(via johnzilla87)

As university students, we are told constantly the need to eat good, healthy food. We are encouraged to eat local, seasonal, organic, free range. We feel a pressure to express our politics and social justice through our food.

But really, how affordable is “good food.” Organic and local food is prevalent in Victoria, but at a high - almost inaccessible cost. This alienates many from accessing food - esepcially people without the time or money to pursue these ethical food ways. How can we negotiate the relationship between good food and access?

The Good Food Box is a way!

The Good Food Box project is a Victoria run initiative to provide fresh, mostly local, mostly organic food to people in Victoria. For a reasonable price.

As the organization is still beggining, there are a limited number of boxes, so get your name on the list soon!

The content of boxes varies monthly. You can select which box you want, fruit or vegetable, large or small, and pay prices rangin from 15- 30. All of the food is seasonally and ethically grown.

The Good Food Box project is an antidote to good food guilt, and incorporates various needs and forms of accessibility to the programme!

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LifeCycles is an absolutely rad local organization that facilitates work shops, community organizing, events and more around local food security. The do such wonderful things as the Growing Schools Project, the Fruit Tree project and more (we will blog about these soon!)

Below are some workshops coming up this summer!

Growing Medicinal Plants with teachers from Pacific Rim College

Monday, April 4, 7:00 - 9:00 pm

Pacific Rim College, 229-560 Johnson St - $15 members; $20 non-members

Learn about medicinal plants with teachers from Pacific Rim College. This workshop will provide an overview of plants that are useful and safe for families to grow and use for common household needs (colds, indigestion, cuts and scrapes, etc), basic info on the growing preferences of the plants, as well as how, when and what parts to harvest. A simple example of how to make a medicine (eg salve, oil, tincture, poultice) will be given, as a preview for those interested in another workshop on making medicines.

Companion Planting in Container Gardens with Amy Crook

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UVSS FOOD BANK USAGE RISES 

One of the areas around food security and accessibility on the UVic campus is the food bank. The food bank is one of the resources each student at UVic pays for to ad structural support for the students of UVic.

Still, there are various issues around stigma and accessibility of the food bank, and the evidence below shows that there is a real need for increasing support of it.

The Martlet

Oct. 08, 2010

The UVSS Emergency Food Bank is trying to fill its empty shelves with clothing and other essential items for struggling students.

Just one month into the school year, the UVic Students’ Society’s (UVSS) Emergency Food Bank is seeing record usage.

“In terms of use since Sept. 7, which is what I went by, the Food Bank has been used 162 times,” said UVSS Director of Academics Rajpreet Sall. “That’s steadily increasing. What we found in the beginning of September was a lot of students didn’t have their student loans in. So we found increased usage with that. Then again, it’s spreading by word of mouth as well. Which it’s great that the Food Bank’s being used, but it’s unfortunate students have to use it.”

Sall says that, during the summer, she stocked the Food Bank once a week. Now she’s stocking it daily.

While the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico stole the news this summer, food prices quietly went up. Wheat crops in the Prairies were hammered by wet weather, while crops in Europe faced a drought. When combined with high fuel costs, and high demand for bio-fuels, this caused international food prices to rise five per cent in August, the largest one-month increase since mid-2009. This has had a visible effect on both student use of the food bank, and the Food Bank’s budget.

“There’s been a noticeable upward trend in students using the Food Bank,” said Sall. “I think it’s a combination of things. I think it’s student loans, it’s student jobs either staying the same or decreasing, it’s tuition increasing — there’s been another two per cent increase this semester. So I think it’s a combination of things that come together and just make accessing education a little bit more difficult, and making ends meet more difficult.”

The UVSS began advertising the service in January for the first time, which has likely contributed to the increase in usage.

“We try and walk a fine line of trying to let students know that this service is available to them while trying to make sure it isn’t abused,” said Sall.

The Food Bank is available to UVic undergraduate and graduate students. To ensure that the student-funded service isn’t co-opted by people from off-campus, everyone must show their student ID.

The UVSS also keeps track of student numbers to make sure the service isn’t used more than once a week by each student.

The Food Bank receives $0.50 from every undergraduate student’s UVSS fees, giving the service an approximate budget of $15,000. This levy has remained the same since 2003. It also relies on cash and food donations from local businesses. Sall is currently brainstorming different ways to fundraise in order to keep the Food Bank running. The recent Sleeping Bag Drive-In event was one such fundraiser.

Sall has also lowered Food Bank costs by shopping at Costco.

“When the previous director of academics did orders for the foodbank they’d be around $300–$400 and they’d last a week and a half, if that. And now I do monthly runs to Costco and I spend usually around $600 and we can do about a month’s worth of food, if not more. So in that sense it’s good,” she explained.

Sall isn’t the only one looking to bring new ideas to the Food Bank. UVSS Director-at-Large Dylan Sherlock is looking to help students by adding more items to the frequently empty shelves of the Food Bank.

Currently, the UVSS has a lot of empty shelf space. According to Sherlock, this gives students the impression they should come back another time. “We’re faced with the problem of either removing the shelves, or expanding the services of the Food Bank,” said Sherlock, “obviously, the preference is for the latter.”

One proposal suggests keeping clothing on the shelves for students. Last week, extra t-shirts from the UVic Lipdub were added and a sign was posted. There are also plans to host a used clothing sale, with the proceeds being used to pay for things like socks.

Any leftover clothes will be placed in the “clothing bank.”

According to Sall, the UVSS doesn’t have the money to purchase clothes, so a clothing bank would need to survive on donations.

Sherlock is also working with the Anti-Violence Project and UVic Health Services to keep condoms and lubricant stocked in the Food Bank.

“If people can’t afford to buy food, they’re probably not going to prioritize condoms above that,” explained Sherlock.

Students are encouraged to ask questions and give suggestions about the Food Bank, especially those already using it. Sherlock says that students are best off bringing their questions and suggestions to the UVSS Board of Directors, or the Student Services committee, which makes policy decisions concerning the Food Bank.

(via johnzilla87)

Check out this blog!

A comprehensive guide to urban agriculture and other issues around food and the environment in Victoria.

http://victoriavision.blogspot.com/2007/08/urban-farming-and-food-security.html

So we at Accessible Eats have decided to offer a weekly interview of people who partake in alternative food ways! We have extended this to include a variety of meanings, ethical food ways, religious food ways, dumpster diving, food growing, all organic diets, hunter gatherers, and more!

Our second interview is with food blogger Kayeon Lee who hails down from Toronto, Ontario. During the day, Kayeon is a recent graduate of Architecture from the University of Ryerson, while she spends the rest of the time as the founding and head blogger of <kayeon eats>. Kayeon eats is an interactive blog which offers step by step approaches to recipes that are often gluten free, according to a detox diet and very healthy. Kayeon offers beautiful photos and user firendly recipes that allow for self reflection and sould balancing in your gastronomical exploits. When Kayeon isn’t cooking away and blogging about it, she also has pocketsfull of restaurants and food to reccomend - from kitchens coast to coast.

Check out Kayeon’s blog at: http://kayeoneats.blogspot.com/

Q&A:

what do you eat? everything? nothing? certain things? is there is certain title you give yourself? vegan, dumpster diver, food warrior?

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Interesting perspectives from a local food advocate - challenges to the organic movement.

It’s a shame Ambrosia is no more!

But for James Bay-ites, Niagara Grocery is just around the corner at 579 Niagara.

hyperlocavore:

You are not alone in your desire to know what’s in your food.

The United States may soon be the only country in the world that does not require labeling of genetically engineered food. In Spring 2000, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that labeling of GE foods would remain voluntary, even though there was no indication that any company would voluntarily label genetically engineered foods–and in the 11 years since, none have. Meanwhile, companies who have eliminated GE ingredients and added “NON-GMO” labels have faced burdensome regulations, while the FDA lets other companies continue to use GE ingredients in secret. It is time to stand up and demand mandatory labeling of GE foods!

The True Food Network

Read more at truefoodnow.org

Join the Rally for the Right to Know! Send your letter to Congress TODAY!

 

truefoodnow.org

So we at Accessible Eats have decided to offer a weekly interview of people who partake in alternative food ways! We have extended this to include a variety of meanings, ethical food ways, religious food ways, dumpster diving, food growing, all organic diets, hunter gatherers, and more!

This week, we are starting with one of our very own accessible eats bloggers : Joanne Tsung.

Joanne is in a loving albeit tumultuos relationship with veganism. She can often be found dancing away in her kitchen to edward sharpe, baking appopriately vegan apple pie (me-oh-my!) and enough tofu scramble to feed a women’s studies department. Joanne’s cooking is feminist, subversive and delicious and she is here to answer our questions.

We would also like to acknowledge that Joanne is representing her own food way identity and we in no way wish to suggest that veganism is a homogenous movement or that Joanne represents it.

Q: Joanne, what would you call the way you eat? Vegan? Animal Justice Warrior? What do you eat…

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