Celebrating food, farms & gardens

Nutrition Month may be officially over but I forgot (!) to publish this post last week, so here it is now, a little late but still timely.

That all people in the community, at all times, have access to nutritious, safe, personally acceptable and culturally appropriate foods, produced in ways that are environmentally sound and socially just.

Richmond Food Security Society's Mandate

To help my knowledge keep pace with my passion for food security & environmental sustainability, on March 12th I attended the Richmond Food Security Society's Conference where I listened to stories that inspired and informed me.

After the sessions, I did some research to learn more about the speakers & their projects. If you're interested in food security and sustainability issues or setting up a healthy school lunch program or school garden project, I encourage you to check out the following resources:

Food For All – Making Food Security more Inclusive (Jelica Shaw, Claudia Li, Cease Wysse)

Oskayak Garden Project

Shark Truth

Farm 2 School & Food Gardens: How to advocate for healthy food in our schools (Joanne Bays & Michael Wolfe)

Farm to School

Food Gardens in Richmond - School Year Garden Toolkit

"Nurturing & Supporting Food Insecure Clients"

A new Dietitians of Canada resource on working with low income clients:

Guidance for Dietitians: Nurturing & Supporting Food Insecure Clients (PDF)

(Please note: This document is copyright 2009 Dietitians of Canada but may be reproduced in its entirety provided source is acknowledged.)

Three other key resources I've recently added to my collection of evidence & expert opinion on food security are:

Community Food Security – Position of Dietitians of Canada

•   Complete position statement (PDF)

Individual and Household Food Insecurity in Canada: Position of Dietitians of Canada

•   Complete position statement (PDF)

Food Insecurity in Canada - from the Canadian Journal of Public Health. (Found via Gerry's List, an email distribution list that reaches 900 registered dietitians, students and interns across BC and beyond.)

Diet for a hungry planet

Image credit: Rice by Andrew Butko

I know I've "borrowed" the title of this post* -- I just can't recall from whom or from where. But I'm writing this on this fly because in less than 60 minutes Frances Moore Lappé  will be the guest on CBC Radio's Sunday Edition and I wanted to give you advance notice. And now I realize that it's probably after-the-fact for listeners east of the Rockies. Well, not to despair, we should be able to download it as a podcast tomorrow. I will post a link as soon as it's up.

In the meantime, if you missed the interview you can visit the Small Planet Institute and Anna Lappé's new site and blog.

I also found some podcasts by the Lappés on iTunes University.  I've downloaded them but haven't listened to them yet:

• Eat Grub! Putting Justice on Your Plate   Anna Lappé    Nicholas Talks (Duke University)
• Simply Delicious    Frances Moore Lappé, Alice Waters    The Aurora Forum at Stanford University   (Stanford->Arts&Humanties->Culture)
• Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear    Frances Moore Lappé    The Aurora Forum at Stanford University  
  

Unfortunately I can't insert links to the podcasts, but you can find them with a few clicks:

(1) Go the iTunes store and simply enter "lappe" into the Search field (Anna and Frances are artists 147, 148 & 149); or
(2) Go to iTunes U. Select Duke University , then select  Nicholas School of Environmental Science and the Nicholas Talks; Anna is artist 8.
(3) Select Stanford University and then from the offerings on the next page, select Aurora Forum. Browse the listings to find  Frances' talks (11,36).

Addendum: I found the inspiration for this post's title: (1) a series on CBC' Radio's The Current and (2) Peter Menzel's book. Earlier this year I heard a few portions of the broadcast and viewed a few of the book's pages on a blog. Time now for a closer look and listen.

Must-reads of 2007: The Cost of Eating in BC

During this week between Christmas and New Year's Day, many writers publish their annual "best of" or "year in review" lists for books, films and assorted topics. I thought I'd do the same for nutrition resources.

First is what I consider a must-read for dietitians practicing in British Columbia:

The Cost of Eating in BC 2007

Because I work in an environment (acute care hospital) where, no matter their financial resources, patients are fed (assuming they have an appropriate and timely physician's diet order), usually I don't have food security issues at the top of my mind.  This is one reason I put off reading the article immediately. The second is I thought it would be a long and dry technical document that would require an hour or more to read and digest. Not true as I discovered yesterday when I finally downloaded and read it. The report is extremely well-written, a model, I think, for communicating facts and stats in a readable format. If I limit myself to three adjectives to describe it, I would choose: concise, compelling and disturbing. 

I felt overwhelmed after I read the report. Where to begin? Well, whether as dietitians or concerned citizens, we may want to start with one of the actions listed on page 9. Here's one to consider: become informed by joining a community food coalition and learning more about food initiatives where you live.

More "must-read" and "best of" posts to come before the end of the year. I'm hoping to do some marathon blogging this weekend to make up for my Holiday hiatus.

World Food Day 2007: The Right to Food

Note to readers:  I often think I should subtitle many of my posts "explorations and confessions of a novice" because absolute beginner is my competence rating for many topics that I'm interested in, if not enthusiastic or passionate about.  The following post is a perfect example of an issue about which I am consciously ignorant , but would like to understand and act upon.

If you are a Dietitians of Canada (DC) member, you probably received an email earlier this week with a news release  about World Food Day, which was October 16th. 

I admit until this past year I hadn't given World Food Day much more than a passing thought.  As a *clinical* dietitian working in an acute care hospital, I  felt the annual observance highlighted important issues but didn't have direct relevance to my practice.  After all, I'm  occupied with nutrition support, dietetic intern education and patient food service issues as opposed to population or global hunger problems.  But Dr. Elaine Power's statement in the DC news release reminded me:

“Registered dietitians have a role to advocate for social policies that address disparities and inequalities affecting the health of Canadian families.”

The personal message I take from this: think beyond the hospital walls.  And I really don't have to expand my world-view very far.  Extending my thoughts just a few blocks northeast from where I am sitting and typing brings me to a neighbourhood of extreme poverty and food insecurity, Vancouver's DTES, which  you may have heard described as the "poorest postal code in Canada."

This month,  as I work through the Continuing Competence Program (a requirement of my College),  I've decided to include in my Professional Development Plan learning about global food security issues, including defining my role as an advocate for social change.  Here are are the first learning resources I will be consulting:

DC's position papers

Community Food Security 
Individual and Household Food Insecurity in Canada  & Executive Summary

Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations

World Food Day 2007
The Right to Food Virtual Library