For many, the years spent at university can be a challenging time due to academic stressors as well as personal and emotional difficulties. During this important and liminal period, food security is crucial for health and psychological wellness, as well as academic performance and success. This week’s guest, Tara Hattangadi, is a recently defended Masters student who’s work explores the impact of food insecurity on mental health and wellness of university students.

Tara’s research sheds light on the importance of food security and demands that sufficient support during this key period be made widely available to all students – which includes university wide programs to facilitate equitable access to healthy foods.

In this episode, we talk about her masters research and the exploratory route she took to engage in this very massive, under-researched problem of food insecurity amongst university students in Canada. She outlines what food insecurity looks like for students and why it’s important that we look at university students as an at-risk group. Poor diet has both short and long-term implications on mental health, student success, and social wellbeing, and Tara seeks to highlight how to improve access for students struggling to find healthy and affordable food. Tara’s passion for food systems and food security both in and out of the classroom has grown since the inception of her research, and she is determined to continue the dialogue about how to improve access to affordable and healthy food for university students across Canada.

Listen to the episode in the player above, or download on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play! (And if you LOVE listening, please subscribe, rate, and review!)

Resources:

The Meal Exchange cross-campus study
Tara’s Three Minute Thesis
An article, published in CBC News early this year, about food insecurity among students at the University of Saskatchewan: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/40-of-u-of-s-students-face-issues-around-food-insecurity-study-shows-1.4470573
Another really great read, published in Medium, about student food insecurity: https://medium.com/@saragoldrickrab/whos-hungry-making-sense-of-campus-food-insecurity-estimates-4b65cd1ecf2c

Social:

Instagram: @tahrannosaurus or @sustainabindi

So excited to share today's interview with Owen Campbell! Ok, I probably say I'm ridiculously excited for every episode of AnthroDish, but I really do mean it!

Owen is a trans man with a passion for cooking, baking, and za'atar spice. He currently works in Food Skills and Education at Food Matters Manitoba. Owen started his culinary journey with a small fib in order to get a job at a soon-to-be-open restaurant on the west coast. After landing it and working his way up, he left the restaurant industry to cook for a housing program in Vancouver’s downtown east side, where he remained until he and his husband decided to move to Manitoba. After a brief “retirement” from the food industry (to start and finish a BA and then a Masters in Linguistics), he came back to the food world to find a career in food security at Food Matters Manitoba.

Today we talk about his experiences working with youth in Winnipeg at Food Matters Manitoba, exploring some of the barriers they face when accessing food and creating meals, and who is most at risk for food insecurity in Winnipeg. We speak about the gendering that goes on in different food realms, and how these impact queer and trans youth particularly. We also look at the food landscape in Winnipeg and discuss some of the challenges and creative ways he teaches youth to overcome these barriers.

Check out the episode above, or download on iTunes and Spotify!

Resources:

You can find the Dan Jurafsky lecture he was referring to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_tceXVOcls

Want to learn more about Owen? Contact him here: owenrcampbell@gmail.com or check out some of his work with Food Matters Manitoba here: http://www.foodmattersmanitoba.ca/2018/07/a-queer-cook-off/