Masterchef Mama?

This year, I started watching Masterchef Canada. I heard there was going to be a food blogger on it, so thought I would check it out. I didn't expect to get hooked and I certainly didn't expect my kids to express an interest. I did and they did though and it has now become a weekly routine to watch the show together. "You should be on Masterchef, Mama," they say to me. But should I be?

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Canadian Government Forced to Review Safety of 23 Pesticides

Environmental groups in Canada have forced the federal government to review 23 ingredients that are used in 383 different pesticide products approved for sale in Canada. These pesticides have been banned in European countries and the environmental groups (David Suzuki Foundation and Equiterre, represented by Ecojustice lawyers) won a legal challenge which will force the Canadian government to review their safety.

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Food: We're Doing It Wrong -- Fast Food Marketing, Poverty, and Food Security

Two significant food-related reports were released today. One of them, Fast Food Facts, looks at fast food marketing in the United States and found that the industry spent $4.2 billion on advertising in 2012. The other one, Hunger Count, looks at food bank use in Canada and found that 833,098 people turned to a food bank in Canada in March 2013. These reports are both significant because they point to important issues relating to health and food security in North America. They are related because our capitalist society values and promotes advertising as increasing choice, while at the same time continuing to support an unsustainable food system that ensures low income families have little to no choice.

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Can We Talk About the Parental Food Police?

I never aspired to a career in law enforcement. The whole idea of trying to police a set of sometimes logical and sometimes arbitrary laws through a combination of rule setting, surveillance, "keeping the peace", and punishment gives me the hives. But when it comes to food and children, I sometimes (often, actually) feel like the parental food police. How do I change that?

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