The Ottawa Good Food Box held a “contemporary aboriginal dinner” at the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health on Oct. 16, highlighting the need for better access to nutritious, locally grown food and other ways to promote healthy eating.
The event marked World Food Day as guests enjoyed traditional indigenous cuisine, Three Sisters soup and bannock, prepared by caterers at the Wabano Centre. The Douglas Cardinal-designed facility, which opened last year on Montreal Road in Vanier, serves the health-care needs of about 10,000 aboriginal people annually from throughout the national capital area.
The Ottawa Good Food Box is a non-profit organization that buys top quality fruits and vegetables from local farmers and wholesalers and resells them to residents at wholesale prices.
Natasha Beaudin, a co-ordinator for the program, says it sells more than 500 food boxes a month, which reach about 1,500 people across Ottawa. Residents can choose from different-sized food boxes depending on the number of people in their family.
About 60 people were in attendance at the event at the Wabano Centre, which is also one of the food box pick-up sites.
Beaudin says the event was supposed to be a conversation-starter about good food and local food systems.
“We wanted to mark World Food Day and we thought what better way than to have some really inspirational speakers, some delicious food and get together to talk about good food in our neighbourhoods,” she says.
World Food Day was established by the United Nations in 1981 to increase awareness of world famine and poverty and inspire solutions for change.
“We hope people who came out to the event will think about our food systems and how we can improve it. We’re hoping people had some really good conversations about what works in each of our neighbourhoods and also got inspired by our speakers,” she says.
Beaudin says the aim of the non-profit program is to support local farmers and help people get good value for their money.
FoodShare Toronto runs a similar program. Afua Asantewaa, a co-ordinator at FoodShare, was a guest speaker at the event.
She talked about FoodShare’s partnership with True North Co-op in Fort Albany, Ont. – located near James Bay – to make fresh produce accessible in indigenous communities in northern Ontario.
“It’s prudent to highlight this partnership on World Food Day because in a so-called first world country, Canada continues to treat indigenous communities as second-class citizens based on the discrimination and racism they consistently experience accessing a basic right such as food,” says Asantewaa.
FoodShare Toronto helped the Ottawa Good Food Box develop and implement its new Market Mobile – a bus transformed into a moving grocery store that brings fresh and affordable food to Ottawa neighbourhoods that don’t have as much access to fresh produce.
“In the ongoing struggle of grassroots organizations to make food systems just at all levels, the Ottawa Market Mobile is providing healthy food options to communities that are most at need: low-and fixed-income communities,” Asantewaa says.
Robin Turner, owner of Roots and Shoots, an organic vegetable farm in Manotick, was also a guest speaker at the event. He spoke about his experience with local food systems in Ottawa.
“There’s a lot of opportunity and support for local food systems in Ottawa. We’ve been able to grow our business quite quickly and develop a great customer base,” he says.
Turner is involved with the Ontario Certified Supported Agriculture Farm Directory, which supplies families all over Ottawa with fresh produce on a weekly basis.
“I think it’s really important for fresh produce to get to as many people as possible,” Turner says, “and I think once people get hooked on cooking with vegetables that they’re going to start looking for the best quality, flavour and taste.”