The kids are cooking in Lloydminster! January 19, 2011

I remember being a kid and standing on a kitchen chair, making a beard out of bubbles in the sink, and helping with dishes after family meals. Or carrying burned French toast up to my parent’s room and spilling juice the whole way up the stairs to bring them breakfast in bed on their anniversary. Spending time in the kitchen or gathered around the dinner table are some of my most cherished memories from growing up.

A lot of kids today don’t have these types of memories. Families are eating together less, and many kids and young adults never have a chance to learn how to cook with their parents. It’s kind of scary to think that the next generations to come will be eating highly processed convenience foods every meal of the day. So, what can we do about it? Get those kids cooking!

Midwest Food Resource Project offers a program calledKids in the Kitchen. We usually partner with schools in the different communities that we work in. We have 6 kids in each group, and they do 3 weeks of baking and 3 weeks of cooking. There is an emphasis on healthy food choices, and we teach them about food preparation and food safety. They prepare enough food to take home for their families to try. It is so wonderful to see their beaming faces as they describe how much their parents and siblings enjoyed their supper! Many of these kids spend more time helping out at supper time after being in the groups. A lot of them will also try new foods if they have helped to prepare them.

It is so important to get kids excited about preparing foods at a young age. This is one life skill that is worth preserving. These children will grow up to be adults who can cook healthy foods for their families, and keep passing the skills along. Kids who don’t eat right turn into adults who don’t eat right! Let’s get them on the right track from the start. Today, help a kid learn to cook or eat supper with some friends and family. Let’s make some memories to cherish with the next generations.

Submitted by: Bekki Bonsan, Midwest Food Resources, Lloydminster, AB

Food and Everything – Memories to Share December 14, 2010

With the holiday season upon us, it is a wonderful time to think about family and reflect upon our unique experiences and memories – especially those that involve food!  

Whether it be childhood experiences or traditions that are passed along to our children, food is often core.  Our common experiences with food help build family and community.  Debbie Bonsan of Midwest Food Resources in Lloydminster, AB shares her family and community food experiences in this video she produced, “Food and Everything”.  Thanks for reminding us of the importance of sharing our memories and experiences with others Debbie! 

Food and Everything - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI4Jkuql-rU

Operation Fruit Rescue – Making the Most of Edmonton’s Fruit Harvest November 9, 2010

Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton (OFRE) is a cool little idea that is growing to be big.  The ‘coles notes’ version of the program is that people who own property with fruit trees or shrubs and don’t want to or cannot harvest the fruit, can connect with people willing and eager to pick it for them.  One third of the harvest from each picking goes to a community agency, such as a youth shelter or a soup kitchen, one third of the harvest goes to the property owner if they would like it, and one third goes home with the people who do the picking.  The fruit harvested includes berries, plums, pears, and apples, most of which would be going to waste if it were not for the program. 

There are a handful of fruit rescue programs across Canada, and each operates independently. In the case of Edmonton, a small group of dedicated volunteers coordinate the program, which has grown steadily since it’s inception. Pickings are organized largely via email, sent out to volunteers who meet at a specified home to pick and/or fan out to pick in the neighborhood.

This year in Edmonton it was the “Year of the Apple”, with many property owners calling for pickers because they couldn’t handle (or believe) the amount of fruit on their apple trees.  However, other fruits such as plums and berries were also picked.  Literally thousands of pounds of fruit was picked this season, and it is unimaginable to think it would have otherwise rotted.

As a first year volunteer my 8 year old daughter and I started out eager to help community agencies and to get some free local fruit.  By the end of the season my daughter and I had gained much more!  We learned about our local neighborhoods, local fruit varieties, how to process apples into everything imaginable, met interesting people, and also hated apples. (We ended up with about 210 pounds of apples.)

Operation Fruit Rescue helps to save valuable fruit, redistributing plenty to those with less, but it also connected us with neighbors and people we don’t otherwise meet, and gets us to work in the outdoors.  It made us appreciate our amazing local variety, our fruit producing yards, and all the preserving others have done for generations.  As a byproduct, we have developed a large stock of apple juice, apple butter, spicy apple chutney, apple-beet chutney, and apple pie filling.  In this case, working towards improving local food security produces alot more then just local food security.   Lastly, we now know that everyone should attend a juicing party at least once!

For more information about Operation Fruit Rescue visit their blog: http://ofre.wordpress.com/.  Here are some  other groups doing this kind of work across Canada:
Calgary Harvest 
Not Far From the Tree in Toronto
Fruit Tree Project in Vancouver

Submitted by: Melissa Scaman, OFRE Volunteer, Edmonton, AB

Addressing Food Waste in SE Alberta November 2, 2010

Recently Medicine Hat hosted an open community meeting to discuss “Gleaning” as a local food system project. As a member of Medicine Hat’s Community Food Connections I was made aware of the project and the promise to address hunger; however, since I am much more a food system ally than a grassroots farm girl (having very little actual food production experience), I had to admit that I had no idea what “gleaning” was. I imagined that it was a brand new technique; some up and coming hunger solution. As it turns out gleaning is an old concept….as in Biblically old. Gleaning is the traditional Biblical practice of gathering crops that would otherwise be left in the fields to rot or be ploughed under after harvest. Today, gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested in an attempt to address food waste. When crops do not meet top grade quality (i.e. are bigger, smaller or different shape than typically sold to food distributors) and are seen as unmarketable, they are left to rot or be ploughed under, despite being completely edible.

With my introduction to gleaning, I found that gleaning charities around North America are accessing the “wasted” food and redistributing it in an attempt to address hunger. It is based on the supposition that the world produces enough food to feed every person (http://www.endhunger.org/) and is insufficient in distribution and management of surplus.

How it works is that surplus vegetables (often potatoes, beans and corn in SE Alberta) are harvested by volunteers, dehydrated and packaged to be redistributed as a low cost food option to some local food banks and charities. The food is often transported overseas to provide international hunger relief, as with the Prairie Gleaners in Alberta (http://www.prairiegleaners.com/).

In the food security context, gleaning provides the prospect of safe, nutritionally adequate foods to those in need, addressing poverty and environmental waste; however, the food may not meet regular food aesthetic standards and as such may not be personally acceptable.  Unfortunately, this is the roadblock to using gleaned foods in the local system (i.e. the Medicine Hat Food Bank) as it seems that most service users are not interested in gleaned produce; rather, all people want equitable access to the same quality of product.

Despite the recent dialogue in SE Alberta to use gleaned foods to address local hunger issues, this will not occur at this time; however, for me, several important community implications came from the discussion. The following are some of the lessons I took from my introduction to gleaning.

• The entire community does not have equitable access to quality produce. One way that individuals can address this is to plant a “sharing row” in their own gardens to be shared with local community kitchens, food banks, community programs etc.
• The community has an abundance of edible food. Allowing for some flexibility in aesthetic standards could provide most people in the community with healthy, sustainable options
• Local farms support local initiatives. Many of the local farms and producers have opened their fields for gleaning. While they are protective not to saturate their market with “give away” product, they continue to offer surplus to community initiatives.
• There is a great quantity of food waste. Most of us can consume less of the world’s resources than we now use. We can put effort into being less wasteful and more mindful about our food consumption.
• We can act locally to support globally. In volunteering time to a local gleaning organization (manpower being the largest issue) you can help ensure that food “waste” is used to provide international relief.

For more information about gleaning in Alberta, please contact the Prairie Gleaners Society.

Submitted by: Jessica Nixon, Medicine Hat, Alberta

High Level Connects Classroom and Community Garden October 28, 2010

“Strawberries, watermelon, carrots, peas, brussel sprouts, corn…”  “Wait, did you say brussel sprouts?!”  This was the scene when we asked a class of kindergarten students what their favourite fruit or vegetable was in one of the first classroom presentations we did about gardening and food security. 

The former Northern Lights Health Region developed a classroom program, targeted at kindergarten and grade 4 classes, that blossomed from the struggles with our community garden.  It was mutually beneficial education aimed at increasing awareness and involvement in the community garden, connecting kids with the earth and teaching them about where their food comes from. 

After the first year of starting our community garden we realized that we needed to do more to increase awareness of and participation in the garden.  This led to the development of lesson plans for kindergarten and grade four classes about eating healthy and gardening.  These interactive classroom presentations highlighted the value of gardening, eating healthy and food security; at the end of the class the students planted a seed (bean, pea or tomato).  They cared for their seeds for 6 weeks, once the plants had gotten big enough, the classes then took a walking field trip to our garden to transplant their vegetables and were invited to bring their families to the garden at any time to check on the progress of their vegetables, help with the garden and take home some fresh vegetables. 

We also held a classroom contest to name our garden and design a sign for it.  The winning submission named the garden “Same Soil Community Garden” and designed a vibrant, eye catching sign.  The winning class won an indoor grow kit, complete with soil, seeds, planters, self watering system, and heat lamp.  They grew some tomatoes, peppers and herbs that they delivered to the community garden before they left for the school year.

While the classroom presentations and activities did not entirely meet the objective of attracting more participation in the Same Soil Community Garden, it did invoke some very interesting conversation and left a lasting impression.  I still occasionally get “you’re the garden lady” when a student who I presented to sees me in public!  If you would like information on our lesson plans please feel free to contact me at 780-841-3321.  

Submitted by: Carrie Demkiw, Health Promotion Liaison, Alberta Health Services, High Level, Alberta