Latest / The Future Herd / 24: The Grocery Store Is a Media Environment: What Sociology Reveals About Food, Power, and Choice with Alissa Overend

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24: The Grocery Store Is a Media Environment: What Sociology Reveals About Food, Power, and Choice with Alissa Overend · The Future Herd

0:00
Jesse Hirsh: Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsch.
0:03
Welcome to The Future Herd.
0:07
Here's something I think about a lot.
0:10
We all eat every single day, ideally multiple times a day, and yet most
0:16
of us have almost no idea what's actually shaping the choices we make.
0:21
We think we're just grabbing groceries, we think we're just feeding our families.
0:26
But what if the whole system, the store and layout, the packaging, the
0:30
advertising, the ownership structures behind the brands, what if all of it
0:35
is doing something to us that we've never really stopped to examine?
0:39
That question is exactly why I wanted to talk to today's guest.
0:44
Alyssa Over end is a sociologist at McEwen University in Edmonton, and she works at
0:50
this genuinely fascinating intersection of food, health, media, and power.
0:55
She didn't set out to study food, she started in sports, then followed a
1:01
thread through health research, and it was her interview subjects themselves
1:05
who kept pulling her back to food over and over, a unprompted and spontaneous.
1:12
That kind of moment when the evidence tells you where to look is
1:16
the mark of a top tier researcher one worth paying attention to.
1:21
And what Alyssa brings to the conversation about food is something the AgriFood
1:26
sector doesn't always get to hear.
1:28
From a critical eye trained on the social life of food, not just what we eat, but
1:35
what our food says about who we are, who has power, who gets left out, and
1:40
how the stories were told by industry, by media, by the grocery store itself,
1:46
quietly shape what we believe is true.
1:50
And in a moment when food security is rising, when consolidation is reshaping
1:55
who controls our food supply, which of my dogs is gonna yell during an intro?
2:00
And when Canadians are paying more attention than ever to what's on
2:04
their plates and where it comes from, that perspective feels urgent.
2:09
And Harriet, my Bernedoodle agrees.
2:12
So what does a sociologist see when she walks into a grocery store
2:17
that the rest of us are missing?
2:19
Let's find out.
2:23
Alissa, welcome to The Future Heard.
2:25
Alissa: Happy to be here.
2:26
Thanks for having me.
2:27
Jesse Hirsh: Now, I like to start every episode with what I call my
2:31
Rorschach test question, which bluntly is, what does the future mean to you?
2:38
Alissa: Oh, that is a bit of a black hole some days and a maybe
2:44
more optimistic one some days.
2:47
You know, I think, uh, the future is what we make it.
2:51
I think the future is, is what we hope it will be or imagine it to be.
2:57
And the future is also totally unknown.
3:00
I think some of the things that we see now will continue and other things that
3:04
we can never imagine will, will find their way and, and we'll deal with them.
3:09
Um, so it's a, a bit of a known and a bit of the unknown.
3:13
Jesse Hirsh: Right on, right on.
3:14
Fantastic answer.
3:15
And, uh, i- in terms of your research interests, I mean, you cross a number
3:21
of different subjects, a number of areas that I, I'm quite eager to not
3:24
only get into, but, but connect, uh, in, in terms of the larger big picture.
3:30
But I do like to kinda use my follow-up question as a
3:33
kind of lore or origin frame.
3:37
in your case, it kind of feels that while you do have, like, I, I do
3:43
wanna talk methodology, for example, like qualitative methodologies is an
3:46
area I've always been fascinated by.
3:48
But how did food end up being one of the through lines of the
3:53
different types of research that you have done and continue to do?.
3:58
Alissa: Yeah, great question.
3:59
And, and it's clear you've done your research too.
4:02
Um, I started out actually, and I, I tell this to students a lot in,
4:06
in sort of first and second year courses, and, and maybe this links
4:09
to my answer about the future.
4:11
I think a pattern emergen- emerges over time on our kind of career trajectories,
4:17
if that's what we wanna call them.
4:18
But very few people have a career that's sort of a, a straight line from point A to
4:23
point B. I started out in sports studies.
4:28
Uh, they always say, study something you know.
4:30
And I was interested in sort of equity around sport and sociology of sport,
4:34
which I didn't even know was a topic in high school and founded in university.
4:38
So I followed that through my MA. And then I made perhaps a
4:43
conscious decision at one point.
4:44
Sport was something I loved.
4:46
And the more you study something, you also see, you know, there's equity
4:50
issues in sport and gender inequity and racial in- inequality and all the stuff
4:54
around trans rights and all of this.
4:56
And, and sort of I think I wanted sport to just be this, this happy
5:01
place, um, that I escaped to.
5:04
It was also somewhat strategic.
5:06
You know, I think as a, as a grad student, the question, especially
5:09
in the humanities, is like, "What are you gonna do with this?
5:12
" Um, and there was a lot more opportunity availability in health.
5:18
There seemed to be more health funding.
5:20
So I made the shift from sports studies to food study, or sorry, from
5:24
sports studies to health studies.
5:26
And it was actually a question in my PhD research, I studied
5:31
undefined health, uh, illness.
5:33
So people that had an illness but couldn't get a medical diagnosis.
5:37
And I was interested in sort of broader critiques of Western medicine and some
5:40
of these things, which I think, you know, Western medicine does some things
5:44
very well, but chronic pain, chronic illness, they're pretty bad at it.
5:49
And I was asking people how they made sense of their illness.
5:53
I didn't specifically go in asking about food.
5:57
And almost verbatim every interview, people were telling me detailed,
6:03
detailed, thoughtful accounts about how they used food to manage this
6:07
undiagnosed, undefined illness.
6:10
And that's ultimately what kind of kicked me into food studies.
6:14
It was around the same time, uh, that the dairy industry, I don't know, many
6:19
of you may remember this, they did a God enough milk campaign and they were using
6:23
milk or billboards that said, uh, "Fight colorectal cancer and drink milk." And as
6:29
a critical, you know, media, uh, studies or, uh, a critical intake of information,
6:35
I'm like, "Wait a second, this is actually like pretty false information."
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And that's what sort of got me down the road of, of sort of food politics.
6:43
So that's a long-winded answer to say I, I bumped around a bit, I followed
6:47
interesting threads and then really just as the connections, I still
6:51
define myself, uh, as a, as a health sociologist, but I do have a subset-
6:55
specialisation in food because to me you can't separate health and food.
6:59
They're, they're really one and the same.
7:01
Jesse Hirsh: Well, and it, and it's a great narrative because it,
7:03
it speaks to how the researcher really listens to the evidence.
7:06
And it kinda led you on this path of not only, you know, looking at, to
7:12
your point, the chronic health people, but also the media space, because
7:16
both, I think, are part of a symbiotic relationship of how people think about
7:21
food and think about their health.
7:24
A- and I agree, I, I previously would never have thought about the sociology
7:28
of sport, although it is an area that is gaining quite a bit of ground, but
7:32
you're also the first guest that I could say, "Well, what is the sociology of
7:36
food?" I think that is an area that, again, w- while it does have quite a bit
7:42
of scholarship to it, I suspect a lot of people in the agrifood sector may not
7:47
have heard of it or may not be familiar with the area of study and the, the kind
7:52
of insights and the kind of value that it provides to how we think about our food
7:58
value chain, not to mention, you know, taking care of everyone in a society..
8:03
Alissa: Yeah.
8:03
Y- you know what?
8:04
I get that question a lot, Jesse.
8:05
So what, what is sociology for people that don't know or what is
8:08
sociology of, of sport or of food?
8:11
I think when we think about food, we've been taught to think about it
8:14
in really sort of biochemical ways.
8:17
And you see this a lot in the side of packaging information.
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So whether we're looking at food to what's in it, the ingredients,
8:26
the percentage of daily intake and calories and these sorts of things.
8:30
And we've sort of tipped very far to a kind of scientific understanding of
8:34
food, um, and that's certainly there.
8:37
We need food to survive and, and obviously we understand the effects of fibre and
8:43
vitamin C and, and all of the crays around protein and, and other nutrients.
8:48
But food is of course also not just biochemical or
8:52
scientific, it's very social.
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And I think most people can relate to that when you think of your favourite, you
8:59
know, your comfort food or your favourite food, it's often a family food or a food
9:03
that brings you back to childhood or a cultural food that, that you have pride in
9:08
making or that you've learned from often your grandmothers or mothers, though not
9:13
exclusively, uh, or a food that's used only in particular times of the year.
9:17
And so I think it, it brings us into the social very, very quickly.
9:22
We also know that food can link to identity, whether you're
9:25
looking, again, cultural identity.
9:27
There's been a lot written on the links sort of between, uh,
9:30
masculinity and meat and the assumption that if you eat vegetables or a
9:35
vegetarian, that it's more feminised.
9:37
So I think there's ways in which the social is always coded onto food.
9:42
Um, right now with the rising rates of food insecurity, food also links us
9:47
to class and equality and poverty and sort of who gets to eat well, quote
9:52
unquote, in, in this day and age.
9:54
Uh, food links us to the environment, so how much food we waste, how we understand
10:01
where food comes from, how it grows, our connections to the land, um, to composting
10:07
systems, et cetera, and so forth.
10:09
So as a, you know, I'm in a sociology department, but I would say I'm
10:12
an interdisciplinary scholar.
10:14
And to me, when you pick up any food item, whether it's coffee or
10:18
bananas or your favourite bread, you can kind of pull a bunch of
10:23
different threads from that one item.
10:26
Um, and it, if we pause to think about it, you know, how did that
10:30
cup of coffee arrive and what are the politics of, of sort of food?
10:34
So it can link us to those sort of more globalised questions.
10:39
It can also link us to very personal questions.
10:42
Um, you know, and there's also links around food and disease,
10:45
as I've mentioned, um, or, uh, food disorders or, uh, anorexia,
10:51
bulimia, those types of things.
10:53
So, you know, we, we could talk, uh, in circles, uh, for a long time about the
10:58
connections between food and the social.
11:00
That's my medium length answer on that one.
11:03
Jesse Hirsh: Which I say challenge accepted.
11:06
Uh, uh, i- in no small part, because the way you describe it, p- perhaps
11:11
self-evident to you because you, you get to play in this playground
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all the time in terms of drawing the connections between food and
11:18
culture and economics and politics.
11:21
And, w- w- what strikes me as fascinating to this, and, and I'll, I'll phrase this
11:26
in a form of a follow-up, is I think on the one hand, the social dynamics of food
11:32
are self-evident because of how we eat and who we eat with and what we choose to eat.
11:38
the way you described it, I think for the individual would, would
11:43
require a level of self-awareness I think most people don't have.
11:46
Or, or I'll even be more critical that I think the industry doesn't
11:50
want to imagine that people have.
11:53
Like, like, they like to imagine that consumers are kind of dumb, that they
11:56
don't know where their food comes from, that they make decisions purely on prices,
12:01
but you, you're describing research that goes much deeper than that and, and, and
12:06
speaks to a kind of intersectionality of how these decisions are made.
12:11
if, if I could take that rambling and, and throw it in, into kind of a question,
12:16
role does media play in all of this?
12:19
'Cause you alluded earlier, you're sort of a lens as a critical media
12:23
scholar, or at least someone who likes to entertain that dynamic.
12:27
Y- you've described food because you have the benefit of being an interdisciplinary
12:32
researcher, think most people experience food through media, through advertising.
12:38
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that or the kind of research or the
12:41
way it impacts your research in terms of the media culture around food that
12:47
fundamentally impacts our social, let alone our political economy around food.
12:52
I, I gotta shut up.
12:52
I'm rambling.
12:53
Please bail me up..
12:55
Alissa: No, I love it.
12:56
I love it.
12:56
There's a definitely a couple threads I could, uh, pick up on.
13:00
You know, I immediately come to the sort of government regulations around
13:03
advertising and, and, you know, in this day and age, there are none,
13:07
but at a certain point in history, we did see, uh, regulations around
13:13
what could be advertised to kids, particularly in the little commercial
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blocks between their favourite shows.
13:20
And I believe it was the Nixon era in the US.
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And as Canadians, uh, we like to see ourselves as very different from the US,
13:30
which in some important ways, I also like to think we are, and let's hold onto that.
13:35
Um, but also, we are the largest importer of American television, and, and so
13:40
there's a lot more overlap in our culture.
13:43
We can also see how much, even, you know, from our childhood, how many
13:47
American stores have entered Canada, um, through that in the last Canadian
13:52
US Mexico agreement, so the update on the 1980s NAFTA agreement, we
13:58
also see American products entering.
14:00
And so there's a lot more blurring, uh, and fluidity between American
14:05
food and Canadian food that I think most people realise.
14:08
And going back to that advertising, uh, the Nixon era did lift regulations.
14:13
And so if you ever watch kids' shows or for whatever reasons, you
14:17
will see a lot more advertising.
14:19
And that tends to be around things like sugary cereals, which if
14:23
you look at the front of, um, box advertising, is also a form of media.
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And so we tend to think of media as this, you know, commercials.
14:32
Most people don't consume it in that way.
14:34
It may be pop-up ads, but the grocery store itself and packaging itself has
14:38
become a form of an advertisement.
14:41
And so a lot of the cereal companies, uh, granola bars are another one, you know,
14:46
flashy front of cover images, health claims, so made with whole grain oats, but
14:52
then they're still chock full of sugar.
14:54
So unless you're really going in with a fine tooth comb and, and a lot of
14:59
people aren't, grocery stores are kind of harried and people rush in and rush
15:04
out, they're not meant to kind of linger.
15:06
Uh, a lot of those sweetened cereals are also placed at l-
15:09
sort of eye level manipulation for kids who come with their parents.
15:13
And, you know, psychologists have shown time and time again that, you know,
15:16
the more kids ask for a cereal, the parents will be like, "Okay, you can
15:20
have your cocoa puffs or whatever it is, um, that, that you've been seeing
15:24
and that you, you have access to.
15:26
" So I think there's been a lot targeted towards, um, kids.
15:31
Uh, I watch some, you know, uh, streamed shows and you're starting to see ads
15:36
in there and it tends to be fast food.
15:39
Uh, you never see an ad for an apple, uh, because we know those
15:43
are healthy and an apple never also has to say that it is healthy.
15:46
It's just sort of assumed we all know it is.
15:49
So I think when you see products like granola bars, um, that try a
15:53
little too hard to say that they're healthy, there should be something
15:56
that's sort of triggering to say, "Well, why, why are they trying
15:59
to convince me so much of this?
16:01
Um, so I think that can be really skewing for people, especially when you get names
16:06
that are themselves a form of advertising.
16:09
So nature's valley or honey and oats, but it's actually sugar and oats, but
16:14
honey's in there, it's just further down.
16:16
So I think, uh, the sort of naming language and the, uh, the package
16:20
advertising is, is a really big form of media right now for food.
16:25
Jesse Hirsh: Well, and I'd love to hear you elaborate on the
16:28
kinda grocery store as cultural environment, as media environment.
16:33
And, and I say this because I experienced a, a little bit of cultural awareness
16:38
a- around that when I moved from the city to where I now live in, in rural
16:43
Eastern Ontario, because in the city, my grocery experience was, as you described,
16:48
it was in and out as quick as possible.
16:50
I had the whole place mapped.
16:51
I knew exactly which products I wanted.
16:54
It was a very strategic operation now, not only do I go slow
17:00
because I'm researching, right?
17:02
I'm looking at all the food, I'm kinda attention to how inventory
17:07
moves, because I'm interested in this stuff, it's also a social space.
17:11
It's a third space.
17:12
Like I watch neighbours connect.
17:14
I watch, you know, people have these social interactions.
17:17
Like it's a different vibe and, and I'm sure there's a spectrum
17:21
of grocery experiences across the country, but my point is, it is
17:25
a kind of cultural environment.
17:27
It is a kind of media environment and, and you kind of evoked
17:30
that in your description.
17:31
So I'd love for you to unpack that further because I didn't really
17:35
think about it until you said it.
17:36
I'm sure there's a lot of other people who take the grocery store
17:39
really kind of for granted..
17:42
Alissa: Yeah, it becomes this mundane part of living.
17:46
You know, you just pop to the grocery store, but it is a very curated
17:50
environment, not unlike an Ikea that has you kind of mazing around
17:55
the store to see different things.
17:57
And grocery stores are set up in a very particular way, and that's why
18:02
we see them as somewhat consistent.
18:04
So you tend to come into the fruit and vegetable aisle, um, bright colours, uh,
18:10
you get the sense of a kind of market.
18:13
And I think your experience of rural, uh, grocery store reminds
18:16
me more of a farmer's market.
18:18
People do linger.
18:19
They have a nice cup of coffee.
18:21
They talk to the people about what's in season or what do you do
18:24
with, you know, kale or eggplant or whatever it is that you're buying.
18:28
Um, and you run into neighbours and those types of things.
18:31
It's a bit more leisurely, but the box stores that we're seeing
18:34
today do not have that feel.
18:37
Um, you do see advertising in the store.
18:39
I mentioned the, the front of packaging, um, form of, of advertising, but
18:45
there's also words around, um, you know, local, prices can't be beat.
18:51
Uh, there's those types of subtle things that are also playing into, and
18:54
maybe you don't kind of consciously pick them up, but you are aware
18:58
of those things unconsciously as you're moving through the space.
19:01
So, uh, the psychology of grocery stores tends to be around things like
19:07
the size of the carts are massive.
19:09
I was at a kind of larger store.
19:11
I'm only 5'2".
19:13
And this cart was so big and they, they want that because they
19:16
want you to be able to fill it.
19:18
So there's this idea that, um, you know, the bigger the
19:21
cart, the more you'll fill it.
19:23
They want you to start at the fruit and vegetables because I think if you buy some
19:27
healthy things, then you may, you know, go through the middle aisles, which tends to
19:30
be more and more of those packaged things.
19:32
And if you think back or look back, a lot of our grocery stores, and I
19:37
don't have the exact statistic now, but it's, I would say, you know,
19:41
three quarters or 75% of the stuff that's in grocery stores is all that
19:47
prepackaged, globalised food, cereals, uh, crackers, uh, granola bars, pop, chips.
19:55
And I remember chip ailes as a kid.
19:57
I love potato chips, um, but there are whole, whole aisles of potato chips now.
20:02
It's sort of, uh, definitely sprouted.
20:05
And yeah, you might get your bakery aisle and your meat aisle and, and
20:09
the veggie, but a lot of it is sort of set up, um, based on this idea
20:14
of, like, buying some of those, what some people call pseudo foods.
20:18
They're, they're edible, but there's a lot of stuff in there that,
20:20
that may not be great for us in, in large doses in the long haul.
20:24
Uh, the music that's playing, the sort of deals, uh, this idea that,
20:28
you know, the, the sort of r- loyalty rewards, so you continually go back to
20:32
the same store in part, I think as you mentioned, like, it's really disorienting
20:37
going in a new store and you're like, "I have no idea where anything is.
20:39
So knowing where you're going, but also this idea that you
20:42
might get, like, you know, little rewards or something kicked back.
20:46
Um, what else?
20:48
Eye level manipulation, so the, the sort of, um, eye level
20:52
stuff, the end displays pairing.
20:55
So you'll often see chips and pop, uh, very close together, uh,
20:59
again, that people will buy one and then, and then need the other.
21:02
So there's sort of a lot going on, um, within grocery stores
21:06
than, than most people realise.
21:09
Jesse Hirsh: And one of the things I've noticed as, uh, again, someone
21:12
who's now really paying close attention to not just how m- the grocery store
21:17
I go to is configured, but how it changes, on some levels it, it does
21:22
feel like a canary in the coal mine when it comes to food insecurity.
21:26
And, you know, we've had a number of guests on the show recently as
21:30
we've dug deeper into both sides, the food insecurity and what it
21:33
would take to achieve food security.
21:35
And, you know, we've been trying to sort of build a larger kind of knowledge base
21:40
to understand the policy implications, but I'm, I'm curious, you know, from ... We've
21:46
been talking about the grocery store, you know, initially as one of the ways
21:50
in which it shapes people's perceptions of food and then the kind of media and
21:54
cultural environment, but, you know, back to the interdisciplinary, what are
21:58
the other signals or what are the other areas, either in your research or the
22:02
areas of research you pay attention to kind of suggest grocery stores are a, a,
22:09
a, a node, a, a metric in terms of helping to understand, you know, food insecurity
22:14
and the larger, uh, ability as a society of whether we are feeding ourselves,
22:18
feeding each other effectively..
22:21
Alissa: Well, I think in a, in a capitalist system, you
22:23
have to look at ownership.
22:24
Um, and we've seen this in pharmaceuticals.
22:27
So, uh, the, the large, you know, five manufacturers control a vast majority.
22:34
We see that in media.
22:35
So the big five of media control, what stories, um, are shared and what
22:40
aren't, which is why, you know, small scale or grassroots local media,
22:44
uh, programmes are, are fantastic.
22:46
And we also see this in food, and most people don't realise that, um, you
22:50
know, uh, in Canada, even the large five grocery stores control 80% of the market.
22:57
And so some of those smaller mom and pop shops, which I think, you know, as you
23:02
say, have a different feel or a different vibe, uh, they tend to be more family
23:06
owned, uh, they tend to be smaller.
23:08
They really can't compete.
23:10
And so you see these large companies really buying out smaller ones,
23:14
and we've seen that with the loss of some of those smaller stores.
23:18
Um, also in terms of what happens outside the grocery store, you're starting to see,
23:23
it wasn't that long ago in the history of Canada where more families farmed.
23:29
Um, and now because of the politics of the way food is
23:34
grown, it's very, very expensive.
23:37
So things like monocropping, uh, to be able to compete, you need large
23:41
machinery, you also, you know, need to be conte- cons- connected, excuse
23:46
me, to Monsanto products in some way, um, and that becomes very difficult.
23:51
So a lot of smaller farms are going out of business to the point where we
23:55
have very few Canadian farmers left.
23:57
And, you know, that might be okay in the immediate interim, but when we do see the
24:05
large food systems start to break down, which we have through the pandemic, that
24:10
was a little bit of a, of a warning sign.
24:13
Uh, it's not a perfect system.
24:15
We also see, uh, delays due to war, uh, fuel anytime there are, uh, fuel
24:21
increases, price, uh, prices are intricately licked to that because
24:26
our food comes from so far away.
24:27
And so it actually doesn't make any sense to be bringing food from, from so far.
24:31
We need to be really supporting food sovereignty movements, which are local,
24:36
uh, locally controlled, locally owned, community minded and all of those things
24:41
that, that grocery stores really aren't.
24:43
And, you know, one of the things that really, uh, gets my goat, I guess,
24:47
about grocery stores, which I didn't mention in the last question, but
24:50
came to me in this question, they do a lot of things with community.
24:54
And you, you hear them saying, "We donated all this money to the food bank or to
24:59
boys and girls clubs and these kinds of things." And they do that for PR largely.
25:04
You even see that in some of their advertisements.
25:06
You'll see, you know, Darrell or one of the owners in a family environment saying,
25:11
you know, "My family's like your family."
25:13
But literally these, a lot of these owners are in, they're billionaires.
25:17
Um, they're making money off the fact that many people are still having, uh,
25:21
difficult time actually accessing food.
25:23
So that sort of bothers me because I think people like the idea
25:27
that food is a community or it is locally produced and locally grown.
25:31
And I think some grocery stores may be making efforts to have some locally
25:37
sourced products, but again, it comes back to the consumer to, to sort of look
25:40
at the ads or the, um, the tags and say, you know, "Is this US produced or Canadian
25:45
produced?" Um, and those types of things.
25:48
So I think, um, you know, grocery stores make it very, very difficult for local
25:53
food security and make it difficult for some of those local farms, um,
25:58
to really succeed, although we are seeing a bit of an upswing in things
26:02
like community supported agriculture and farmer's markets and those types
26:06
of things, in part because of taste.
26:08
You know, I think that's one of the first things that consumers will say
26:11
in that the quality of particularly produce, you know, tomatoes, peppers,
26:16
uh, lettuce, to me, those things, they don't taste right a lot of the time
26:20
when you buy them at, at a large store.
26:23
They may have a long shelf life, but they, they taste kind of empty.
26:26
And I mean, they're pulled or picked early and, and shipped for
26:29
a long time, so they, they have lost a lot of that taste or value.
26:33
And I think when you taste a, a farmer's market tomato, you're like, "Oh, it's
26:37
so good." And I think, um, people start to use that as a, as a marker as well.
26:45
Jesse Hirsh: And relatedly, it does make me wonder if the kind of AstroTurf
26:51
campaigns that dominate a lot of the Canadian grocery system, if they're
26:56
just not as effective, because I do see people kind of dismissing them and
27:00
even being derisive a- as a parallel to your point of that when you try
27:05
food that is l- grown locally, that is, you know, uh, uh, coming from a
27:10
different process, it tastes different.
27:12
But l- let me take one step back before we take one step forward.
27:17
suspect that
27:18
Alissa: So we hear food sovereignty, uh, in part around indigenous food
27:50
sovereignty or black food sovereignty.
27:52
So groups that have been especially, um, vulnerable to some of the food
27:56
shortages we've seen, uh, the situation in Canada's north or remote communities
28:01
is, is absolutely abysmal when it comes to food security, uh, decades of
28:06
government, um, not in action, but sort of ill-guided action on, on foods, trying
28:12
to promote store-bought or southern foods.
28:15
So, uh, that's, you know, uh, I think the rates in, uh, many places in Canada's
28:21
north are the highest rates of documented food insecurity in a developed country.
28:26
And we have to remind ourselves that Canada is a wealthy nation.
28:30
We are also a large, uh, exporter of quality food.
28:34
So what, what is happening?
28:35
And I think one of the key things that I like to instil, in this day
28:40
and age, it's not a lack of food.
28:42
The global food system produces more food than we ever have, but half of that food
28:47
or close to half of that food is wasted.
28:49
It's thrown out.
28:50
It doesn't get to where it needs to get to.
28:52
So it's not that we have a lack of food, we have a lack of food access,
28:56
and that gets us into some of these politics of sort of globalised food
29:01
systems, the reliance on store bought or prepackaged food, the removal from
29:06
farming or more local food systems.
29:09
So, uh, food sovereignty, sovereign is this sort of independent or, um,
29:15
more locally controlled food systems has been a sort of hot topic in food
29:19
studies for at least a couple of decades.
29:22
It focuses on many sort of pillars or, um, key values, so it prioritises, um,
29:33
the right to food as a fundamental human right, not as this kind of resource
29:38
to be extracted or sold for profit.
29:42
Again, going back to some of those big five, um, corporations, they
29:46
are profiting on, uh, on food.
29:48
And food for the most part is grown within, um, uh, a
29:53
fairly accessible system.
29:55
Nature produces food almost as a gift.
29:57
And if you come back to indigenous understandings of food, it, it is a gift.
30:02
It's a gift from the land and it's a gift from the earth and
30:04
it's part of that reciprocal relationship that we should have.
30:08
And I think grocery stores take us very far from that.
30:11
It's very transactional.
30:12
It's very devoid of any kind of exchange aside from an economic exchange.
30:18
Uh, the other pillar of food sovereignty is that it values food providers.
30:22
So those people that, uh, farm and harvest and hunt and those types of things have
30:27
deep knowledge on how to do these things.
30:29
And I think some of the craze around local gardening is bringing
30:33
back some of that food knowledge.
30:35
It localises food systems.
30:37
So again, that idea that it is a completely inefficient system
30:41
to bring bringing ... I know in, in Alberta and Canada, we get a
30:45
lot of our fruits and vegetables from Chile, uh, from South Africa.
30:49
These places are very, very far.
30:51
And yeah, we can't grow all things.
30:53
Uh, you know, coffee and tropical fruits and those types of things may, uh,
30:58
may always be something grown or flown in, but we can grow a lot of things.
31:03
And so it's about rebalancing the things that we can do locally, um,
31:07
so that when we do see larger scale issues like war or pandemics or border
31:12
closures and those types of things, is that we have our own food systems.
31:16
We're not waiting at the border for these things or they're not, um, vulnerable
31:20
to, uh, price increases in those things.
31:24
The decisions are also made locally, um, so consumers have an active part in
31:30
their food systems, unlike we see with the grocery store, uh, building food
31:34
skills and knowledge, so getting people more connected to the values of food,
31:38
to the values of growing, and sharing that knowledge intergenerationally.
31:42
And then finally, that connection with nature.
31:45
Um, I touched on this a little bit, like the inefficienc- inefficiencies,
31:48
but there's a huge invisible cost.
31:51
And yeah, the grocery store, uh, tomato might be 50 cents cheaper than the one
31:57
at the farmer's market, but I think as grocery store prices increase, we're
32:02
starting to see those things more on par, but the problem is, is that a lot of
32:06
invisible costs, uh, largely environmental ones that go into bringing that food from,
32:12
you know, thousands of kilometres away.
32:14
The pesticides that are used in that, uh, often the plastic packaging,
32:18
the food waste grocery stores will purposely overbuy, and they like
32:23
particular shapes and sizes, which apparently is consumer demand.
32:27
Um, so they'll throw out sort of misshapen or ugly vegetables and that, that
32:30
has huge environmental costs as well.
32:33
So, uh, the, the sort of traditional farms that we, the old McDonald farms
32:38
where there are some animals, some vegetables, those kinds of things
32:43
are very, very good for the land.
32:44
Uh, the large monocropping practises are terrible.
32:48
Whether you're looking at canola, soy, wheat, uh, almonds in California,
32:55
any of these avocados in Chile, um, they're terrible for ecosystems
32:59
because they're not an ecosystem.
33:01
They're a monocrop.
33:02
Um, and they're bad for bees and they're bad for pollinators,
33:05
they're bad for the soil, et cetera.
33:06
And I think there's a lot of those things that, that people don't realise
33:10
is, is part of that price point.
33:13
Jesse Hirsh: And this is, you know, as host where I'll validate what
33:16
you're saying and anticipate there may be some people in the audience
33:19
who are triggered, uh, by some of the connections and arguments you're
33:22
currently presenting, but there is a volumous amount of research that
33:27
substantiates all the things you're saying that, that speaks to my next question.
33:32
And this question's a bit of a paradox because on
33:35
Alissa: Sure.
33:36
Jesse Hirsh: hand, the, the industry that exists right now to use the word
33:42
collaboration, both as kind of proof that they're, what they're doing is
33:49
what should be done, but also as like a vision for the future of their industry.
33:57
Whereas you were just describing a level of collaboration, a, a level
34:02
of cross-sectoral collaboration, a level of, uh, uh, eater and producer
34:08
and everyone at the table level of collaboration that perhaps conceives of
34:14
collaboration in a much different way than the industry potentially frames it.
34:20
I'd love for you to address that.
34:22
A- and you could address it perhaps along the lines of, and maybe this
34:25
gets us to the, uh, uh, qualitative research methodologies part of the show,
34:29
which I will be getting to later, um, how does that collaboration happen?
34:33
How, how do we facilitate the level of participation in our food system
34:39
that, uh, a f- a food sovereignty kind of, uh, requires, enables
34:44
Uh, uh, uh, again, I'm gushing, but, but I think there's a lot of insights
34:48
here for the people who really do, uh, uh, believe in collaboration.
34:52
So please help me out.
34:55
Alissa: Yeah.
34:55
I'll, I'll go aside route and then I'll come back to your question.
34:59
Um, when you think about the history of food guides in Canada, to me, that's
35:03
an obvious example of how industry, uh, colludes with, uh, the government.
35:08
So if you look back to the food guides of the, the '90s and the early 2000s, well,
35:13
what features prominently, again, are those sugared cereals, uh, dairy, um, ice
35:19
cream was sort of, uh, actually featured visually in the 1992 edition, which is
35:24
like how absurd the ice cream, while it's delicious, it's not necessarily, uh, uh,
35:29
you know, a kind of healthy food product.
35:31
So there's been a history of, and literally when the food guide, um, people
35:35
met, there'd be members of industry.
35:37
There'd be someone from the dairy lobby, someone from the meat lobby sitting
35:40
literally at the table and devising, um, sort of the, the coloured bands.
35:45
And you can see over time that the shifting evidence of this, um, it is
35:49
not static because it's political.
35:52
And at one point, you know, the grains, we were to, to eat all of this, um,
35:57
I can't remember exactly, like eight to 12 servings of grain in a day,
36:01
which is an enormous amount of grain.
36:03
And, and you can see that as sort of the, the in- the industry, um, influencing.
36:08
In the most recent 2019 food guide, it was the first time they actually
36:13
collaborated with dietitians, with nutritionists, with, uh, food
36:16
scientists, and industry was not there.
36:19
And what do we see?
36:20
There were some controversies around the guide, but it was a much more,
36:24
uh, whole foods, so there weren't any gro- uh, grocery store products.
36:29
It was whole grains, whole foods, uh, meat was there, but it wasn't so centralised.
36:34
Dairy was there, but it wasn't so centralised that those things
36:37
can be part of a diet, but they shouldn't be your predominant diet.
36:40
So I think it's usually easier to look historically at the way these things have
36:46
happened, um, in formal collaboration.
36:50
And then in c- in terms of currently where we're seeing shifts around collaborations
36:54
towards more equitable food systems.
36:57
So some of those food systems change, um, alternative food networks.
37:02
There's some great organisations, uh, I'll give a shout out to Food Secure
37:05
Canada who do a lot of work, uh, collaborating with indigenous communities,
37:11
the government, with dietitians, with, um, food organisations to really
37:17
address the multitude of these issues.
37:19
The Right to Food Canada is another organisation and they just hosted a
37:23
conference, I wanna say in Ottawa, but somewhere in Ontario, um, last weekend,
37:30
and there were over 450 alternative food networks at the table, or many
37:36
tables talking about these issues.
37:38
Um, in some of the work that I've done on alternative food networks, I
37:42
emerged with the question of like, we know things like farmer's markets and
37:47
food forests and seed exchange exist, but they seem to be more prevalent.
37:52
And I was sort of interested in, like, what's there and how many are there.
37:56
And there's a tonne of them.
37:57
If people just even scratch the surface of their communities, I think a lot
38:02
of people will find community gardens, we'll find seed exchanges, we'll find
38:06
people that are passionate about these.
38:08
And, you know, I know even cities have done some urban food forests.
38:12
So, um, planting edible trees, it makes a lot of sense if people
38:15
are hungry rather than planting a decorative tree, plant an apple tree,
38:19
um, and then you can help feed people really healthy and nutritious things.
38:23
So I think those collaborations are happening in all kinds of ways.
38:27
And I think indigenous communities have long done stuff around food.
38:32
I think we do see anti-poverty movements also long doing things around food.
38:37
Uh, but those two organisations, uh, Food Secure Canada and the Right to
38:40
Food, uh, are both really central in, in kind of bringing together
38:45
a lot of those collaborations and communities, uh, currently.
38:50
Jesse Hirsh: Let me use that then to ask a, a kind of two-part
38:53
or a, a dual-pronged question.
38:55
I mean, given what you've said, or d- do you think that the current discourse
39:00
around, like, municipal grocery stores or public-owned grocery stores, like,
39:05
do you think that's aiming too low in the sense that it's still imagining
39:10
food delivery via the grocery store?
39:13
And maybe we should be thinking about even, you know, uh, more
39:16
original concepts, which begs the second part, you know, what are
39:20
the, the kinds of initiatives?
39:22
What are the, the, the, the kinds of, you know, interventions even
39:27
that you think communities could be focusing on and organising on as, uh,
39:31
awareness around the concept of food sovereignty starts to build and grow?.
39:36
Alissa: Yeah, those are great questions.
39:37
Um, I love your first question of whether, um, community grocery stores or
39:43
cooperative grocery stores or publicly funded grocery stores is too low.
39:47
And I, I wish we lived in a world where that isn't, that is too low
39:52
of a bar, but I think we've become so dependent on grocery stores.
39:57
And I, and I hear this, I see it in students' eyes.
39:59
You know, I say something about grocery stores and I don't, I don't think we're
40:04
at a point where we'll get rid of grocery stores, particularly, as I said, for
40:08
things that we can't grow here in Canada.
40:10
We do have a limited growing season, and I think we're dependent on
40:13
all kinds of things like coffee, um, although we could roast it
40:17
locally, we can't grow it locally.
40:18
So I think, um, you know, I always say, let's, let's not start that far.
40:23
That, that stresses people out.
40:24
Let's just, let's just tip the scales a little bit.
40:28
Um, we can all grow food, and this comes to your second question.
40:33
The best thing we can all do to take a little bit, um, of some of those
40:37
big, sticky, scary issues around the environment, around food security,
40:42
around food sovereignty, around politics, et cetera, we can all grow food.
40:47
Um, some people more than others, and I know that time poverty is a thing, and I
40:52
know that having, uh, access to land is a thing and access to tools, absolutely.
40:59
But I think, you know, whether you're looking at herbs in a
41:02
window box, uh, herbs are really expensive, and the grocery store
41:06
sells them in these massive amounts.
41:08
You often need a tablespoon of dill, but you're buying, you know like what seems
41:12
like a good, like a large amount, and then you either dry it or it goes to waste.
41:17
Uh, last summer, I did a bit of a garden and I just did lettuce.
41:21
Lettuce grew all summer.
41:22
I didn't buy one clamshell, plastic clamshell of lettuce.
41:26
So it's not a huge thing, but I'm only one person.
41:30
And if we all did a little bit, I also think that growing food
41:34
really connects you to neighbours.
41:35
Uh, the amount of times that, you know, you're like, "I have an extra
41:38
zucchini." And that will foster, uh, a dialogue or a connection to community.
41:43
So I think all of that in small doses brings us back to the, the roots
41:49
of food and the roots of community.
41:51
Um, I looked a little bit at public grocery stores and actually the United
41:55
States have been doing it and they do it on military bases and it saves,
42:00
um, those people like 25 to 30%.
42:04
And I'm like, that's, again, it's not gon- it's not the magic bullet solution.
42:09
There are no magic bullet solutions, but it helps.
42:11
And 25% on groceries, I think right now people would say, "Heck, yes. Like that
42:16
is a good chunk of money." Um, and the fact that they've already been doing it,
42:20
but for a very sort of select few does show that there is some promise there.
42:25
During the pandemic, uh, food security actually went down.
42:28
So we had a little, it was climbing right before, and then in 2021, it
42:34
went down because people were getting a version of a universal basic income.
42:38
And there's been research upon research that shows there's been pilot studies
42:42
that when you give people money to feed themselves, they actually do better.
42:46
And they can feed themselves in the way that, that suits them, that fits
42:49
their, their cultural diets, their personal preferences, et cetera.
42:53
So I think that's another way that politically we could be
42:56
looking to address food security.
42:58
Um, and in terms of those other things, um, some of my work or research
43:03
has sort of uncovered not only the abundance of things like food, um,
43:08
or community supported agriculture, farmer's markets are popular.
43:12
And if you go there on a Saturday or a Wednesday, there's people
43:15
there, and that's a good sign.
43:17
I think people are really, um, valuing that.
43:20
I think a lot of libraries have done some good work in things like seed banks.
43:24
There's also some community organisations that do things like tool sheds, uh,
43:29
where you can, you know, get those tools for free, free workshops.
43:33
Obviously, you can learn a lot about gardening on YouTube and the internet, so
43:37
we don't need a lot to be able to grow.
43:39
The seed itself is the magic.
43:41
We just sort of foster it.
43:43
Um, food pantries, food co-ops, food hubs, urban farms, um, food forests,
43:50
these are all some of the things that have already been going on.
43:53
And I think people just need to sort of look up and say, "What
43:57
else or what part of my food could I be getting, um, elsewhere?"
44:01
And I think it's a lot of little things add up.
44:03
I don't think social change is necessarily easy or overnight, but I, I do think
44:09
of it like a kind of, you, you kind of attack it from a, a mul- multiple angle.
44:13
And there's actually some good discourse.
44:15
I think people are fed up with grocery stores right now.
44:18
Um, not only did we see the bread price fixing scandal where grocery
44:22
stores purposely fix bread prices only by 10 cents, but again, it
44:27
made, made for millions of dollars.
44:29
And to me, that shows if we're not all buying our herbs or our lettuce
44:33
or our tomatoes or carrots or other things we can grow, it's a little bit
44:36
of money out, out of their pocket.
44:38
Um, they also got busted last week with a meat scandal as well, so,
44:43
uh, miswaiting the meat and pricing it at a different price point.
44:46
So these are criminal activities and they, uh, they continue to do this even
44:51
though their profits are very, very high.
44:52
So I think people are, are miffed, um, about that.
44:55
And I think you do get, uh, may- maybe it's idyllic, but a, a, a
44:59
very different experience in some of these other food, food systems.
45:02
And, and not just about food.
45:04
I think people are also lonely or isolated or disconnected.
45:10
A lot of us live far away from families, so our community becomes some of that.
45:14
And I think food does, you know, you meet your neighbours when you, when you're out
45:18
gardening and you talk about things and you try to offload your extra zucchini.
45:22
Um, and that, that fosters a relationship too.
45:25
Anyways, I'll, I'll stop there.
45:27
Jesse Hirsh: I was gonna say, or even better, invite them over for a meal,
45:30
a- and, and bond over food, which is another ancient cultural practise.
45:35
Now, I, I, you know, as we start to get to the close of any episode,
45:39
I usually like to sort of make open-ended questions to, you know,
45:44
Alissa: Sure.
45:44
Jesse Hirsh: to go in directions that maybe I didn't anticipate.
45:47
And, and in your case, I'm doing it a little earlier, uh, uh, except my question
45:52
is a little more focused, which I, when I was researching, uh, yourself and
45:57
your research interests, I was very much fascinated by not just the range of areas,
46:03
but the way in which you connect them all.
46:06
So to articulate that in the form of a question, are there other areas of
46:12
your research or research interests that either connect to food or that you
46:16
think is relevant to the very enjoyable conversation we're having today, uh,
46:21
uh, o- only because I could listen to you, uh, for quite a bit longer.
46:25
So I'd love to hear you connect, uh, the stuff we've been talking about to some
46:30
of the other, uh, uh, research areas that, you know, capture your curiosity.
46:36
Alissa: Well, thanks for the question.
46:37
Uh, I appreciate that.
46:38
My, my brain's often sort of thinking about all, all kinds of things, uh,
46:42
food related and, and equity related.
46:45
I think food ultimately is about equity and, and that's why I think there's some,
46:49
some interesting conversations around it.
46:51
Um, you know, I use students a lot as a kind of gauge for the public
46:55
discourse, uh, rightly or wrongly, but I hear students say a lot, "Well, you
46:59
know, they'll, they'll go to Walmart or they'll go to Loblaws or Superstore
47:03
because they're, they're cheaper."
47:06
And I'm like, "I, I don't know if that's true anymore." And it, it could be for,
47:11
for some things like beef, I think the grass-fed beefs and those things that
47:15
you get at the, at the farmer's markets or, or CSAs are a little more expensive.
47:20
They're, they're better quality, but they are more expensive.
47:23
But for some of those other things, I'm not sure.
47:26
So part of me thinks about doing some kind of price point analysis of farmer's
47:30
markets, uh, compared to grocery store items on things like basics, um, you know,
47:35
potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, whatever, lettuce, uh, tho- those kinds of things.
47:40
And I, I think people be surprised, um, that I think they're actually
47:44
more on par, um, than they, than they were 10 years ago.
47:47
So that's sort of something I'm, I'm not an economist, uh, by any
47:51
stretch, but I, I think I wanna, I wanna actually look into that.
47:55
Um, I've been doing work in an education environment on something called universal
48:01
design, uh, which comes out of the disability, uh, disability studies
48:05
and disability equity movements.
48:08
Universal design is setting up a physical space that's, uh, of accessible to a
48:13
wide range of users, including those with mobility aids, so walkers and,
48:18
and wheelchairs and so forth, but that they're also accessible to an
48:22
athlete that might've had a, a knee injury or an elderly person or, uh,
48:28
a parent who's carrying a bunch of kids and groceries and all the things
48:31
that parents, that parents carry.
48:33
It's been used in education to make the learning environment more accessible.
48:37
So rather than just, you know, talking or putting up, uh, slides is that you have
48:43
different ways of presenting information.
48:44
And so I've actually used documentaries, podcasts, those types of things.
48:49
And there's so many about food.
48:51
There's so many great podcasts and documentaries about food because
48:54
I think it's something everyone's sort of coming around too.
48:57
So, uh, I may also be using some of your episodes in, in my courses, uh, but just
49:02
to get people to engage in different ways.
49:04
So I've been, I've been doing that in the classroom for a long time,
49:07
different forms of assessment.
49:09
So getting students to do tests and assignments, but also more creative ones.
49:13
Map, map a grocery store system, map how your coffee came from
49:18
the field to your front door.
49:20
Like, I think that's an interesting assignment and you can get people to
49:23
display information in different ways.
49:25
Um, but of course, these two somewhat disparate fields are connected because
49:31
one of the groups vulnerable to food insecurity are disabled populations.
49:35
Um, you know, the cuts that we've seen towards disability funding,
49:40
the inaccessibility of, of many food environments, and, and one of the things
49:44
that has come up in my research on alternative food networks as I've been
49:48
sort of, uh ... I, I am a qualitative researcher, but this last project, uh,
49:53
the last year has been a kind of content analysis, so it's quantitative light.
49:58
But looking at what, what are the features of alternative food networks?
50:03
Um, and actually one just came out, uh, in the Canadian Food Studies
50:07
Journal on Alberta, and I'm using that as a template to look across Canada.
50:11
I'm curious to see what do food ... Like, are there more in Nova
50:15
Scotia than there are in Ontario?
50:17
Like, what are the sort of, uh, differences?
50:20
So I'm, I'm using a quantitative study to eventually narrow down some
50:23
qualitative questions, but in that I'm also tracking how many of these
50:26
alternative food networks have any kind of accessibility, and a lot of them don't.
50:31
Um, so that's something as a, as a disabled person interested
50:35
in, in food security, can you go to a community garden?
50:38
And many of them, you can't.
50:39
Um, so I've been looking at some of that and, and sort of
50:42
blending those two interests on disability and, and food insecurity.
50:46
Jesse Hirsh: Right on.
50:47
And, uh, I'm very pleased to have learned of the concept of universal design, and
50:52
will certainly spend, uh, my own interest, uh, getting into it, because I think part
50:57
of the application, speaking as a farmer, is thinking about designing for animals
51:02
and, and designing for different forms of living systems in which the principles
51:07
of universal design absolutely apply.
51:11
Although, to your point, ensuring that these community food spaces are
51:15
accessible does also seem like, uh, a kind of foundational level that, that,
51:20
that they need to be operating on.
51:22
I, I've been promoing the qualitative methods part of our episode the entire
51:28
time, uh, partly for a couple of reasons.
51:31
I am myself a qualitative researcher, a big fan of qualitative research, I think
51:37
a lot of the people in our audience, uh, these are folks who work in the
51:41
agricultural sector, usually on the association side, usually on the people
51:46
side, the research side, they are also often engaged in qualitative research.
51:51
And yet the paradox is agriculture very much seems to fetishize quantitative
51:58
research as if it is some divine voice when in fact qualitative research offers
52:05
quite a bit of value, especially in this world we live in where it's important
52:09
to centre the human in so many aspects.
52:11
I'm rambling again.
52:14
would love to hear your thoughts on what's going on in the world of qualitative
52:18
research, uh, some of the key tips around the methodologies and how you're
52:22
feeling about the field and the practise.
52:24
I mean, we're heading out towards the end of the episode here, so, like, you
52:27
can go wherever you want, but I love qualitative methodology, so I figure
52:33
this would be a good time to nerd out with someone, while at the same time
52:36
keeping our audience in the loop.
52:39
Alissa: My quantitative research c- colleagues will appreciate me saying
52:43
that I, I think there's ultimately room for ... We need both, right?
52:46
We need both.
52:47
We can't have one or the other.
52:48
That's the, the balancing of the scales.
52:50
But, you know, as a young graduate student, I went to some talk and it was
52:54
very quantitative and they, they did this whole presentation and they ended with
52:58
this finding that said, you know, we've seen a 3% increase in something or other.
53:03
And I was like, "That's it?
53:05
" Like, why and how?
53:07
And all of these questions that really can't be answered,
53:11
um, by quantitative research.
53:13
So I think statistics play a part, um, but they don't tell the whole story,
53:19
um, and they can be quite misleading at times as well without that context.
53:24
So I think, um, yeah, they, you know, it's important to see, you
53:31
know, we, we use statistics a lot to say food insecurity is on the rise.
53:35
So we could gauge that anecdotally by talking to friends and family, or we can
53:39
see that close to 10 million Canadians find themselves food insecure now, and
53:44
that's, uh, very, very high, uh, rates.
53:47
And that, that sort of is the beginning point.
53:49
So it's a, it's a punch, and then, uh, we can understand the how and the why of that
53:54
through, through qualitative research.
53:56
Um, you know, we, we talk a lot about mental health, uh, issues lately.
54:01
So one in five Canadians struggle with mental health issues.
54:04
Um, again, the stat is important, but we've also seen
54:08
a broadening of the definition.
54:10
So more people fall under those definitions.
54:12
We're also seeing, um, less social systems.
54:15
So all the social security stuff has been cut.
54:17
Well, that would affect mental health issues.
54:20
So I, I think they both are in conversation with one another, but I
54:24
think for me, it, it's summed up in the, I think qualitative research starts
54:29
where quantitative research often ends in that there's been an up or a down.
54:33
And then the qualitative research will look at, um, more contextual questions
54:38
on, on why that is and how that is.
54:40
Um, even with the current research I'm doing, you know, I tell students,
54:44
you have to let the research drive the type of methodology you use.
54:48
So I wanna look at, I wanna see what's going on in alternative
54:53
food networks across Canada.
54:55
That would be very, very difficult to do qualitatively
54:57
just because of the sheer number.
54:59
Uh, at least 450, uh, there's probably more depending on how you count them.
55:05
So things like how we define topics, um, and then how we, we kind of go about that.
55:11
So, um, that's for me the sort of large mapping and then the questions of like,
55:16
okay, there's these ones that are doing really fantastic, holistic food sovereign
55:22
approaches, let's interview those people rather than a sort of broad interview.
55:26
So it can kind of focus your efforts.
55:28
Uh, interviews are, are a fantastic way.
55:31
I think some site visits, like I'm, I'm really interested in, in going and seeing
55:36
some of these alternative food networks in practise because, you know, a website
55:41
will indicate kind of their overview, but there's probably things that are
55:45
happening that sort of human piece that you talked about that, that really can't
55:49
be captured in a lab or in a survey.
55:53
It's, it's something bigger than that.
55:55
Um, there's a really good, um, alternative food network, The Land of
56:00
Dreams in Calgary, uh, Treaty seven territory, and they do work, uh, the,
56:05
uh, elder and indigenous Stony Elder is the lead of the organisation,
56:08
but they do work with newcomers.
56:10
And I think what a great merging and what a great way to get newcomers
56:14
to bring, um, stories about food and then, um, connections around food
56:20
and then having, uh, elders and, and indigenous folks sort of talk
56:24
about the history of the land here.
56:26
I think that's a, that's a beautiful thing and I'd love to see that in action.
56:30
Um, and I, I don't know, you, you might be able to capture bits of it in, in
56:34
quantitative research, but I think the video and the voice and the human
56:38
aspects are always gonna be qualitative.
56:41
Jesse Hirsh: A- and really, what I'm hearing a- as you describe that is on
56:44
the one hand, quantitative methods have allowed us to increase our capacity
56:50
for complexity and, and understand complexity in our world, but th- that's
56:54
useless without sense-making, We, we need the why, we need to understand,
56:59
and that is the, the, really the role of the, the qualitative researcher.
57:04
Our, our last question that we end on is kind of like the first,
57:08
and that it's really open-ended, and it's, it's the shout out.
57:11
It's, you know, who are the leaders that you look up to that have inspired you?
57:16
Um, and it's, uh, you know, not really meant to be like an Academy Awards
57:20
where we're expecting you to list a whole bunch of names of your, you know,
57:24
mentors and collaborators, but just a few kinda off the cuff people who you
57:29
think the rest of us should be, uh, uh, reading about and learning more about.
57:33
Alissa: Yeah, that's a, that's a great question.
57:35
I, I'm not always great at name recognition in the moment.
57:38
Um, so I'll say any indigenous teachings in general or about food
57:44
have been, uh, for me, completely transformational, um, and not in some
57:49
kind of checklist way, but in a really kind of heartfelt and, and deep sense.
57:54
I think if people have opportunity to learn from, uh, a knowledge keeper
57:58
or an elder, do it, it's, uh, there's something magical that happens in that.
58:03
I think my critical food studies scholars, uh, as an interdisciplinary scholar, I
58:08
went to a lot of different conferences and food studies scholars, they do
58:11
conferences great because we're not just sitting in a room, we go out, we do farm
58:16
tours, uh, we do workshops on things.
58:18
It, it's, it's theoretically grounded, but it's, it's also practice-based.
58:22
So I think, um, there's been a lot of pioneers in Canada, um, Elaine Power's
58:28
done work on universal basic income, Charles Levco has done a lot of work on
58:32
alternative food networks, um, so some of the, the sort of founding members of,
58:37
of food studies in Canada, um, and then
58:42
Oh, so good.
58:46
That's great.
58:46
I love that.
58:47
Jesse Hirsh: That made me feel validated when you said that.
58:50
Sorry, please go
58:51
Alissa: No, they're both, they're both fantastic.
58:53
Um, and then a lot of the community people, like running a community
58:58
garden and, and corralling adults and, and sending out all of that.
59:02
I think the organisers, they do a lot of work, again, because they're not, no
59:06
one's making millions off this, unlike the, the grocery stores, but they're
59:10
doing it as a passion, passion project and because there's something they get
59:13
back from it, that community piece.
59:15
So I think anyone who's leading community organisations, uh,
59:18
shout out and kudos to them.
59:20
Jesse Hirsh: Right on.
59:21
And, and you've also, throughout our conversation today, I've mentioned a
59:24
number of organisations that both, you know, allow our listeners, uh, and us
59:29
as a growing institutional knowledge to, you know, learn more about their work and
59:34
start connecting it into what we're trying to do here at the Future Herd, which is
59:37
map out, uh, a lot of this activity, you know, to the, uh, uh, assignments you
59:42
were giving your students in terms of understanding where their food comes from.
59:46
Um,
59:47
Alissa: Yeah.
59:47
Jesse Hirsh: thank you, Alyssa.
59:48
This has been fantastic.
59:50
Welcome to the Future Herd.
59:51
This is where I get to say, uh, we, we gotta have you back.
59:55
Part of what we're trying to do is build a kinda, a larger conversation
1:00:00
around food, uh, and in particular, you've really helped introduce food
1:00:04
sovereignty into our conversation, which will now be a recurring thread.
1:00:09
Um, any final words, uh, before we conclude?
1:00:13
Alissa: Um, New Grocery Movement is an Edmonton-based organisation.
1:00:16
Uh, they're largely youth-driven.
1:00:18
There are a lot of 30-year-olds and, and thinking about the
1:00:20
future, they're, they're fierce.
1:00:22
Uh, they also have some, uh, connections in Toronto and Ontario,
1:00:25
so I would, uh, shout out to them.
1:00:28
Uh, thanks to you for organising the conversation and, and to the
1:00:31
listeners for being part of it and, and thanks for having me.
1:00:35
Jesse Hirsh: Uh, that closes another rousing rowdy episode of The Future Herd.
1:00:41
And I have to say that talking with Alyssa reminded me why I started
1:00:46
this podcast in the first place.
1:00:48
She has that rare ability to make you look at something you do every
1:00:52
single day, buying food, eating food, thinking about food, and suddenly
1:00:57
see it completely differently.
1:00:58
The grocery store aisle, the front of a cereal box, the music playing on
1:01:02
overhead, none of it is accidental.
1:01:05
And Alyssa helps us understand why that matters, not just for individuals, but for
1:01:11
communities, for equity for the future of how we feed each other in this country.
1:01:16
I mean, I like to say we're all designers now.
1:01:19
We all have a sense of how our environments affect us and how
1:01:22
we wanna affect our environment.
1:01:25
And that's why what I keep turning over in my head is something she
1:01:28
said early on, that the future is both known and unknown, and that will
1:01:33
deal with what finds and that will deal with what finds its way to us.
1:01:39
There's something quietly courageous about that framing, especially when you
1:01:43
spend your career looking honestly at the harder edges of our food system,
1:01:47
the way Alyssa does that combination of clear-eyed critique and genuine openness.
1:01:53
I think that's exactly the kind of thinking the AgriFood
1:01:56
sector needs more of right now.
1:01:58
So thank you, Alyssa, for bringing your research, your stories, and your entire
1:02:03
interdisciplinary mind to the future herd.
1:02:06
It was a genuine pleasure.
1:02:08
Now, if you wanna dig deeper into the subjects that we cover here on the Future
1:02:13
Herd, well, we got a website for you, the future herd.ca, in which we not only have
1:02:19
the episodes we produce, but knowledge, uh, that we generate associated with each
1:02:24
episode to dig deeper into the policy, into the research, into the ideas.
1:02:30
We've also got a near daily intelligence brief that gives you a heads up on what's
1:02:35
going on in the sector and the world, and of course, our commons platform
1:02:40
that looks to get your input, your perspective on the issues we cover.
1:02:45
And if this conversation has meant anything to you, well, I'd love you
1:02:50
to share it with your friends, with your dogs, with anyone you think,
1:02:55
uh, wants to engage their food in our food system more directly.
1:03:00
Well, that's it for me and Harriet.
1:03:02
Uh, thanks again.
1:03:04
We will see you guys soon.