93: How Do Canadians Plan for Better Food Systems? with Dr. Tammara Soma

Here at AnthroDish, a lot of the focus in my conversations with people is around the eating behaviours of communities, or what food preparations say about individuals… but we don’t often get to think about what their food waste behaviours say about them. So what influences how people waste foods? Why do we have so many memes about that half empty and wilted bin of wilted spinach at the back of our fridges?

My guest this week, Dr. Tammara Soma, looks at food waste patterns and behaviours in Indonesia and in Canada. She is the director and co-founder of the Food Systems Lab, and is Assistant Professor at the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University where she conducts research on issues pertaining to food system planning, community-based research, waste management and the circular economy. Her dissertation investigated the factors that influence urban household food consumption and food wasting practices in Indonesia, and the ways in which food systems consideration can improve urban planning decision-making.

Today, we’ll be exploring what influences people’s food waste, and how food systems planning methods can be used to better contribute to our food planning and security in Canada.

Learn More from Dr. Soma! 

92: Season 7 Launch! (Solo Episode)

It took a while, but I'm back for the 7th season of AnthroDish! Starting off as usual with a solo episode, giving some quick updates about what's been going on since season 6 wrapped in March 2021, some huge personal changes (I'm finally a Doctor!), and some reflections on what sorts of energy and themes I'm bringing in this season. 

Regular interview episodes will be back as of next Tuesday, and I can’t wait for you to hear them!

91: Fast, Easy, Cheap Veganism with Sam Turnbull

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Something we’ve been focusing on this season is unpacking what makes food accessible or inaccessible – be it money, gender, race, or their intersections. Veganism is an arena where there is a lot of time-consuming and money-draining products, and particularly so when a lot of discussions around how to be vegan are white-centered. My guest this week, Sam Turnbull, works to bust the myths around veganism’s inaccessibility by creating simple plant-based comfort food recipes (with 10 ingredients or less) that are inexpensive ($10 or less) and quick (in 30 minutes or less). Sam lives in Toronto and is the author of the popular vegan blog, It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken, and has over 70k subscribers on her YouTube channel of the same name.

Sam’s got a brand new cookbook out this week through Appetite called Fast, Easy, Cheap Vegan, where she’s focusing on 10-ingredient comfort food dishes like creamy basil gnocchi, citrus and coconut custard cups, and other recipes that can be whipped up in no time in ways that work with what you already have in your pantry. She’s on the show today to talk through her process of creating her new cookbook and her tips to creating a fuss-free, stress-free kitchen experience for those of us who are experiencing some burnout around meal preparation and planning.

Learn More About Sam! 

90: How Has Purity Culture Shaped Eating Disorder Experiences? with Rebecca Wolfe

“”In our culture, food is sin, as is taking pleasure from it. When you pour that onto this [Protestant] environment that is already so cruel to bodies, disembodiment is encouraged, and women are constantly surveilling their own body to see how it is perceived by this male gaze, and trying to anticipate that, making it simultaneously attractive yet steering way clear of being sexy, because that’s to be sinful. It creates this impossible double bind.”
— Rebecca Wolfe
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If you grew up in the early 2000s, you might remember the American push for True Love Waits, abstinence only-sex education, and purity rings being sported by celebrities like Jessica Simpson or the Jonas Brothers. Known as Purity Culture, this Protestant evangelical movement emphasizes sexual purity through abstinence… but beyond sex, how has the culture shaped how women understand their bodies, experiences with food, or informed the broader American diet culture?

My guest this week is Rebecca Wolfe, who is currently a doctoral candidate in the department of Social and Behavioural Sciences at UCSF. She is interested in the intersection of race, class, gender, religion, embodiment and eating disoders. Her current work is focused on the impact of the Protestant, Evangelical movement known as “Purity Culture” on the development and manifestation of eating disorders in people assigned female at birth and raised within the movement.

Learn More About Rebecca: 

89: #BakeupwithJerrod - Exploring the Transformational Power of Baking and Makeup with Jerrod Blandino

“A recipe can bring back somebody you’ve lost for the moment that you’re baking it, or the moment you’re eating it… you feel that love, and you can transform your kitchen through that love, by baking those recipes that mean something to you. It becomes so much more than a bake, it becomes emotional.”
— Jerrod Blandino
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If there’s one thing a lot of us have been doing since the start of COVID last spring, it’s returning to our kitchens – sometimes to help us grieve, sometimes to find joy, and sometimes just for needed sustenance. But there’s something about baking in particular that has re-emerged as an incredible source of joy and heart.

My guest this week is Jerrod Blandino, and he is here to talk about how his personal experiences baking have transformed into something much bigger and community based.

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Jerrod is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Too Faced, a beauty brand he launched with Jeremy Johnson in 1998. Blandino got his start working behind the Estee Lauder makeup counter in the 1990s, and through working one-on-one with clients, he quickly discovered the transformative power that makeup had on women. While he loved working behind the counter, one of his main goals was to create a fun and unique makeup brand that would inject joy back into an industry that was rigidly defined by rules. With a credit card, laser-like focus, and a dream to celebrate and empower women, Too Faced Cosmetics was born.

Over twenty-two years, Blandino’s out of the box creativity helped pave the way to make the bran grow into a multi-million dollar business. Aside from Beauty, Blandino’s other greatest passion in life is baking, and many of Too Faced’s product names are a nod to this - if you’ve ever used Too Faced products, you’ll immediately think about the captivating food-inspired and infused scents that many of their products have – there are cocoa contours, peach eye shadow palettes, and cinnamon bear lip plumpers… it’s really like a candyland dream come true!

In 2019, he began baking more seriously, and started an IGTV series, #BakeupwithJerrod, which has racked up thousands of views and features celebrity guests. Today, Jerrod is here to talk about his revamped IGTV Bakeup series, and shares how he takes inspiration from the beauty of the natural world to bring to his beauty and baking experiences. I don’t know if it’s obvious yet, but I’m a huuuge fan of Too Faced cosmetics, so being able to interview Jerrod on the intersections of beauty and food is really a dream come true for me!

Learn More About #BakeupwithJerrod!

88: Re-imagining Colonial Binaries in the Relationship Between Sikhi and Alcohol with Manvinder Gill

“To be a Punjabi male means that you can drink a lot, it’s a sign of your masculinity. It’s perpetuated through Punjabi music, through the upper caste Jat identity… This idea that this infallible text is telling me I can’t drink alcohol - that’s not a concept that’s easily graspable. It becomes an unhelpful conversation to say that Sikhi says no to alcohol, because there are all these other facets playing a role. ”
— Manvinder Gill
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What role does religion play in cultural attitudes and practices towards drinking alcohol? Is it possible to look at one element without accounting for the other? And how does gender inform how religious and cultural identities are understood or enforced? 

My guest this week is Manvinder Gill, a researcher interested in the intersections of alcohol and Sikhi. She recently finished her MA in religious studies at McMaster University. Her thesis interrogated the ways colonialism and intergenerational trauma influence problems with alcohol in the Sikh-Canadian community. Outside of the academy, Manvinder is the co-lead at Asra: The Punjabi Alcohol Resource (asranow.ca), a grassroots organization that serves as a starting point for Punjabi families who struggle with alcohol use. Currently, Manvinder is pursuing her Master of Social Work at the University of Toronto.

She's on the show today to explore the results of this research, highlighting the complexities of alcohol consumption and problems with alcohol for Sikh-Canadian communities, the role that masculinity plays in this relationship, and how the colonial binaries of good/bad can be re-imagined for better harm reduction approaches. 

Learn more about Manvinder!