Category:

Food & Health

Urban agriculture becoming the new trend to fight food insecurity in Toronto

by Rachel Parent November 29, 2021

written by Rachel Parent

Plants growing on roofs in the city, know as a “green roof.” Photo courtesy of Unsplash

A city is an unsuspecting place to grow food, but now more than ever, people are turning to concrete jungles like Toronto to create food hubs.

Food insecurity has become more apparent in Toronto.

According to Food Banks Canada, some of the largest food banks they run in cities such as Toronto saw their usage double during the pandemic, while Ontario saw a 23 per cent increase.

While food is becoming less affordable for many, the opportunity to grow food and create more localized systems is growing rapidly.

This is due to the infrastructure that supports more community gardens and opportunities for green spaces.

Currently, Toronto has over 70 ongoing community gardens, where people can volunteer, grow food and donate to those who need it.

One of the most successful efforts to increase green spaces came from the Green Roof Bylaw.

This bylaw, adopted in 2009, requires any new building in Toronto with a floor area larger than 2,000 square metres to have green space on up to 60 per cent of the roof surface.

While the majority of these rooftops are not being used to grow food, there are clear examples of how this model could work on a greater scale.

The Ryerson Urban Farm, for instance, sits four storeys up on the corner of Church and Gould streets, amongst the traffic and noise of Toronto.

Walking by, it’s not obvious that a farm is in the vicinity, but above eye level is a quarter-acre plot that is packed with varieties of plants, herbs and vegetables in the warmer months.

On average, the small space grows up to 4,535 kilograms of food, herbs and Indigenous plant species a year.

With so many unused green roofs across the city, the potential to use the model of the Ryerson Urban Farm could create a significant amount of food through the summer months on a local level.

Localizing food systems is important for a variety of reasons.

Transportation needed to ship food creates excess carbon emissions and relying on imports exposes vulnerabilities in supply chains.

Cindy Pham, the engagement coordinator for the Ryerson Urban Farm says that growing food is an empowering experience for people and helps to increase the connection to where food comes from.

“The farm is a place for people to gather together around food and to connect with each other and to network with each other,” said Pham. “It’s definitely a space for people to have that and be able to grow with one another and learn with one another too.”

While she says urban farming is important, it does have its limitations.

“I don’t think that it’s the one thing that will solve food insecurity, because there’s so many other factors that come into play,” said Pham. “There needs to be access equitably for people to have true food security. But I think that it’s a stepping stone. It’s definitely a way to show people that it’s possible in cities to grow food and it’s possible that we don’t need to necessarily import everything that we have.”

While urban farming may not solve the problem of food insecurity on its own, many advocates around Toronto support more projects and expanded opportunities for spaces like these.

Ran Goel, the founder of Fresh City Farms is trying to bring awareness to the current issues in the food system and create new opportunities for improving localization through his business, an urban farm and grocery store chain.

“At its core, we’re trying to be an independent source of seasonal, sustainable and organic, fresh fruit,” Goel said. ”We’re really just trying to push the ball forward on creating an alternative food system if you will, for people to be able to have access to, I think, a better kind of food.”

Goel says urban farming comes with a host of environmental and social benefits, including the creation of new communities.

“That’s where in my mind, urban farming has the most potential. It’s really to bind very spirited and very passionate people together around food and advocate for change,” he said.

“Throughout the pandemic, the amount of Canadians taking up gardening skyrocketed.”

In October 2020, the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University released a report on home gardening.

They found that one in five Canadians started to garden in 2020 and “two-thirds of them were significantly influenced by COVID-19.”

Fifty-one per cent of respondents grow at least one variety of fruit or vegetable.

This trend is growing and the opportunity to create more urban farms and farming communities comes from the ability to access land or rooftops.

Jamie Day Fleck, an urban farm advocate whose upcoming film, In My Backyard covers urban agriculture, says the city’s focus has been primarily on development and she wants to see that be leveraged to take advantage of opportunities like the Green Roof Bylaw to grow food.

“I think it’s this kind of thing that we need to start looking at in the city,” Fleck said. “How are the spaces used? Who benefits from these spaces? And how can we make it greener and more just for everyone?”

November 29, 2021

Code Red Community News COVID-19 Food Food & Health Health News Ryerson News Top Top stories

Climate change is affecting how students eat

by Rachel Parent October 27, 2021

written by Rachel Parent

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a larger debate around food consumption habits amongst university students. (callum shaw/ Unsplash).

Food is one of the factors that connects us all. But what if the way we eat is actually contributing to one of the greatest environmental crises of our time?

With an appetite for change, many Torontonians are trying to address this problem, starting with what is on their plates.

The concept of “eating for the planet” has become a common sentiment amongst younger generations and is one of the most popular reasons why so many have made the switch to plant-based alternatives and veganism.

A 2018 Statista poll indicates that there are over 850,000 vegans and roughly 2.3 million vegetarians in Canada. Together, that is roughly nine per cent of the Canadian population and more than half of those are under the age of 35.

Graphic by Claudia Latino/ On The Record.

Unlike other diets, removing meat is only one part of the equation. Veganism is a complete exclusion of all animal-derived products, including dairy, eggs and even honey — staples in many households that aren’t generally given a second thought. So why go to such an extreme? And why is this movement growing so quickly amongst young people in Toronto?

The food footprint

With climate change becoming more concerning around the world, the carbon and other environmental impacts of meat consumption have become too great for some to ignore.

These concerns are not without reason. According to a study by the University of Manitoba, it takes approximately 1,590 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef (or about 7,228 litres of water to produce .454 kilos of beef). And it doesn’t end there. Pollution, antibiotic runoff, water use and contamination — and notably, carbon emissions — are all side effects of the current industrial factory farming complex.

A report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says, “The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 [carbon dioxide] equivalent. This is a higher share than transport.”

The livestock sector has greater greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than all planes, trains, cars and ships combined.

So how much does farming contribute to Canada’s net carbon emissions? The Government of Canada says that farming livestock and crops contributes to at least 10 per cent of Canada’s GHG emissions and this figure doesn’t include emissions from fossil fuels or fertilizer used in production. This could put the carbon number significantly higher.

A study by New York University and Johns Hopkins University points to the inefficiency of modelling used by the Canadian government to predict carbon outputs from farming. The report showed that the actual carbon output of farming could be anywhere from 30 per cent to 90 per cent higher than what is reported.

Aliénor Rougeot, the lead organizer of the youth climate group, Fridays for Future Toronto, and a vegan herself, says young people are taking up veganism because they worry that their futures are at risk if carbon emissions aren’t drastically cut down.

“It’s not an interest — it’s a growing fear of devastation of the environment,” said Rougeot. “There is a growing understanding that we can’t live the life that we live right now and do well and sustainably in the future.”

Environmentally, many feel they simply have no choice when it comes to going plant-based.

“I thought that it’s about me, but also about people in the Global South and people in other nations — nations that will be really facing a lot of natural disasters because of our choices here,” said David Mejia Monico, a vegan and recent Ryerson University graduate. “I thought that the fact that I knew about the choice and that it would make a difference, it was kind of like a moral imperative for me to make it.”

As some find out about the impacts of agriculture, guilt over animal rights and the climate are motivating forces to change diets and lower carbon footprints. Asha Swann, a third-year Ryerson journalism student, says it isn’t just about guilt, it’s knowing the power of consumer choices.

“I did feel guilty because I think as consumers, we have a lot of power to say, ‘I’m going to put my dollars towards this industry that can be exploitative and abusive or I can just not,’” Swann said. “So I found that for me, when I was feeling guilty about doing something like that, it’s easiest to just not make those kinds of purchases.”

Swann also elaborated on what she believes is leading the diet change in Toronto. “I think consumers are more caring. They want to know where their dollars are going. They don’t want to be blindly supporting things that don’t have the ethics to match.”

Plant-based: a solution or a false promise?

Many studies point to plant-based eating habits having positive impacts on environmental health and carbon emissions.

An analysis by the research journal Science pointed to the fact that meat and dairy only provide 18 per cent of calories and 37 per cent of protein consumed, while using 83 per cent of farmland and creating 60 per cent of agricultural GHG emissions. The report also says that a switch from the typical Americanized diet to a vegan diet could help the average person reduce their food carbon footprint by up to 73 per cent. Global farmland use could also be significantly reduced with the potential to feed more people. Even a small reduction in meat consumption could reduce overall GHG and methane release.

But is this the solution to solve the climate crisis?

Rougeot says veganism on its own ultimately will not fix climate change, but it does help reduce carbon emissions overall. She’s excited that it’s becoming more mainstream and available to more people, but also warns that not all food in a vegan diet is necessarily environmentally friendly.

“I think the choices are becoming more mainstream,” Rougeot said. “Although with that, sometimes it’s taking away from some of the benefits that I see in a vegan diet. So sometimes it’s mainstream, but it’s so processed and full of GMOs [genetically modified organisms], pesticides and things like that, that it’s not much better.”

Rougeot says that while a vegan diet may not solve climate change on its own, it is a feasible option to reduce our carbon footprints, something we should all be trying to do.
“I couldn’t ever say veganism will solve climate change, but I can say a change in diet and a change in our agriculture industry can definitely be a part of the solution.”

October 27, 2021

Features Food & Health Health Pandemic Tales Students

The therapeutic space

by Georgia Mills April 23, 2021

written by Georgia Mills

How young people are navigating therapy to help themselves – and their relationships

Catherine Abes, 23, sets her laptop on her bed, facing the wall. It’s time for her online therapy session and she doesn’t want her therapist to see the mess in her room. During the session, she hears a baby cooing in the background from her therapist’s mic. At times, Abes looks at the wall, avoiding eye contact. An hour later, at 5 p.m., she closes her laptop and rests for an hour processing her thoughts after the counselling session.

As the editor-in-chief at The Eyeopener, Abes was encouraged to seek therapy by her roommate, in order to support her own mental health and the well-being of her staff. “How are you going to look after other people if you’re not looking after yourself?” her roommate asked. “You need to have your own space to offload all of that stuff.”

In a therapeutic relationship, you aren’t expected to share the conversation equally; you have full permission to speak, to unload, to unpack your emotional worries.

Abes is one of a growing number of young people navigating therapy during a pandemic. The last year has shone a spotlight on the complexities of mental health issues, particularly for young people, whose mental health has taken the most significant toll due to the pandemic, according to Statistics Canada.

It’s important to seek support for your mental health from a trained professional who “knows how to listen to you, and knows how to pull certain things out,” Abes says. “If you go to your friends or family, it’s hard for people to not be like – well, when this happened to me… Your therapist won’t do that to you.”

But this doesn’t mean it’s self-serving — by helping yourself, you’re helping others — your friends, your family, your colleagues. While therapy isn’t taking place in person during the pandemic, it’s still intimate — and effective.

According to Abes, it’s unfair that therapy is so beneficial, yet difficult to obtain for many people. If you have the privilege of accessing therapy, it can be on a computer screen in your apartment, over the phone on a walk in your neighbourhood. Or what Abes calls a place in between — observing that she and her therapist create a third space together where the mess of her room disappears and the world falls away. This allows her to focus on the session, where she learns about why she is the way that she is, and through understanding herself, she works toward solutions to feel better.

Stefanie Rico, a Toronto-based registered psychotherapist and social worker, says that the therapeutic process is collaborative. “Asking the client, ‘Is there anything that worked really well for you this session?’ ‘Is there anything that didn’t?’ ‘Did you really hate that mindful exercise?’ That’s OK!” she says with a laugh.

There’s a level of professionalism that therapists have to retain in session, responding appropriately to best serve the client. But therapists are human, and often see a therapist of their own.

“To be a good therapist, you need to be a good patient,” says Milly Feliz, a Toronto-based registered psychotherapist. Therapists witness clients sharing deep trauma and pain — Feliz describes the effects of supporting this, day in, day out, as compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma, causing stress that requires another professional’s perspective.

There’s a misconception that therapists are a blank slate, devoid of emotion, Rico says. While that’s not true, when therapists do express emotion in session, it can be for the client’s benefit.

“You’re telling me something sad, so maybe my face is sad — what does it feel like, to have that reflected back at you? When perhaps you shared something sad with someone else, and their face was not mirroring that,” she says.

When a client has a breakthrough, it’s not always necessary for a therapist to contain their joy.

“It just really lights me up,” Rico says, beaming over Zoom. “A lot of times I hear, ‘I’ve never told anyone this before,’ and wow. Thank you for trusting me. I could tear up right now, thinking about all of the wonderful breakthroughs.”

Breakthroughs, however, might not feel joyous in the moment.

Valentina Gastaldo, a fourth-year media production student at Ryerson University, has worked with the same therapist for four years. When she was 10, her father immigrated to Ontario from Brazil, and in 2016 she started university in Toronto. She sought out a therapist to cope with depression.

In therapy, Gastaldo says she had to explore a tangle of losses: Leaving her country and mother, moving to a new country, having to redo high school in Canada for a year and a half, difficult family dynamics — the process of working through these changes wasn’t easy.

During a session before the pandemic, her therapist hit a nerve by posing a question. “I started getting very angry at her — I started saying so many mean things,” she said. “She looked at me, and she was like — ‘you’re getting angry at me, but know that you don’t have to stay here, you can leave anytime you want.’”

She left the session early, but she returned the following week. For her, this was a lesson that therapy is a safe space she can always come back to.

“When you go to therapy, you are investing in yourself, but you’re also investing in learning how to have a healthy relationship with someone who can hear you and trust you,” Gastaldo says. Therapy, she says, is a model for the other relationships in her life.

There are times when progress can be difficult to measure in therapy. Some therapists set specific goals with their clients and some assign homework, but there’s no clear finish line. Even with regular sessions, therapy isn’t a magic fix — it’s a practice.

“I don’t actually really know if anybody has their shit together, but some people have really good therapists, and that’s a good start,” Abes says.

April 23, 2021

workers wear masks and make food in a kitchen

Accessibility Arts & Life Community News Entrepreneurship Features Food Food & Health Health Local News News Off Campus Stability Top stories

Toronto kitchen provides fresh meals for homeless in the city

by Rhea Singh April 22, 2021

written by Rhea Singh

Unity Kitchens has created a safe community for those facing homelessness and food insecurity

With its walls of pale yellow bricks standing in stark contrast next to the metallic walls of the Eaton Centre, there is a place much warmer, safer and welcoming for those experiencing homelessness and food insecurity in the city of Toronto.

This is where Unity Kitchen was born, a community service kitchen located in The Church of Holy Trinity (TCHT) which provides those who are facing homelessness in Toronto with fresh food and resources such as tents, jackets and sleeping bags. The kitchen operates out of the Trinity Square Cafe located within the church.

Every morning, the smell of sage from the morning meeting and fresh ingredients engulf the church. By 10 a.m., head chef Tara Currie is here. She washes her hands, heats up the food for the morning service, and at 11 a.m., food service begins.

“We’re always busy here,” said Currie. “Sometimes we have 100 people, or more than 100, but usually it’s just 100 or under.”

In March 2020, the church began offering sandwiches and soups to those living in encampments around the church, as well as those living unhoused in Toronto’s downtown eastern core. The pandemic created food insecurity for those facing homelessness as a result of food programs around the city closing, which led to a higher demand for the kitchen’s services.

According to research, conducted by the University of Toronto, one in eight households faced food insecurity prior to the pandemic. Since the pandemic began, there has been a jump to over 600,000 residents in the city facing food insecurity, according to Toronto Foundation. However, for those facing homelessness, rates of food insecurity were much higher, with a 200 per cent increase in people connecting with food banks since the pandemic started.

Unity Kitchen — much like the church itself — exudes a type of familial warmth, with the aromatic smell of freshly cooked meals, shared conversations amongst staff and volunteers, and the comfort of a safe space.

With the help of Trinity St. Paul’s Church, St. Matthews Church, the Korean Catholic Church, Indigneous community groups, ex-prisoners and the Toronto Jummah Prayer Hall — to name a few — Unity Kitchen began to expand. The program is a partnership between the Church of Holy Trinity and Toronto Urban Native Ministry who provide financial support, guidance, leadership and outreach work. Other outreach groups such as Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction, the Indigenous Support Project at the University of Toronto, Equitable Action for Change and Trans Pride Toronto also provide support to the church.

Currie initially began volunteering at Unity Kitchen before being offered her position of head chef. Prior to taking the job in THTC, she had been part of a culinary program at Christie Pitts that closed due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Currie explained that with most soup kitchens, frozen or donated foods are normally served but those also aren’t the best quality, with the lack of freshness. By providing fresh food, the kitchen destigmatized the negative narrative around homelessness and humanizes people that need care the most.

“People have said in the lineup that coming here and getting food from us is one of the only times that they feel validated as a human,” said Currie.

Currie recalls an instance where her cheese tomato and egg sandwich became the favorite of a regular, a sandwich that she had grown up eating. Another regular expressed how much it reminded them of growing up and what he used to eat.

Sinclair Bletcher-Lowman, who is an emergency community support fund project facilitator at Unity Kitchen, shares the same feeling of wanting to create a validating space.

“Here, we try to really create a space where anybody from anywhere [can]…feel affirmed in themselves,” said Bletcher-Lowman. “It’s really about expanding what we understand ‘community’ to be and who is included in a community.”

Their journey with Unity Kitchen began 10 months ago, when the church began its emergency food outreach service. During the beginning, Bletcher-Lowman would prepare large batches of soup each week alongside their mother at their childhood home for the church. Overtime, Bletcher-Lowman found themselves spending more time at Unity Kitchen, from volunteering to do food distribution services and more recently becoming the emergency community support fund project facilitator in January.

Now, Unity Kitchen serves one meal during the day, which includes a hot fresh meal and drinks, clothing and resources for shelter, and basic necessities.

“Collectively we realized that this was going to be a long-term situation of our organization…this need is present and appears to be growing,” said Bletcher-Lowman

The City of Toronto implemented a COVID-19 response plan for those experiencing homelessness in the city, which included prevention, mitigation and recovery. However, since its inception on April 16 2020, the city has seen a major increase in displacement and homelessness. The Canadian Medical Association Journal detailed that homeless individuals were five times more likely to contract and die from COVID-19, and most recently an outbreak occurred at Maxwell Meighen Centre that included cases of a variant virus.

Outbreaks in shelters have been reported at an alarming rate more recently with the introduction of the UK variant in Ontario. Since the start of the year, the city has seen over 274 cases, and a total of 1,118 positive cases linked to shelter outbreaks. For many, encampments are much safer and accessible.

“The city and the federal government were relying on this network of small organizations to shuffle people from place to place, from meal to meal,” said Zachary Grant, community director at TCHT. “When all of the networks shutdown, it really revealed how dismal our care for the community was.”

Grant detailed that during the pandemic, they had been told that formal agencies that provide resources were closed, revealing an absence of good policy for the most oppressed in Toronto’s community. “Before COVID-19 happened, we were already in a crisis of houslessness of a growing scarcity of public space and social policy that was being dictated by developers.”

When Grant first began working with the church, they noticed that there was an ongoing battle between those who were facing homelessness and what they called the developer class; those who were working on initiatives of policing public spaces and using it for private purposes.

“Yonge and Dundas Square would be one of them, where it was initiated as a public gathering place,” said Grant. “Now, it’s under public-private partnership…private security firms that govern the territory there are able to dictate who can and cannot be there, this is a phenomenon that’s happening across the City of Toronto.”

These actions are also seen in public spaces. Over the past year, through the increase of encampments across the city, we have seen the city use force to remove tents and resources from public parks. On Dec. 9 2020, two white trucks removed a tiny house shelter near Lake Shore Boulevard and Carlaw Avenue. More recently, the city removed multiple tiny shelters from Alexandra Park in February, this was just after the city filed an injunction against Kahleel Seivwright, carpenter and creator of the tiny shelters.

Recently, city officials have given encampment residence eviction notices to relocate to shelters through the Pathway Inside Program, which include shelters located in Novotel. This is currently only accessible to those in the four major encampments in the city: Alexandra Park, Moss Park, Lamport Stadium and Trinity-Bellwoods.

However, with the cities lack of action Unity Kitchen and other folks have taken matters into their own hands. Grant remembers people who have impacted their community, such as a young woman who wanted to be a nurse, helping those with stab or gunshot wounds and going around the city helping those who need medical assistance. They also remember an Indigenous elder who started a project called Native Wishing Well, where he and a few other people would hold onto tents, sleeping bags and other supplies for people coming to Trinity Square at night and in moments of crisis.

“I don’t know if there is a magnetic draw, but if you’re in a crisis… the city seemed to funnel you here, and they were ready for it.” said Grant. “When they came across someone in crisis they would work together to meet that person’s primary needs, get them stabilized and then work to find what the next thing was for their well-being.”

Grant said that they learn a lot from these folks, and that it’s inspiring to see unhoused people coming to help and volunteer as much as they can.

“Those folks who our society has written off and said ‘they don’t even deserve housing’ are really showing us and leading us each day in the ways that we should be in our heart…with one another,” said Grant. “(They’re) showing us that there’s no barriers to being a positive force in our communities.”

April 22, 2021

Entrepreneurship Food Food & Health Pandemic Tales

Hungry for change: The story of Alec Thomas

by William Dixon April 20, 2021

written by William Dixon

Chef navigates COVID-19’s disruption of the restaurant industry with street smarts

It’s New Year’s Eve 2020 and two small children play around an old, black, wooden dining table as their family look at old photo albums. Traditional Russian songs play softly in the background, as they reminisce and talk about how the children have grown since they were all together last.

Down a long hallway and into the kitchen, a 25-year-old, laser-focused chef named Alec Thomas puts the final touches on the signature dish of the night — duck à l’orange. Hours of preparation have boiled down to mere minutes. Execution and timing are everything. First, he gently ladles the creamy mascarpone risotto. Then, he fans out the sliced duck breast, cooked to perfection with golden, crisp skin. Next comes the fragrant à l’orange sauce, dashed generously over the duck. Lastly, he garnishes the outside of the plates with candied apricots.

The dining room in customer Tony Tikhomirov’s Toronto-area home falls silent as chef Thomas enters with dinner, a trail of steam and the sweet smell of citrus following him into the room. Murmured “oohs” and “aahs” build as he places a plate in front of each guest.

Thomas says, “ladies and gentlemen, enjoy!”

Now 26, Thomas has combined survival instinct with street smarts and business savvy to navigate the COVID-19 wreckage of Toronto’s restaurant industry. After they were both laid off from their restaurant jobs due to the pandemic, Thomas and his coworker-turned-business-partner Arya Hamedani launched a gourmet, home-catering business called Arya Hungry?

Thomas, a serial adapter, has seemingly found opportunity in the pandemic.

Last summer and fall, before winter lockdown, Arya Hungry?’s services were booked solid every weekend. They got great feedback from clients, and word spread — they’ve amassed more than 4,000 followers on Instagram at the time of press. The chefs’ abilities to quickly adapt allowed them to survive, which is increasingly rare in the struggling food industry. The Fifteen Group, a hospitality consulting agency, conducted a Canada-wide survey of its clients in December 2020. The outlook was bleak. The survey found that 98 per cent of the company’s clients have had their revenues negatively impacted since the start of the pandemic, with three-quarters of those reporting a decline in revenue of more than 50 per cent. Half of those surveyed were unsure they would survive the winter, and 93 per cent of restaurants laid off or terminated employees.

With many local food businesses closing, Thomas and Hamedani saw an opening. People still wanted to eat great food, they realized, but didn’t want to cook it themselves.

What sets Arya Hungry? apart from other restaurants and catering businesses isn’t just the high-quality dishes they cook, but the care they show their clients and time they spend on the experience, says Hamedani.

“When a client sets up an event with us, they are speaking with the two chefs that will be cooking in their home,” says Hamedani, “and I think that really means something to people.”

Tikhomirov, the CEO and founder of a digital marketing agency, says the food Thomas created on New Year’s Eve was beyond any of his expectations. “He transported us back to our times in France, to a place we loved and to the cafés we used to go before the pandemic,” he says. “It was like a small miracle.”

Thomas’s success is a far cry from his turbulent beginnings. After ongoing conflict with his father led to his banishment from the family home at age 17, he scrounged enough money to rent a tiny bedroom in a shared house in Bolton, Ont. It felt just a few square feet larger than a prison cell. Then, he burned through his money — buying weed, booze and cocaine — until he only had only $6 to his name. Thomas says will always remember the number six. He was verging on homelessness, had nowhere to go and no one to turn to.

He called up three different dealers who each spotted him half a pound of weed. In the span of roughly two weeks, Thomas had sold it, repaid his loans and delivered his rent. He soon had enough money to rent an apartment in downtown Toronto. Then, after roughly three years in the city, the course of his life changed in a few days. In April 2017, he got a job at Scaddabush, an Italian restaurant chain, at Front Street West and Simcoe Street. Within 48 hours, he was also accepted into culinary school at George Brown College and completed a one-year program.

Thomas’s longtime friend Justin Bailey, who’s also an employee at Arya Hungry?, watched his transformation: “It was like a switch just flipped.” He says Thomas went from “cutting up coke in our washroom,” to cooking up carbonara in the kitchen.

The late nights in clubs turned to late nights at the dish pit or at the sauté station, where Thomas worked closing shifts ending anywhere from 2:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. Once he got back from the restaurant, Thomas continued honing his culinary skills. He worked on school assignments or pulled a random cookbook from a pile beside his stove to try a new recipe. Around 6 a.m. he would pass out wherever his beat-up office was — either in his bedroom or in the living room. Thomas usually slept in his chef’s whites so at 7 a.m., he could wake up, go to class, and repeat it all again the next day. He also stopped using or selling drugs.

His rediscovered passion for food drove the frenzy. He’d always loved cooking; his fondest childhood memories are kitchen moments. On Christmas Day his entire Italian family would go to his grandparents’ house in Mississauga, Ont. There was an unwritten rule that his mother, aunt and nonna were the only ones allowed to cook, but they had to shoo him from the kitchen almost every other minute because he wanted to join. As he got older, however, his mother began sharing her cooking secrets. By age 10, he could make a béchamel sauce, a cheese sauce, and eggplant parmigiana.

If Thomas’s long, winding road from being that little kid in the kitchen to catering sophisticated events proved anything, it was that he could adapt. And that became important yet again this winter, when COVID-19 caused more disruption.

January’s stay-at-home order and evolving circumstances during the pandemic forced Thomas and Hamedani to adapt yet again. Arya Hungry? was put on the back burner, amidst rising case numbers and escalating provincial restrictions. And so, the duo pivoted again. Their next venture, ChickMagnet, is a fried chicken sandwich shop on Queen Street West, operating out of the Beverley Hotel. They have been consistently selling out since opening day on Feb. 2, 2021.

While Arya Hungry? and ChickMagnet have been Hamedani’s concepts, Thomas is also working on his own brand: Covassi and Co., named for his maternal grandparents’ last name. The plan within the next five years is to open a café of the same name, with farm-to-table, northern-Italian-inspired cuisine.

Much like the days when he was sharpening his culinary skills at Scaddabush and in school, Thomas is still up until all hours creating recipes, developing menus and refining his palate.

“I have an opportunity to seize my dream and make it a reality,” says Thomas, “and I am not going to miss my chance.”

April 20, 2021

Accessibility Arts & Life Education Food Food & Health Health Students Top Top stories

Ryerson students trying diet trends to improve health

by Jonathan Bradley April 20, 2021

written by Jonathan Bradley

These diet trends involve unconventional eating habits, but they have provided students with some results

A person’s hand wrapped around a tape measure (Jennifer Burk/Unsplash)

Ryerson University students are embracing diet trends to see if they affect their health, but following through with them for a prolonged period of time has been tricky.

Certain diet trends have been gaining popularity over the past few years. There have been documented benefits to these diets, but they might not be ideal for all people.

Keyaan Nejad, a fourth-year politics and governance student at Ryerson, went on the carnivore diet in March 2020. Nejad has been interested in how his body reacts to different foods.

“I heard of the carnivore diet shortly after I ran into a plateau in the gym and found it was becoming increasingly more difficult to tone up my body,” said Nejad. “I was also having trouble sleeping and waking up and felt my mental state was foggier than usual.”

The carnivore diet consists of people eating meat, fish, eggs, and select dairy products. People on the carnivore diet cannot eat fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts.

It stems from the belief that the diets of ancient people were meat and fish, and high-carb diets have led to chronic health problems.

Shawn Baker, the CEO at MeatRX, has been the most vocal proponent of the carnivore diet. Baker has reported people who go on the carnivore diet have seen improvements in body composition, strength, performance, and endurance.

Following the carnivore diet can lead to excessive sodium intake, which has been linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure, kidney disease, and other negative health outcomes. Processed meat intake has been linked to higher rates of certain types of cancer, especially colon and rectal.

Nejad says that on his first day on the diet he did not feel different than any other day, but he was craving foods with carbs and sugary snacks. The following week saw him experience a positive difference in his overall mood, increased energy levels, improved sleep, no brain fog, and weight loss.

However, he experienced temporary hair loss. The fluctuation in his body mass index caused physical stress on his hair.

He followed the diet again in December 2020. It produced the same positive effects, but it did not provide him with enough incentive to cancel out every other food.

Tim Yoon, a fourth-year accounting and finance student at Ryerson, went on the keto diet for a few months. Yoon was hoping to lose weight and improve his metabolism.

“Within weight loss, many people find themselves in positions of plateauing,” said Yoon. “Taking the steps into trying other unconventional diets allows for some individuals that extra step they may have needed to obtain their goals.”

The keto diet is based on taking in a low amount of carbs and plenty of fats. This increase in fats puts people’s bodies in a natural metabolic state called ketosis.

The body produces ketones out of fat, using them for energy instead of carbs. The keto diet has been linked to weight loss and reduced risk for various diseases.

People who go on the keto diet can experience low blood pressure, kidney stones, constipation, nutrient deficiencies, and an increased risk of heart disease. The keto diet is strict, which can cause social isolation and disordered eating.

Boxes of red peppers — Box of red peppers

Yoon lost a substantial amount of weight. He attributes this weight loss to him having a lower intake of food rather than from ketosis. But he says that what sucked about this diet was he felt tired more often, especially when he was exercising.

Yoon said while he loved how he lost weight on this diet, he would not try it again because of time and cost.

“I figured that this diet method was not going to sustain me in the long run,” he said.

Nilou Deilami, a registered dietitian, says there is no specific diet students should be on. A healthy eating pattern is one that is nutritious, enjoyable, flexible, and sustainable, she says.

“A healthy diet could look different for everyone,” said Deilami. “The key to healthy eating is to include a wide variety of whole and unprocessed foods in your diet.”

Deilami recommends setting Small, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely (SMART) goals. An example of a SMART goal would be eating one piece of fruit for breakfast every day.

She said setting SMART goals can help people build healthy habits in the long term.

“Following a healthy diet has many benefits, including increased energy levels, potential improvements in academic performance, and the prevention of chronic diseases in the future,” she said.

Nejad said people should be open to diet trends because they can be challenging and give opportunities to test limits.

“I am by no means an expert, just someone who is open to trying new things and love challenging myself,” he said. “Make your own decisions and always do plenty of research.”

April 20, 2021

Arts & Life Audio Food & Health Health Podcasts Prescribing Perspectives Ryersonian Audio Top Top stories

Special to Centre Scope: Racialized Communities Reclaim Spirituality

by Kirti Vyas and Meara Khanna April 14, 2021

written by Kirti Vyas and Meara Khanna

In this submission to Centre Scope, managing editor and reporter Kirti Vyas, and podcast producer Meara Khanna focus on health and wellness. This episode examines the cultural appropriation of different religious and spiritual practices that originated in Indigenous and South Asian cultures, including yoga.

The episode is a supplementary audio component to Vyas’s April 14 article, “Dismantling cultural appropriation within the health and wellness industry.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

April 14, 2021

Arts & Life COVID-19 Food & Health Health Humans of Ryerson Prescribing Perspectives Students The World After COVID-19 Top stories

For some students, marijuana is a useful study and relaxation aid

by Arianna Kyriacou April 13, 2021

written by Arianna Kyriacou

Cannabis users also need to be aware of the risks associated with use

*Names have been changed for privacy reasons

Jill*, a fourth-year creative industries student at Ryerson, finds herself smoking marijuana anywhere between one to eight times a day. She generally smokes small bowls or joints, and typically stays elevated during the day to make activities like cleaning, reading, researching, listening to audio lectures, working out and doing homework more enjoyable.

“I find I’m focused and have been doing great academically this year,” she says, noting that before the pandemic, smoking was strictly reserved for right before bed. “That has since changed,” she said.

According to a study led by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 52 per cent of cannabis users reported having increased their use of marijuana after the pandemic hit. The study also cites that this may be a result of social isolation, boredom, changes in daily routines, or anxiety due to the pandemic.

“When I’m not working, I pretty much smoke from the first couple hours I’m awake,” Michela, a fourth-year psychology student, says. Her anxiety sometimes overwhelms her and she finds that sometimes she becomes too anxious to start an assignment.

“I find that when I smoke, it calms me enough to not be overwhelmed and tackle whatever is on my to-do list,” Michela says, also mentioning that cannabis helps her stay focused on homework, such as class readings.

Cannabis was legalized for recreational use in Canada in October 2018. This law felt taboo at the time to many Canadians, especially those who wondered what effect the law would have on young people, and marijuana’s correlation to addiction and memory loss.

Cannabis is made up of 120 different compounds that have unique effects on the body. Most prominently, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabinol (CBD) each give a different type of high to the user, depending on the percentage within a certain strain.

When testing different THC levels in chronic cannabis users, one study in the Journal of Addiction Medicine found that performance on a task that required sustained attention was found to significantly improve after a high dose of THC.

Tanya, a first-year journalism student, says that if she is especially dreading a particular assignment, she finds that smoking before starting it makes the experience more “fun.”

“There are caveats though,” she says. “Sometimes I know if I get high I’ll just procrastinate more…productivity takes a degree of maturity to know what you can and can’t do while high, and stick to those boundaries.”

A study in the Drug and Alcohol Dependence journal found that students who use marijuana frequently, especially at the beginning of their college careers, are especially at risk for lower academic achievement than non-users, and all marijuana user groups surveyed reported lower GPAs than non-users.

Evidence that frequent use of marijuana and the effects on academic achievement for students have been thoroughly examined, however there have been little to no studies exploring the idea of how marijuana can positively affect concentration among students, besides anecdotally.

Frequent marijuana use, especially strains with high THC levels, is tied to a decline in IQ and lower overall life satisfaction according to a 2012 study. Another study found that persistent use of the drug is linked to reduced grey matter in the brain.

“Study drugs” are not uncommon, especially for post-secondary students. Unprescribed use of Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta and microdoses of LSD are often consumed by students to increase focus while working. According to the Canadian Public Health Association, studies suggest that more than one in 20 North American university students have used study drugs.

While other drugs used for focus are more dangerous and require prescriptions or drug-dealers, marijuana is easily accessible for students over the age of 19, especially with more dispensaries blooming across the GTA than ever before.

Alternatively, Tanya also finds herself smoking before bed as a part of her self-care routine, which includes the meticulous process of rolling a joint and a hot bath, accompanied by reading a book and writing in her journal. “The process of grinding, rolling, burning and the rhythm of the inhale and exhale can be a kind of meditation for me.”

Tanya adds that she appreciates the connection marijuana brings between people, and two people can create a strong bond while sharing a joint together and conversing.

When Sam found himself completing his business degree at Ryerson in the middle of the pandemic, smoking cannabis was a way for him to be social with friends during isolation, as well as a way to relax at night after a long day of school.

“Since the pandemic started, it’s been one of the only pastimes (I have), especially in the winter,” Sam says. He usually smokes at night, grabs some food and plays Fifa online with a friend, or watches a YouTube video.

“I can’t see myself smoking in five years,” he says, “because I look at it as an outlet from school.”

April 13, 2021

a full shelf at a grocery store with food

Accessibility Community News Finance Food Food & Health Health Monumental Challenges Prescribing Perspectives Ryerson News Security Stability Students Top stories

Racialized students face higher risk of food insecurity

by Ammar Karam April 9, 2021

written by Ammar Karam

Lack of access to nutritious foods can lead to deteriorating mental health, and performance

Sam Howden and Ewan Cassidy both laughed and then nodded knowingly when asked if they had ever faced food insecurity.

“I grew up going to soup kitchens as a child and there was a period of my life where I didn’t have a formal home,” said Cassidy, who is of Algonquin heritage and is involved with the Healing Garden at the Ted Rogers School of Management (TRSM). “For me food insecurity was a part of my life but I was fortunate enough to find a job and be able to pay certain necessities, bills and such. One of the things I noticed was that it was really difficult to get good food.”

Food insecurity, as defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. On the Canadian government website, the definition adds the qualifier of “household food insecurity is often linked with the household’s financial ability to access adequate food.”

A 2018 study done by PROOF, an interdisciplinary research initiative based in Toronto, found that one in eight households across Canada suffer from food insecurity — with the highest rates being in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut (23 per cent and 57 per cent respectively).

Multiple studies, from the University of Manitoba to Food Secure Canada, indicated that student populations are one of the highest risk population groups suffering from food insecurity, with rates up to 30 to 40 per cent. According to a report from the Good Food Centre, over 2,500 Ryerson students accessed emergency food relief in the 2013-2014 academic year.

Rates of food insecurity are even higher amongst Indigenous and racialized groups of students, due to structural issues surrounding their communities’ financial status and access to diverse cultural foods. Black communities were 3.5 times more likely to experience food insecurity, and rates amongst Indigenous populations are reported as high as 50 per cent.

“Our traditional foodways taken away from us through not being able to hunt, not being able to fish, not being able to grow and gather based on the fact that we were put back onto reserves in particular areas,” said Howden, the first Indigenous Field Assistant at the Ryerson Urban Farm, which operates rooftop growing spaces on campus. “In the Indian Act, there were things we could not engage in and not make money off of, so even if we had the knowledge of how to skin, and to use every part of the animal and do that to support community members, it had to happen within certain boundaries.”

This lack of access to good nutritious food can have negative effects on mental health and make it difficult for students to study and maintain good grades. Debbie Field, the co-ordinator for the Coalition of Healthy School Food and collaborator with Ryerson’s Centre for Food Security, said she hopes COVID-19 would begin to set a more robust meal plan on campus.

a woman holds a green box filled to the brim with vegetables and other produce — Debbie Field, co-ordinator of the Coalition of Healthy School Food said the food Ryerson offers students is too expensive and not healthy enough. (Laura Berman)

“Do we make it easy for students of all income levels to buy healthy food? To access healthy food during their school day at Ryerson?” she said. “I don’t think we do. I think the food is too expensive and it’s not healthy enough and it’s some private sector component of the operation rather than a component of education.”

Food deserts are places where there is a lack of access to healthy food. In Toronto, according to a 2015 report, 31,000 households in the city’s lowest income areas were over one kilometre walking distance from a supermarket. Additionally, 9,000 of those households were one kilometre or more from any kind of food outlet.

By contrast, a food swamp — a contested term — is a place where there is an overabundance of less healthy food options. Ryerson campus is more of a food swamp, according to dietician Leigh Merotto.

Merotto, a former nutrition student at Ryerson also previously worked at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). She explained the link between mental health and nutrition in her blog, saying it is something that often gets missed when discussing food insecurity.

Not only is the act of being food insecure mentally draining and psychologically scarring in some cases, but the food that an individual receives as a result can also further exacerbate their mental health problems. A study done in 2017 showed a correlation between the two but not enough evidence was found to pinpoint food insecurity as a cause.

Food banks are not an effective long-term solution for food insecurity, considering that one of the causes of food insecurity is financial instability.

One of the ways that community organizers are combating food insecurity, particularly on campus, is through food sovereignty initiatives. Food sovereignty is when the people who produce the food also control the mechanisms of its distribution. The Ryerson Centre for Food Security has teamed up with Afri-Can Foodbasket to form the Black Food Sovereignty Alliance of Toronto, with the aim of addressing food issues affecting Black communities and laying down a framework for Black self-determination in food systems in the city.

But a more pertinent question is, if someone is experiencing food insecurity, what can be done about it right now?

a close up shot of people giving food to others across a table — Food banks are just part of the solution to address food insecurity. (Joel Muniz/Unsplash)

Fields has some advice, “It’s very hard because money is tight but yet within that tight money situation, we can put food first in your thinking. Don’t go to the corner store to buy a banana, go to the No Frills. Be wise about your own limited budget and stretching it and making better decisions with whatever limited money you have.”

More options are: buying produce from FoodShare, a non-profit organization that delivers food to communities across Toronto, applying for food assistance from Black Food Toronto, participating in Ryerson’s Harvest Share program and, if you’re an Indigenous student, contacting the Ryerson Aboriginal Peer Support Program.

“There’s obviously a social determinant of health that comes into play because you don’t have access to nutritious foods,” Howden said. “Even if it’s traditional or non-traditional foods, you won’t be as nourished from the space of your body which is the container that carries forth all of what you do. It’s harder to study. It’s harder to produce results.”

April 9, 2021

A wooden table pictured from above, with plates of different foods.

Arts & Life Features Food Food & Health Prescribing Perspectives Top Top stories

Rediscovering the joy of food through intuitive eating

by Natalie Michie April 9, 2021

written by Natalie Michie

Intuitive eating is a lifestyle that rejects all food rules and aims to repair body image issues caused by dieting

food on a table — Intuitive eating aims to help people to remove guilt from food and rediscover the carefree and innate joy of eating. (Stefan Vladimirov/Unsplash)

For many women, keeping up with shifting beauty standards, body dysmorphia and diet culture is exhausting. Society’s ever-evolving image of the ideal body encourages people to change themselves and leaves women hyper-aware of their bodies at a young age. As a result, people often find themselves turning to a restrictive diet.

Food rules like, “don’t eat after 7 p.m.” or “cut out carbs” are commonly found in the descriptions of different diets. New food rules are introduced every time a diet makes its way to the forefront of popular media, claiming to have the solution to all weight-related problems. As more and more food rules enter our lives, the way we think about eating becomes increasingly complicated.

In recent years, a lifestyle that advocates call “anti-diet” has been gaining traction: intuitive eating. Intuitive eating rejects all food rules and aims to repair people’s relationship with food and their bodies.

“The goal is to reject the diet mentality, honour your hunger, and make peace with food,” said Toronto-based registered dietitian Trista Chan, who works with clients on intuitive eating practices.

“Oftentimes, after years and years of restrictive dieting, most people are very out of touch with their internal bodies’ cues.” She said this can cause people to have anxiety around food and to lose the natural satisfaction that comes from eating. “(Intuitive eating is) really about tuning out all that outside noise … and trying to place your body as its own expert.”

Intuitive eating has 10 guiding principles — like “discover the satisfaction factor” and “feel your fullness” — which work to help people rediscover the carefree and innate joy of eating.

Simply put, it is done by eating what you want when you are hungry and stopping when you are full.

A pink graphic that reads 10 principles of intuitive eating: reject the diet mentality, honour your hunger, make peace with food, challenge the food police, discover the satisfaction factor, feel your fullness, cope with your emotions with kindness, respect your body, movement-feel the difference, honour your health-gentle nutrition — Intuitive eating has 10 guiding principles that aim to help people repair their relationship with food. (Natalie Michie/The Ryersonian)

Listening to your body’s hunger cues sounds simple enough, but putting it into practice can be difficult to do. This is because diet culture’s prominence in our lives has led many of us to fall out of trust with our bodies, said Stephanie Cassin, a Ryerson psychology professor who specializes in disordered eating and body image. Intuitive eating aims to challenge the eating behaviours many people have adapted as a result of diet culture.

When Adrianna Chiofalo first saw posts about intuitive eating pop up on her social media timeline last year, she was intrigued. The third-year nursing student had been meticulously calorie-tracking for a year and was feeling a disconnect in her relationship with food.

Chiofalo is the student lead of The Body Project, a body acceptance advocacy program at Ryerson. She said getting started with intuitive eating was a challenge because her restrictive eating had caused her to lose her hunger and satiety cues.

“It was a bit freaky to be like, ‘How did I lose track of something that’s so innate? Something that you’re just born with?’ I (was so) brainwashed that I lost the attention towards those signals completely,” she said.

Falling out of touch with these cues can be caused by the fact that binging and restricting are normalized as a part of dieting, said Cassin. She said that some processed foods are created with the intent of being binged on; to make the person eating them feel a loss of control.

“When you see commercials (saying), ‘You can’t just eat one’ you know there’s some truth to that. Some of them actually have been produced or manufactured to make them really difficult to resist,” she said.

This loss of control around food can have a harmful impact on someone’s body image. In Canada, approximately 85 per cent of women and girls are unhappy with the way they look, according to a study by Canadian Women’s Health Network. Often, this can lead someone to pursue quick weight loss through chronic dieting, said Cassin.

“If you’re feeling negative about body image, it’s hard to convince yourself to just adopt healthy lifestyle changes for the long haul (that are) actually going to make you feel better. People typically want to go for the quick results,” she said.

This leads to a “vicious cycle” of trying new fad diets that actually cause more weight gain over time and worsen body image, said Cassin. Psychologically, it’s more difficult to adjust to the weight fluctuations that come from yo-yo dieting than to eat in a way that nourishes your body and maintain a steady weight, she said — even if it’s a bit higher than what your ideal would be.

Research shows there is a clear link between dieting and eating disorders. A study done by the National Eating Disorders Association found that 20 to 25 per cent of pathological dieters — people who follow extreme food or calorie restrictions — develop eating disorders.

For many people, Cassin said eating behaviours are a way of regulating emotions like depression, anxiety, or loneliness — all things people have been experiencing during the pandemic.

People overeat or restrict to feel a sense of control in a situation where they might otherwise feel out of control. Intuitive eating aims to relinquish this need for control by removing the power placed on food and calories.

When starting her journey of intuitive eating, Chiofalo said it was difficult to let go of the “computerized structure of eating” that she had been following with calorie-tracking. After a year of intuitive eating, she said her body weight has stayed mostly consistent, but her mindset has changed.

“I was constantly thinking about food and trying to fit as much food as possible into the target of calories. Now with intuitive eating, I go with the flow. I’ve learned to just kind of accept my body as it is, and eat what I want,” she said.

Intuitive eating isn’t about quick physical transformations. In fact, it separates itself from the weight loss mentality entirely and aligns with the Health At Every Size (HAES) movement, according to Sarah Berneche, a nutritionist and intuitive eating counsellor based in Toronto.

The guiding principles of HAES are that you don’t have to wait to be thin to pursue health; anyone can pursue it at any time and at any size.

“It’s about eating foods that feel good to you, as opposed to trying to restrict food. It’s about moving for the joy of it, as opposed to trying to punish yourself through movement,” said Berneche. “And it’s also acknowledging that we all have different degrees of privilege and that’s going to inform our ability to pursue health.”

HAES and the practice of intuitive eating make it clear that health is not always a personal choice and can be influenced by social determinants. There are many barriers in place that can make it harder for people to lead healthy lifestyles, such as someone’s income level and physical proximity to accessible healthy foods.

Although intuitive eating may not yield the physical changes that some people are after, advocates say its physical and mental benefits are healthier than most weight loss methods. Along with providing weight stability, there are also many psychological benefits to intuitive eating, said Cassin. One of them is a reduced feeling of loss of control.

“The research shows in a pretty compelling way that it’s actually the experience of loss of control that creates more of a feeling of psychological distress than the amount of food that people eat during a binge,” said Cassin. Intuitive eating brings people a neutral relationship with food, which she said can help improve mood and anxiety.

One goal of intuitive eating is to separate weight from self-worth, by pushing back against weight-related stigmas perpetuated by the diet industry.

“Diet culture is all about this idea (that) everybody should be walking through the world in this thin body and anybody that doesn’t meet that sociocultural ideal (is) lazy, or there’s something wrong with them and that’s not true at all,” said Cassin.

“Intuitive eating recognizes that people’s bodies come in different sizes, shapes and weights. And that’s okay. Body diversity is okay.”

It’s not hard to trace people’s complex relationship with food and eating habits back to society’s demanding beauty standards. If mainstream media celebrated more diverse bodies, we would struggle less with food, said Chan.

Listening to your body and rediscovering its needs is a process that starts with self-compassion. Chan said in order to rebuild a healthy outlook on eating, it’s important to remove “good” or “bad” labels from food and think of all food as neutral. Then, make it a habit to check in with your body before and after meals, to assess how hungry or full you are, and to take note of what your mood is.

Intuitive eating relies on innate hunger and satiety signals that humans were born with, but that get lost overtime as a result of dieting and disordered eating. Principles such as “honour your hunger” and “discover the satisfaction factor” refocus eating on what it should be: a natural, fun, vital part of life.

“In an ideal world, we’d all be intuitive eaters and I think we all have that within us,” said Chan.

April 9, 2021

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