A Life Change

Food is something that is important to our well being as a necessity of life but is often not paid attention to.  I was born and raised in the city of Toronto and grew up thinking I knew everything about food and where it came from.  Little did I know that people around me and [...]

Read Full Post »

Toronto District School Board Food and Grounds Tour Review

Meghan the intern here again, bursting at the seams to talk to you about one of my latest adventures!  As a student whose academic background is based in Nutrition and Dietetics, I have experienced a steep learning curve when it comes to topics like urban agriculture and environmental sustainability.  Being introduced to these ways of thinking has [...]

Read Full Post »

School Gardens – What’s Nutrition Got To Do With It?

Greetings everyone – my name is Meghan and I’m an intern student from the Masters of Health Science in Nutrition Communication program at Ryerson University (whew, that’s a mouthful!). I’ve been asked to write a blog entry from the perspective of someone who focuses on the vital role that GTGK plays in child (or anybody’s!) [...]

Read Full Post »

The urban food-producing ecosystem

It’s important to remember the value of trees in our food-producing landscapes. I remember when Ecoschools first started, feeling like sometimes we were in conflict with the idea of planting more trees on school grounds, because we were thinking about the sun and the annual food plants that need 6-8 hours of it to produce. [...]

Read Full Post »

Growing Up Together May 13: Digging into healthy snacks and healthy soils

Next Friday! If you’re a teacher or educator there are a couple spots left! Please register. Information is on the flyer below.

Read Full Post »

A deliciously warm autumn in the school food gardens

The school food gardens in east downtown Toronto have been blessed with an exceptionally long and warm autumn, making for a lot of harvested greens, fruits and vegetables like mouse melons, tomatoes, ground-cherries, sunberries, peppers, lemon cucumbers, lettuce, beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, okra, coriander, Chinese chives, Tulsi and Genovese basil, dill, bok choy, thyme, and [...]

Read Full Post »

School gardens and healthier school menus go hand in hand!

Rebecca Jones wrote this great article in Education News Colarado on how introducing healthier school menus is not enough in getting children to eat more healthily and nutritiously.  Researchers at the Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Center for Weight and Health at the University of California at Berkeley found that implementing school food gardens and [...]

Read Full Post »

Article sur le Centre Francophone et le jardin commencé à Allan Gardens

The lovely Candice Nsongo, Community Health Worker at the Centre Francophone de Toronto(CFT), was featured in an article in L’Express, the French language Toronto newspaper. (Suite en Français) The Centre Francophone de Toronto published a second edition manual on where to  get ethnocultural foods in Toronto, i.e. Répertoire des aliments et épiceries ethnoculturels. This manual [...]

Read Full Post »

Youth Health Navigator Event – August 25th, 5:30 – 9 pm

As a product of the Food4Health Equity Project facilitated in partnership with Green Thumbs Growing Kids and the Wellesley Institute the Youth Navigator Event, held on August 25th, is a Food and Health Celebration where 11 youth from St. James Town will share food and health stories gathered through gardening, photography, video and blogging. The event will showcase photographs, [...]

Read Full Post »

Summer Youth & Good Times

Goodness. It’s August! We’ve had Sarah, Jijo, J.J., Amanuel, Winston, Jiawen, Abie and Sail, the youth we’ve co-hired with Youth Voices Research Group, for over 5 weeks and it’s been fantastic. I am not sure how we managed not to have as much assistance in past summers! They’ve really been instrumental in the success of [...]

Read Full Post »