about the dangers that surround us. I'd like to use this space every few Tuesdays to share some of this vital information with you. For more in-depth coverage, please buy the book!

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Let's talk about Teflon.

We're all familiar with Teflon and other PFCs (perfluorinated compounds) due to their popularity in the kitchen: they keep food from sticking to frying pans. I suspect many of you know that we spray these chemicals onto rugs, sofas, and clothing as a stain repellent. But did you know they also coat pizza boxes, popcorn bags, and dental floss? Were you aware that PFCs are used to make bullets and computer mice? Raise your hand if you knew these compounds are put into cosmetics! We use this stuff in so many different applications that 98% of Americans carry PFCs in their blood. Scary stuff.

What makes Teflon so bad? Its main ingredient, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), is a toxin thought to cause birth defects, developmental problems, hormone disruption, and high cholesterol. Ironically, Teflon's durability, slipperiness, and resistance to breakdown make it simultaneously commercially desirable and environmentally disastrous, not to mention damaging to human health. We can't get rid of it - neither inside nor outside of our bodies - and it can take centuries for the molecules to break down on their own. In other words, even if we stopped using PFOAs today, our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc., would still suffer the associated health effects. But we don't need to look to the future to see problems: in Parkersburg, West Virginia, where DuPont manufactures Teflon, residents have nearly six times as much PFOA in their blood as the average American.

Ready to ditch your Teflon pan? Bruce Lourie has some tips:

• Invest in a good frying pan with a solid base so it can heat quickly and evenly and retain heat at a constant temperature. The three basic categories are cast iron, stainless steel, and enamel-coated cast iron (my personal favourite).
• Heat the pan to the correct temperature before placing any food into it.
• Coat the entire surface of the pan with oil.
• Use a metal spatula. Plastic ones tend to shovel, whereas metal ones actually lift food off of the pan's surface.

There is some good news: DuPont will be phasing out the manufacturing, use, and purchasing of PFOA by 2015, and 3M, the maker of Scotchguard, has already voluntarily removed PFOS (perfluorooctane sulphonate) - another persistent, bioaccumulating toxin - from its products.

Over the past year, I've noticed some scratches in my non-stick pan but have been ignoring them because the skillet is still doing its job well. But now I'm not so sure I can keep using it. What about you? Will you make the switch to a healthier, environmentally-friendlier pan, or is this not that big of a deal?


Photo credits: chemical structure of PFOA; non-stick pan.

March Foodie Drinks

Announcing the March edition of Foodie Drinks! Next week Food Forward is hosting its fourth monthly networking and social event around the good food movement.

We have a special guest coming to speak: Thu Nguyen is preparing to travel to Vietnam, where she will be cooking with chefs in their homes and restaurants, as well as with KOTO, a non-profit restaurant and vocational training program designed for street and disadvantaged youth. On her trip, Thu will be working on a recipe book on this topic called My Quest.

As usual, we will be featuring one business and one non-profit working to better the food system. This month, we will be hearing from Second Harvest, a registered charity that picks up and prepares excess fresh food that would otherwise go to waste and delivers it daily to around 250 social service agencies such as shelters, community centres, and breakfast programs in the Greater Toronto Area. Our business guest will be Culinarium, a gourmet food store that features a range of organic, natural, artisanal, and/or sustainably produced products from Ontario. Besides offering produce, meats, and dairy, this store also carries unexpected items like peanuts from Vittoria, birch syrup from Thunder Bay, and saskatoon berry pie from Stratford.

Date: Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

Time: 7:30 - 10:00 pm

Location: Stella - 1261 Bloor St W at Lansdowne. This cafe/bar will have light snacks from neighbourhood stores for purchase along with Steamwhistle on tap and other local brews by the bottle.

Cover: This month we're asking for a $5 donation cover; we also have memberships available for $10. As always, Food Forward buttons will be available, and we're also offering free sprouting seeds for anyone interested in growing some greens in their kitchen.

So whether you're planning out your vegetable garden and looking to share growing tips... or you've come up with an idea for making healthy, local food more accessible and would like to brainstorm ways to turn your idea into reality... or you keep hearing stories of farmers having to sell their land to developers because they can no longer sustain their activities and you want to get involved to prevent further farmland loss... then come out and mingle!

If you've never attended Foodie Drinks before and don't know where to start, come find Darcy or me - we'll be wearing funny hats, you won't be able to miss us!

For more information, visit Food Forward's website, and you can RSVP on the Facebook event page.

World Water Day

In honour of World Water Day today, let's watch Annie Leonard's Story of Bottled Water.



Next time you feel tempted to buy a bottle of water, think about the oil and energy that goes into making the plastic bottle, the downcycling that occurs once you toss the bottle into your blue bin, the fact that the water itself isn't from some pristine spring but rather a municipal source - which is already clean enough to drink from and much, much cheaper than the bottled version!

Looking for water-saving tips? Here are 100 ways to conserve. Can you add any more ideas to the list?

Happy Spring

In honour of the first full day of spring, please enjoy these bright and sunny pictures I took on Saturday while planting basil and tomato seeds with Young Urban Farmers CSA.

making teensy holes

We are lucky to have access to some space in a greenhouse on a farm in Mount Albert. It was a strange feeling to walk around in a t-shirt on an otherwise chilly and windy day.

prepping tomato seeds

It's incredible to consider that so much can come from so little: minuscule seeds grow into huge plants that produce lots of food, and all we humans have to do is pull a few weeds and ensure the soil stays moist.

seed surgery

I got to take home a some Globe Basil seeds that had been saved from last year's harvest. I will be starting my windowsill garden soon.

Check out what else is already growing in the greenhouses!

Mark Your Calendars: BIXI Comes to Toronto on May 3rd!

Today I'm very happy to announce that BIXI will be up and running in Toronto in just over a month!

BIXI bikes in Montreal

I first told you about this public bike sharing system - already wildly popular in Montreal, London, Washington DC, Minneapolis, and Melbourne (and coming to Canada's Capital Region this year) - back in September, when BIXI needed 1,000 people to sign up for 12-month memberships by the end of November 2010 in order to ensure the system would be installed this year.

Well, the target was met and exceeded before that deadline, and then we heard nothing from the bike sharing folks over the winter until they recently announced that all is well, and the launch date is May 3rd. There will be 1,000 bikes available to be picked up at 80 BIXI stations. A whopping 1,500 docking points will be spread around Toronto's downtown core, making virtually any short ride in the area (Spadina Ave to Jarvis St, from Bloor St down to the lake) very convenient.

Once the network is set up, I'll be taking some pictures and posting them here. Meanwhile, if you'd like more information, check out my blog post, the main BIXI website, Toronto's BIXI site, and the press release.


Photo credit.