Probiotics, intermittent fasting, collagen supplements — we're constantly bombarded with the latest wellness trends on social media claiming to transform our lives. Let’s be real: most of us don’t have the time or patience to fact check every piece of information on our feed (pun unintended), much less to research the impacts of each of these trends.
What do we need to consider about our food, beyond our own nutrition? Who and what is being impacted by the food on our plate? The framework for understanding the environmental, social and nutritional impacts of food is called food literacy.
Dr. Kerry Renwick, a professor of home economics education in the Faculty of Education’s department of curriculum & pedagogy, defines food literacy as “reading the world, not the words, through food.”
According to Renwick, there are three components to food literacy: cultural, operational and critical literacy.
Cultural literacy is learned from other people, both consciously and subconsciously. Operational literacy is about how to do things — how to shop, prepare food and purchase just enough to sustain you while avoiding waste. This can be learned through experience or marketing.
But what about questioning what we know? That’s where critical literacy comes in, which can be further broken down to focus on nutrition, sustainability and ethics.
Nutrition: The individual level
The sheer volume of information online about nutrition, diets and sustainability can be overwhelming, and at times, confusing.
“There's a long history of nutrition in formation evolving over the last 120 years, moving from a vitamin era through to a protein era, through to what I currently call the fat-free era,” said Renwick. “So then the advice comes back to what is pretty consistently known.”
A common feature of the food guides globally is an emphasis on a varied and balanced diet of grains, fruits, vegetables and proteins. Some food guides also consider sustainability by encouraging greater consumption of plant-based proteins and fewer animal products.
Sustainability: The planetary level
Sustainability in a food context can include minimizing carbon fuels used to transport food by eating locally and seasonally. Growing certain crops out of season in a cold climate may require the use of heated greenhouses, which can produce high amounts of carbon dioxide.
“I find it really useful to use the seven generations reference in that particularly thinking forward, 'What if I eat like this now? What will it mean for seven generations to follow me?'” said Renwick. The Seventh Generation Principle is based on an ancient Haudenosaunee philosophy that suggests the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future.
Renwick also emphasized considering what happens to the food we don’t consume.
“Where does it go? Is it leftovers, or does it become waste? Does it become compost? Does packaging add to waste in a way that is not sustainable?” said Renwick. 2021 UN statistics show that every Canadian household throws out on average 176 pounds of food waste per year.
Ethics: The global level
How can we know whether the food we are purchasing is sourced ethically, from farmers in non-exploitative working conditions who are paid a fair wage?
“In many ways, we rely an awful lot on trust. We trust the signs that say a particular canned good is being sourced ethically. There are some safeguards in place around labelling, but they're not always foolproof, and … we need to do some homework ourselves.”
Some distributors are working on making this “homework” more accessible to consumers, such as Left Coast Naturals, by being transparent about their farms and partners on their websites, but these companies are in the minority.
Ethics can also include thinking about food as a basic human right to which everyone is entitled. Research by the University of Toronto found that 22.9 per cent of Canadians in the ten provinces lived in a food-insecure household in 2023.
According to Renwick, discussions around food insecurity in Canada are “muted” and not getting the attention and space they need.
“This is in a country that experiences long periods of peace, that has huge resources available to them, including social networks. But nevertheless, there are children who do not … have enough food to eat on a daily basis.”
Food literacy and education
The World Health Organization describes wellbeing as encompassing “quality of life and the ability of people and societies to contribute to the world with a sense of meaning and purpose.” According to Renwick, individuals have the power to do this within their food system.
“We have great capacity for action. We have great capacity for compassion. We have great capacity for care and love. It's just that some people choose not to exercise it quite so readily. And I think that's unfortunate.”
Renwick provided a suggestion for individuals to develop their food literacy and become more engaged with the choices they make around food.
“Think about food as being more than just something that you shovel in because you think you're hungry or you have a craving for something. How do you engage with food in a way that does add to well-being, both your own and community and planetary wellbeing?”
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