Episode 38: Food Security and Health for LGBTQ+ Communities with James Gibb

March 19, 2019

Food security is a topic that’s very close to my heart, in part because of how complex and varied experiences of food access, affordability, and availability can be. This week, we’re breaking down food security amongst LGBTQ+ communities with James Gibb. James is currently a human biology graduate student at the University of Toronto, whose research focuses on the biocultural forces affecting health and wellbeing for sexual and gender minorities.

In this interview, we explore the ways in which food and diet impact health outcomes for sexual and gender minorities. Nutrition is an important factor that influences individual risk for a number of non-communicable diseases, specifically in preventing morbidity and premature mortality. Despite food insecurity being linked to a number of physical and mental health outcomes, James has found that there is little research hon the nature of nutritional health for SGMs. We explore some of the reasons that these gaps in research and health programming exist, and James makes some suggestions about how we can start to connect nutrition, health, and the social processes of stigma, isolation, and discrimination for SGM communities.

Enjoy the episode in the web player above, or download on any major podcasting platform!

Get Social with James:

Twitter

Episode 35: Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Food Industry with Hassel Aviles

February 26, 2019

As someone who’s worked in the food industry and has a partner and many friends that still work in the industry, the topic of mental wellbeing in these intense environments is of great importance to me and a topic I’m always keen to explore on the show.

My guest this week is someone who has done a terrific job creating a space in these environments for conversations around mental health and addictions. I’m speaking Hassel Aviles, a Toronto native with over 20 years of culinary experience in the food and beverage industry, specifically focused on restaurants, events, and entrepreneurship.

Hassel founded the Toronto Underground Market (or TUM) in 2011, which is a community festival turned incubator designed for food entrepreneurs, chefs, and home cooks. TUM was attended by thousands each month, and produced enormous tourism for Toronto, birthing over three dozen food brands in the GTA (including restaurants, celebrity chefs, food trucks, and catering companies). She leveraged TUM to launch and co-found the successful and delicious La Carnita, which is now a global restaurant franchises.

In addition, Hassel is the co-founder of Not 9 to 5 with Chef Ariel Coplan. Not 9 to 5 is a Canadian non-profit focused on normalizing the mental health and addiction conversations while providing connections to resources for those working in the food and beverage industry. In our interview, we explore her experiences creating and growing Not 9 to 5, and discuss the reasons that this particular food industry culture is such an important place to tackle conversations around mental health and addictions. Here is my interview with Hassel.

Listen in the player above or download on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Googly Play, or iheartradio!

Not 9 to 5

Website
Not 9 to 5 Mental Health and Addiction Survey
Instagram: @not9to5_
Facebook

Episode 31: Sparking Joy in Nutrition and Wellness for Kids with Haile Thomas

January 29, 2019

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was extra-excited to share this week’s interview with you! I’m speaking this week with the remarkable Haile Thomas, an 18-year-old international speaker, health activist, vegan food and lifestyle influencer, and the youngest Certified Integrative Health Coach in the United States. Haile is the founder and CEO of the non-profit HAPPY (Healthy, Active, Positive, Purposeful Youth). She founded HAPPY at age 12 to address the need for free and affordable plant-based nutrition and culinary education in under-served and at-risk communities, as well as in schools and through annual summer camps.

Haile has personally engaged over 15, 000 kids and thousands of adults around the world since she began her activism in 2010. She was inspired to pursue this passion after her family successfully reversed her father’s type-2 diabetes without the use of medication, only with healthy eating and lifestyle choices, and upon learning that kids were increasingly being diagnosed with conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. All of Haile’s programs, projects, and initiatives are geared towards engaging, educating, and empowering young people to make healthy lifestyle choices and live their best lives.

Haile and her work have been featured on the Today Show, Food Network, CNN, Buzzfeed, MTV, NowThis, Dr. Oz, Teen Vogue, Fortune, O Magazine, and the Experience Magazine… to name a few!

In our discussion, Haile shares her experiences founding and running HAPPY, and how to spark a joy and curiosity in kids around food and nutrition (yes, even picky eaters!). She speaks to how her own business and personal connection to food has grown with her through time, and how that’s impacted her business goals and desires. We also discuss what makes folks in her generation so successful in being advocates for social justice and equity on the world stage. Haile is a woman I am constantly inspired by, and it was a true delight to be able to speak with her for this episode!

Listen to the full episode in the player above, or on iTunes, Stitcher, or Spotify!

Resources:

Haile’s Website

Haile’s Instagram

Episode 29: YouTubing and Food Storytelling with Katie Quinn

January 15, 2019

One medium I take a lot of inspiration from in terms of food storytelling is YouTube (as I’m sure many of you do as well!). Personally, it was the first platform that made me connect to cooking in a fun and accessible way, and reduced my fear of learning about the kitchen. Today we’re talking all about video creation and food storytelling with one of my favourite YouTubers, Katie Quinn of the QKatie channel.

Katie is a video journalist, host, and cookbook author. Katie’s YouTube channel has over 3 million views, and her slogan is #keepitquirky because she thinks life is more enjoyable when you don’t take yourself too seriously. An Ohioan turned Brooklynite, Katie was based out of NYC for the past nine years. She has talked about food on NBC’S Today Show, as a contestant on the Food Network’s “Chopped” and as a judge on Beat Bobby Flay. Katie attended Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris and is the author of the “Avocados” cookbook. Katie is currently based out of London, England, where any day of the week you can find her recording videos and finding new adventures or experimenting with new recipes. She is also the host of the delightful and refreshing Keep It Quirky podcast.

This interview with Katie was such a lovely way to start of the new year. We explore the many ways we can tell food stories through different mediums both digitally and with television, and how her connection to food transcends into how she connects with people and shares her story. We explore her experiences in culinary school and the influences these had on how she shared her own stories through video journalism, and the ways she feels her creativity has shifted and grown from cooking into a diverse array of platforms. It’s always exciting for me to dig deeper into the places and values food holds for us, and Katie really opened up to exploring these with me in the interview. This lead us through how different mediums shape the stories we tell and the audiences we speak to! Her approach to food and cooking is infused with her Keep It Quirky slogan, and it was a dream to be able to speak with her about the ways her connection with food has developed and grown as her QKatie brand has also evolved over the years.

Listen the the player above, or on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play or iHeartRadio!

Get Social with Katie!

Katie’s Website

QKatie on YouTube

Keep it Quirky Podcast

Katie on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Episode 26: Reconnecting to Family Foods with Allergies with Kalyn Fantasia

December 11, 2018

I first met this week’s guest, Kalyn Fantasia, at a dinner party hosted by a mutual friend (shoutout to Sarah Van Den Berg!). The theme of the party was “Identities,” so we spent much of the evening moving from a group of relative strangers to friends that shared thoughts about their identities from the depths of their hearts.

When Kalyn shared her stories and experiences (all while kneading dough to make fresh gnocchi), I was immediately impressed by her strong connection to her history and cultures, and the ways she negotiated these while having many intolerances and allergies - and thankfully, she was happy to share these stories with you this week! Born and raised in Toronto, she is a multi-hyphenated artist/manager (depending on what day you ask her!) and she is an artist manager for local Canadian bands, as well as a photographer, amateur painter, and homemade foodie.

As a long time allergy kid with a growing list of food intolerances, Kalyn had always had a strong connection to the food she ate and a stronger understanding of the effects of food on her body. She spends at least 3 hours a day in the kitchen and finds pleasure in putting in the work to create comforting meals she can eat without worry. She’s been recently exploring the ways in which family history, food, and identity are related, and how these interconnect with modern food and modern food intolerances. This conversation reflects her passions and interest in exploring all of these interconnections, and it felt like such a privilege to interview Kalyn about this.

Listen in the player above, or download on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or iHeartRadio!

Episode 25: Eating Disorder Recovery & Health at Any Size with Dr. Andrea LaMarre

December 4, 2018

With the holidays comes many social gatherings that are often centred around food. For some this may be filled with joy, but for others, this may cause a lot of stress and anxiety around eating or body image. That’s why this week, I’m speaking with Dr. Andrea LaMarre on eating disorder recovery and health ay any size. Based out of Guelph, Ontario, Andrea is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Propel Centre for Population Health Impact at the University of Waterloo. She recently earned her PhD at the University of Guelph, where she studied eating disorder recovery from the perspectives of people in recovery and their supporters.

In this episode we speak about experiences of eating disorders and recovery, and Andrea breaks down some of the common assumptions surrounding these experiences – about what an eating disorder looks like conventionally, what bodies and experiences are legitimized and which are often left out, and ways in which researchers like her are challenging the social, cultural, and psychological barriers to accessing recovery. She’s doing incredibly important work with thoughtful and engaging approaches for communities, and I think it’s important to speak more to the diverse ways disordered eating can manifest in our lives and bodies - particularly during times of the year where we have less control or agency over what we eat.

Listen to the episode in the player above, or download on any major platform!

Get Social with Andrea:

Twitter: @andrealala

Instagram: @andrealamarre

Website: www.andrealamarre.com

Some of the many folks whose work has inspired Andrea:

People who do work on dismantling body oppression:

Deb Burgard: http://www.bodypositive.com/

Desirée Adaway: http://desireeadaway.com/

Sonya Renée Taylor: https://www.sonyareneetaylor.com/

Virgie Tovar: https://www.virgietovar.com/

Be Nourished: https://benourished.org/