Category: politics

The Case For Taste

So in the great “eat local” debate, what if it all came down to taste?

Ed Levine posts a really interesting piece today on Serious Eats debating the ethics of eating local over taste.

What if your local produce is actually crap? What if the stuff from waaaaaay across the continent tastes better than the stuff within that stupid 100-mile radius?

Almost every person espousing the 100-mile diet admits to at least one caveat (usually coffee), but local doesn’t always equal better in terms of flavour. What if we’re all missing out by rejecting the imported stuff?

Now, in most cases, local produce is still going to taste better because stuff loses flavour in transit – but what about the things that don’t?

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Sweet Treats on the Street

streetfoodlinejkTo say that the City’s Street Treats Fair was a resounding success would be a huge understatement. That line-up provoked a refrain of “Holy Shit!” from any number of people who entered Nathan Phillips Square from the north-east corner and were confronted with the throngs of people as they rounded the Peace Garden.

Crowds were lining up by noon and booths were selling out shortly thereafter. And sure, some of it was definitely the attraction of getting a meal from Jamie Kennedy or Rain for $5, but I think it’s safe to say that the people of Toronto really do want more than hot dogs and sausages. Another common refrain of the day was “Where did you get THAT??” as people walked past with melon soup or empanadas.

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Is Something Fishy?

This article is from last week, but I’ve had it bookmarked because I really wanted to talk about it. It needed some thinking first though, some pondering. I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

I stopped eating imported shrimp many years ago after reading one of the many books by Dr. Vandana Shiva in which she details how shrimp farms in India and Thailand are destroying the local ecosystems.

To operate effectively, shrimp farmers destroy mangrove swamps to create a flat, shallow area underwater – conditions in which shrimp thrive. This allows them to harvest the shrimp by trawling.

However, the mangrove swaps are home to many sea creatures whose habitats are destroyed and trawling is indiscriminate – anything in the way of the trawler – including thousands of sea turtles – gets scooped up.

The removal of the mangrove swamps also removes a layer of protection against tidal waves caused by tsunamis. It is widely believed that the Tsunami of 2004 would have done considerably less damage were it not for the shrimp farms that lined the coast of Thailand. Shrimp farms also cause seawater to leach into nearby groundwater, ruining other crops, such as rice.

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Growing Up Organic

What do a soy bean farmer, a nurse who runs a community garden, an activist working to stop toxic chemicals, an environmental architect and a food writer all have in common? We all shared a table at the Canadian Organic Growers (COG) conference this past Saturday.

With a theme of “Growing Up Organic”, the various presentations focussed on how organic food compared to conventionally grown food and how that might affect children’s health, as well as looking at the various organic food programmes in daycares and schools that were encouraging parents and teachers to choose and promote organics at home.

Speakers included Thomas Pawlick, author of The End of Food, Dr. Rick Smith from Environmental Defence Canada, Wayne Roberts of the Toronto Food Policy Council and Kim Crosby of Real Food For Real Kids.

The event also featured the first ever “Organic Food Hero” awards, with honourees in various categories. For her series “Organic Goes Mainstream”, Jill Eisen of CBC Radio received the Organic Media Hero award. Chef Michael Stadtlander was a awarded the “Organic Supporter” award for his work championing organic food and farming. The Organic Organization Hero for this year was Anne Slater of the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario. Bread and Roses Café in Hamilton, Ontario won the award for Best Restaurant Serving Organic Food, and The Canadian Organic Growers Volunteer award went to Anne Macey.

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Getting Taken For a Ride with Canada’s Food Guide

Yes, it’s the day that Canadians have been waiting for with bated breath – the release of Canada’s first new food guide in fifteen years. The media can’t stop singing the praises of the thing, but much of the media write their articles based on press releases. The truth is, the new Food Guide is not especially useful to anyone.

The guide has been redesigned to allow more personalization of choices; there are more ethnic foods to accommodate the cultural changes within our population, and it allows individuals to make specific choices with regards to which foods they will eat from each section.

But while the new Guide does offer serving sizes, it doesn’t differentiate it terms of calories or fat content. In the milk and milk “alternatives” section (to which I must emit a giant “HA!” – the only non-dairy “alternative” offered is soy milk), skim milk, 1% and 2% milk are all considered equal. And in the alternatives section, you can have pudding instead of a glass of milk. Not that milk should even be there to begin with (it’s really not necessary to good health and nutrition), but the Food Guide really wasn’t created with the health of Canadians as its primary focus anyway, and marketing boards have a much bigger say in the final draft than the real and genuine health concerns brought up by doctors.

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Eat the Rich

Before we even officially launch this site, I want to make something perfectly clear – while TasteTO was created in order to celebrate all of the wonderful food choices we have here in Toronto, we should never ever forget that there are a lot of people in our city who do not have those options. Sure, we’ll be running reviews of nice restaurants, and features on wonderful products and ingredients, but it would be remiss of us not to report on other food issues that affect Torontonians aside from whether this year’s truffle crop is as good as last year’s.

An article in yesterday’s Toronto Star advocates a meal subsidy for people on social assistance, calculating that a family of four receiving benefits has only $396 left after paying rent to cover all of their bills for the month, including groceries.

For instance, the average monthly rent for a three-bedroom apartment for a family of four in Toronto is $1,272. That family would receive $1,668.35 per month in social assistance benefits, child-related tax benefits and GST tax credits.

That would leave only $396.35 for food and other basics, far short of the $538.43 a month called for in the Nutritious Food Basket, which is based on the Canada Food Guide.

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