how do I eat sustainably during COVID-19? a guide

Hey folks!

I hope you’re doing your best to crawl toward the end of the universally-hated 2020. In today’s article, I'm addressing a fun, yet challenging topic and allll of the nuances that come along with it: eating sustainably during COVID-19. 

So much has changed about our lifestyles as a result of the pandemic. When it comes to our sustainable habits, the same is definitely true. Don't believe me? Well, would you still be comfortable using a restaurant’s reusable utensils right now? Or, have you been buying just a little more takeout than usual?

Photo by Any Lane on Pexels.com

We’re in a whole new world now, and taking care of yourself and those around you has to be your top priority. That means everything else may go out of focus for a little while.

But many of us will still want to be as sustainable as possible during this time -- if not even more so, since the climate crisis feels even more pressing. So, what might that look like right now? In this article, I’ll provide my approach to sustainable eating during COVID through each of the three realms of sustainability (social, environmental, and economic), backing it all up with tangible and direct resources you can use today. 

So, without further ado, let’s dive in.

social sustainability

When it comes to social sustainability, we primarily think about people. We think about things like the treatment of marginalized groups within society, equity, diversity, and workers’ rights. Although many think the pandemic has had an equivalent effect on everyone, the research makes it clear that COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted marginalized communities. For example, more Black people get infected with and die from the virus, and many people in lower income brackets are also the ones working essential service jobs.

As such, there’s a huge role to play when it comes to socially sustainable food. Mainly, it looks like supporting restaurants, brands, and practices that seek to support marginalized groups and workers. You could consider donating your money to funds that combat food insecurity and provide relief to restaurants and food industry workers. Montreal Eater has a big list of those resources here. If you’re at McGill or in Montreal, you should also consider checking out Meals for Milton-Parc and the Montreal Student Initiative for Covid-19 Response and Relief.

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A post shared by Meals For Milton-Parc (@mealsformiltonparc)

Above is a recent post from Meals For Milton-Parc’s Instagram page! It gives a description about what this amazing, student-led organization is doing to support food sovereignty and security in Milton-Parc, a community near the McGill campus that is home to a group of houseless folks.

Moreover, this time is an excuse (in my opinion…) to eat out more. It’s a great excuse to take a break from cooking, and it directly assists restaurants, who are greatly in need of our support right now. You might consider specifically supporting BIPOC-owned restaurants. Cult MTL, for example, has a big Montreal-based list of Black-owned establishments. As well, when eating out, you might wish to go physically pick up your order or to contact the restaurant directly, because delivery apps take a pretty large cut of the restaurants’ earnings (as much as 25-30%!).

economic sustainability

Many people don’t totally get the term ‘economic sustainability’, which is fair since our mainstream conceptions of environmentalism seem to argue that financial systems are the root causes of climate injustice. While the aforementioned is pretty true, that doesn’t mean we can’t still use our money to fight for good (just look at the huge list of ways you can do so above)! Economic sustainability refers to the ways in which we can support “good economic growth” — that is, growth which doesn’t hurt the earth or its people. 

The main way you can practice economic sustainability is by shopping locally! And the good news is, that’s pretty easy nowadays. COVID has influenced most brands to create online shops, meaning you don’t have a reason to support giants like Amazon anymore. 

This photo shows two individuals shopping at a store (wearing their masks, of course!)
Photo by Anna Tarazevich on Pexels.com

There are also so many incredible local businesses and restaurants, wherever you are — it’s up to you to check them out! To start you off, this article has lists for every part of Canada. And as we are in the holiday season, you can use your gift shopping to introduce your friends and family to all the amazing new establishments you’ve discovered recently. 

Also, consider looking for products at your local stores which have the Fairtrade label! Fairtrade is an ethics standard that certifies the fair treatment of all workers in the supply chain. From experience, the products also taste absolutely delicious because they’ve been made with care, by people who were paid ethically and treated the way they should be.

environmental sustainability

A very aesthetic reusable bag photo…which you can replicate by bringing your OWN tote bag to the grocery store to be sustainable!
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Finally, environmental sustainability refers to the obvious: protecting the planet’s natural resources through our every action. As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, many of our typical individualistic environmental efforts have been compromised somewhat by the pandemic — taking our own containers and reusable cups to the restaurant or cafe doesn’t feel as safe anymore. For my part, my takeout consumption has also increased by a lot. On the positive, at least, many of us are travelling a lot less due to the rapid implementation of stay-at-home orders. This is great for reductions in our transportation-based carbon footprint. 

But when it comes to fighting back against environmental degradation during the pandemic through our food choices, there are numerous actions we can take! As I somewhat mentioned previously, if you’re ordering takeout, consider going to pick it up in-person (at least if it’s walkable). Doing so will save a carbon footprint-inducing car trip for someone else. You can also request that your restaurant leave out the single-use utensils and napkins so as to avoid that extra bit of waste. Moreover, taking your reusable bags to the grocery store is still safe, so keep doing that!

You might also consider buying more of your groceries locally, meaning both travelling to small, local shops as well as selecting products grown/produced nearby! Practicing both of these techniques will help reduce your food miles, a concept that argues in favour of reducing your culinary carbon footprint. It’s hard to know the exacts when it comes to this topic, and there’s lots of nuance, but it’s a good starting point. Finally, if you’re located in Quebec, you could check out Lufa Farms, which is a local foods delivery service.

a Lufa Farms fresh produce basket! Consider ordering from Lufa Farms for safety, convenience, and sustainability.
Source

conclusion

Well, there you have it! A rundown of many of the ways in which you can eat sustainably during the COVID-19 pandemic. Stay calm, take care of yourself, and do your best — there’s lots we can all do, but don’t get overwhelmed trying to tackle everything at once. 

As a final plug, I want to share an article I wrote for a project that I did this past spring in another class. I believe it ties together all of the pillars of food sustainability in a meaningful way. Check it out here; I hope you enjoy it! Let me know in the comments what else you’re doing to stay sustainable during the Coronavirus!

with love and sustainability,

– ethigirl :)

feminist brown bread: on memorializing through baking and the devaluation of domestic labour

I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandma recently. She died about two and a half years ago, and she was my best friend all my life. All this thinking about my grandma reminded me of an essay I wrote last spring about her for one of my classes. I don’t exactly know why, but I feel compelled to share it here with you now.

(Okay — I do have one lead on why I’m so emotional about her — on Taylor Swift’s latest album there’s a song called “Marjorie” that’s about her grandma. And oh my, this song is KILLING ME. Here, YOU listen to it and tell me you don’t understand what I mean.)

If you’ve read any of my other content, you also know that this blog is actually in dedication to…well, her (as in my Nan, not Taylor Swift. Although I do love her too). So, having this here is fitting <3

This blog post details my experience baking brown bread, a family recipe passed down through generations, as a way of remembering my grandma and how I came to better understand feminism. I also detail how this experience got me thinking about how society systemically undervalues domestic labour.

A huge part of my childhood was defined by time spent sitting at my Nan’s kitchen island, telling her about my day as I watched her prepare meals for the nursing home that she and my grandfather ran. Lots of times, I would even help her. One day, on the menu was a homemade chocolate cake. She walked me through the recipe, and then when it got to my favourite part — decorating — she unveiled an array of sprinkles and coloured frosting for me to choose from. Although eight year-old me did an absolutely horrible job decorating that cake, my Nan was quick to fawn over how beautiful she thought it looked before slicing it up and proudly serving it to the folks of the home.

My grandmother, or Nan (as I knew her) passed away in August of 2018. She was an enormous part of my life and one of my best friends. Even more broadly speaking, looking back, I was truly so lucky to grow up surrounded by so much of my extended family within arm’s reach — on any snow day I had somewhere to go, and for every afterschool obligation I had someone to pick me up.
There was certainly a dichotomy between my own dreams and the life she led. Throughout my adolescent years, as I started to learn about feminism, my initial understanding was tied to second-wave ideas such as those put forth in Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique. The idea that housewives were inherently oppressed and that “strong, independent women” worked high-level jobs and lived in big cities was ingrained in me. But even though my Nan’s life directly opposed this ideology, I still considered her one of the strongest women I knew.

She told me several times that throughout most of her life, she knew she wanted to be a homemaker. She spent so much time learning how to cook and sew from the older women in her family and her community. My grandfather was a pastor, so when she married him, she dedicated herself to putting forth the most emotional availability for her family and for her church community as she possibly could. She made everyone with whom she came into contact feel special. And if she could have created a new love language, it would have been cooking. For instance, at the last church she and my grandfather worked in, the entire congregation always looked forward to her muffins! That was because directly following every Sunday service, Nan would have the hallway all set up with a whole selection of freshly-baked, homemade muffins, as well as coffee and tea.

Therefore, when I found out about this assignment, I knew I wanted to focus on my grandmother. But I struggled to figure out how I would do it, and I also worried I wouldn’t do it justice. Regardless, memories upon memories kept popping into my head — things that I hadn’t thought about since I was a young kid. At some point, I remembered one specific day I’d spent with my Nan during which she was making bread for the special care home. As she waited for it to rise, I sifted through a jam-packed recipe card holder, filled with very well-used index cards that had important family and community recipes. Upon remembering this, I called my aunt (who was visiting my grandfather’s home at the time) and asked her to send me as many photos of these recipes as she could. After looking through them, I felt confident I’d found the perfect one: Homemade Brown Bread.

Brown Bread: Deciphering the Recipe

Brown Bread is delicious, dark, and sweet — thanks mainly to the copious amounts of molasses and shortening that one must add to achieve the perfect loaf. Looking at the photo of the recipe card, which has been passed down several generations, reminded me not only of eating it in my Nan’s kitchen, but also of making it with my other grandmother and my great-grandmother on my mom’s side. However, I haven’t found anyone here in Montreal who is familiar with the recipe. Therefore, for this assignment, I decided to do some research to pin down where Brown Bread actually came from, and I found out that it is indeed a Canadian Maritime thing. For example, an article on the molasses company Crosby’s website by Bridget Oland details how she grew up in Southern New Brunswick (not far from me at all) and “homemade bread meant one thing to [her]: molasses brown bread.” (Oland 2014)

Especially after understanding that the recipe really did have regional roots, I was so excited to bring it into my new living space and to introduce all of my friends to it. There was just one problem: the recipe card was not descriptive at all!

Although the recipe card does fortunately list the measurements of each ingredient, the instructions leave something to be desired. They simply read, “add flour to right consistency...makes 3 double loaves.”

Aside from the fact that I (a university student living in a tiny apartment) had no need for three loaves of bread, I also had never made bread by myself before. But I did know there certainly had to be more to it than simply combining all of the ingredients together and adding flour “until the right consistency.” So, I called my grandmother on my mom’s side, hoping she’d be able to help me out. Fortunately, she was! I took detailed notes, and soon realized that this was not going to be nearly as quick of an assignment as I’d initially thought. The dough needed to proof twice, she said! For an hour and a half each time! There went my plans to leave the house that day. However, with the promise of freshly-baked bread on the other side of all this waiting, I decided it was worth it.

Preparing the Bread

I began by activating yeast, which I’d never done by myself before. As it rose, I prepared all of the other wet ingredients in a bowl, and then combined the yeast with that. Next, I moved to a larger workstation so I had more room for dough-kneading purposes.

After about twenty-five minutes of hard work, the dough was looking pretty good! So I added it back to a shortening-greased mixing bowl for its first proof, being sure to also cover the top with extra shortening so it didn’t dry out (as per my grandma’s advice).

One and a half hours later, the dough had doubled in size, and I was very excited about the living being in my kitchen! I punched out the air and then divided the dough between a loaf pan and a muffin tin. Then, I set my timer for another hour and a half for the second proof.
After over three hours of waiting impatiently, the bread was finally ready for the oven! Unfortunately, I’d actually forgotten to preheat the oven, so that added another ten minutes to the process. After, however, I slid the pans in at 375 degrees celsius for 35 minutes.

Just over half an hour later, I sped to my oven and excitedly removed my bread! I burned my fingers on a roll because I was too excited to wait for them to cool to try them out. And… It was delicious! I was so pleased with the fruits of my labour that it made all the waiting well worth it.

Reflection

Although I felt satisfied, I also ended this process utterly exhausted. Aside from the bread-making, I’d also spent my Sunday preparing two meals for the week, as well as doing laundry and schoolwork. One thing became abundantly clear to me from this exercise: domestic labour is very, very difficult and we systemically undervalue it. Scholar Bridget Anderson also speaks extensively about this in her book Doing the Dirty Work?: The Global Politics of Domestic Labour (2000).

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that, early on in my exposure to feminism, what I understood very much resembled the second-wave narrative. To me, “women’s empowerment” looked like a sophisticated, independent woman living in a city, working an “important” job. But I obviously know now that this understanding was problematic, and feminism comes in many forms.

In any case, I realized that all of those days I’d spent with my grandmother — and all the ones I hadn’t — she’d probably ended absolutely exhausted. During her time running the special care home, she woke up nearly every day at 5:30am to prepare breakfast and didn’t stop working until everyone went to bed that night. She made three meals from scratch, plus desserts and snacks, every day for years — and here I’m only counting the time at the special care home. Prior to this, she did all of the same things for free for her husband and three kids.

Like I mentioned, she always told me that she loved what she did. But regardless, it is difficult for me to do justice how hard she worked during her life, and how much it upsets me that domestic labour is nearly invisible. As Peter van de Ven, Jorrit Zwijnenburg and Matthew De Queljoe of the OECD demonstrate, it simply goes unaccounted for in GDP calculations (OECD 2018). Moreover, socially, we simply take it for granted as something that will “just get done” (mainly, of course, by women). And there are many feminists who, like me when I was younger, still look at women’s desire to be a homemaker or a stay-at-home mom as a form of oppression.

I certainly do think there is a tension between intrinsic goals and systemic, oppressive pressures, and I think there are elements of what my Nan did during her life that fit into each. However, it is invaluable labour that society simply expects to be provided from somewhere, and always with a smile. My grandmother told me many times toward the end of her life that she felt fulfilled by the work that she did, and that it was always her goal to accomplish what she had. I am so grateful to have had this experience and to have tried living in her shoes, even in a small way, for a day.

Works Cited
Anderson, Bridget. Doing the Dirty Work?: The Global Politics of Domestic Labour. New York: Zed Books, 2000.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.
Oland, Bridget. “Sarah's Molasses Brown Bread.” Crosby's Molasses, February 19, 2019. https://www.crosbys.com/sarahs-molasses-brown-bread/.
van de Ven, Peter, Jorrit Zwijnenburg, and Matthew De Queljoe. “Including Unpaid Household Activities: An Estimate of Its Impact on Macro-Economic Indicators in the G7 Economies and the Way Forward.” OECD Statistics Working Paper Series, no. 91 (July 25, 2018).

ethigirl eats: first event!

Hi everyone! For those of you who don’t follow me on social media, you might not have heard about the new fun, interactive thing I’ve launched: Ethigirl Eats!!

We’re in a very isolating time right now and it isn’t easy. That’s why I wanted to find a way to connect with more of you safely, over food, while discussing important and interesting topics. Enter: Ethigirl Eats! A new way for us to interact.

Here’s how it’s going to work: monthly (maybe more frequently as time goes on), I’ll invite you to a themed zoom hangout where we can cook together while chatting about something important. You’ll sign up (for free), and get the password and recipe options. Then, just log in and VIBE!

And, if I have your attention so far, you’re in LUCK! I’ve just announced the very first event - the holiday baking edition. It’ll take place on Saturday, December 19th at 4pm EST (Montreal time). Catch the signup link here, and I’ll be in touch with all the details soon.

I can’t wait to see you all there! Please let me know if you’ve got any questions or if there’s any way I can make this a more exciting and/or accessible experience for you.

Much love,

ethigirl :)

how to (actually) eat more sustainably!

The article below I originally wrote and published for CCOM 315: Writing the Internet, a class I’m taking at McGill University currently. I hope you enjoy!

In the times we’re living in, one question that’s on all of our minds is this: how can I feel less resigned to the fate of the world? 

Things are undeniably scary. Wildfires are raging, sea levels are rising, air pollution is increasing. Climate injustice is looming, and in spite of our protests, we feel like things aren’t changing.

But you don’t have to feel so hopeless and helpless. Although they may seem trivial, individual actions can make a difference — but they should be informed, too. So what can you do? 

1. realize perfection is impossible.

Source

We live in an age of Instagram-perfect zero wasters, all-or-nothing vegans, and a world that otherwise pushes us to achieve unattainable success levels all of the time. Our work effort is admirable, but it’s resulting in way too much burnout.

Don’t let your altruistic efforts to make the world a better place become so all-consuming that you give up before you even start. Acknowledge that baby steps are important and far from trivial. Every single little thing you do, you should celebrate — instead of beating yourself up for failing your goal of cutting out red meat, celebrate all the mealtimes that you opted for something else instead. 

2. challenge the notion that ‘sustainable eating’ looks only like cutting out animal products.

As we’re all pretty much aware by 2020, plant-based diets have gained tremendous levels of popularity, and for good reason. Opting for less meat and dairy can be excellent for your health, and it’s certainly better for the environment. For starters, according to UCLA, it reduces our individual water use, carbon emissions, and landfill contributions.

But it’s important to remember that you don’t have to go fully vegetarian or vegan in order to be a good environmentalist. And there are many reasons why you might choose not to be. Personally, I was a die-hard vegetarian for about a year and a half, but over this past summer I switched into a much more flexible diet.

Moreover, encouraging everyone to cut out meat and dairy because it’s “bad for the environment” can be unjust, for numerous reasons, as writer Juliana Yazbeck says here. Meat and dairy aren’t inherently carbon-intensive — capitalist and colonial practices have simply made them so through things like factory farming. Second of all, replacing meat and dairy with mass-produced crops like chickpeas and quinoa, and more have resulted in higher demand, and therefore higher use of unethical labour practices. These jobs are often done by underpaid folks of colour. Finally, meat is culturally intrinsic to many, and asking people to take it out of their diets is asking them to surrender their culture. We cannot care about the planet if we don’t also care about the welfare of its people. 

3. look for sustainable and ethical products. 

Source

Like I said above, climate action must have a justice-oriented approach. We must care about the earth and its people. A great way to find climate and ethics-friendly products is to look for the Fairtrade logo: a holistic certification that ensures rigorous labour and environmental standards. Some examples of easy-to-find, Fairtrade-certified products include Equifruit bananas and Camino chocolate.

4. Watch out for greenwashing.

Big companies are catching on that consumers are trying to buy better. But for many, instead of actually tangibly changing their practices, they’re instead only trying to make it look like they’ve done so. This is greenwashing.

You can avoid greenwashing by doing your research. Look up the company: do they have reports on their sustainability practices? What about third-party certifications (like Fairtrade)? You can also check out other sustainability bloggers and influencers, many of whom do product reviews and resource lists of actually-eco stuff.

With love and sustainability,

ethigirl

How to Host a Sustainable Dinner Party (in a Pandemic)

I originally produced the following essay and community cookbook for a university course taught by Dr. Alex Ketchum titled GSFS 401: Food, Gender and Environment.

Introduction

As someone with a passion for sustainability, which has taken specific root in food studies over the course of this semester, I began my project with a clear research question in mind: what does “perfectly sustainable” food and cooking look like, and can I represent that through the medium of a dinner party? I chose a dinner party because I wanted to harness the power of a social gathering among friends and food to cultivate a collection of experiences with sustainability and food. I believed hosting an experiential learning opportunity was the best way in which to do so. Therefore, I contacted a group of friends and instructed them all to bring a dish they felt was sustainable, along with the promise of an evening of discussion, meal sharing, and photo-taking. On March 16th, however, as COVID-19 social distancing measures started to take serious effect, I had no choice but to cancel my event and brainstorm a new plan. I opted to host the same event, instead over video call (specifically via Zoom). To my gratitude, my friends agreed, and my research question then evolved just as my plans had. Not only did I now wish to understand what a sustainable dinner party looked like, but I also had to manage this new factor of doing everything remotely. 

The experience of a Sustainable Zoom Dinner Party taught me many things, even if I learned them differently than I originally expected to throughout the exercise of this assignment. My essay will relay those findings as follows: first, I will discuss the three parts of my methodology — the dinner party experiment, my community cookbook, and a literature review. Next, I will present my results and a discussion, and come to a conclusion of what someone must consider when wishing to host an event like mine. My scientific research-inspired essay framework was greatly influenced by “Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass”, a specific chapter in Indigenous botanist Robin Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass, which describes her work understanding and arguing in favour of the importance of Indigenous knowledge. Her chapter is profoundly compelling and makes a strong case for experiential learning. In sum, in this essay I argue that in order to host a sustainable dinner party in a pandemic, you must incorporate three tenets: gratitude, accessibility, and environmentalism. Through the lens of each tenet, you must also specifically consider the food, the dinner party itself, and the impact of COVID-19. 

Methodology

The Dinner Party Experiment

The idea behind hosting a sustainable dinner party stemmed from my belief that I could only successfully come to conclusions on such overwhelming terms by consulting with other people. Similar to a scientific experiment, more participants leads to more inclusive research that accounts for as many factors as possible. As such, I created an event and invited a group of my friends to help with my research by preparing a meal they personally felt was sustainable, and then responding to a series of discussion questions during the (virtual) event. A shortcoming of my sample was its lack of diversity. All participants are in their early twenties, study social science-based undergraduate degrees, and live in major Canadian cities. However, for my purposes, I contacted individuals who I believed would be most likely to participate. 

A Community Cookbook

Following the Zoom Dinner Party, I had each participant provide me with several materials: the recipe they cooked, their rationale for its sustainability, and some photos. I compiled all of these elements, along with my own personal submission, into a sustainable community cookbook titled Defining Sustainable Food: A Cookbook (Appendix A). This visual component of my research represents how eight students living and studying in urban areas responded when asked to represent their ideas of sustainable food and cooking.

You can view the cookbook below:

Literature Review

The third component of my research was to consult a diversity of other research on my topic, including peer-reviewed articles, journalism, and other texts like blog posts and interviews. This element of my methodology recognizes the value of past work on this subject, much of which required emotional labour to produce. It also seeks to make up for shortcomings in diversity in my experiment, since there were other groups and issues I wished to represent and discuss.

Results & Discussion

Tenet 1: Gratitude

The first of the three tenets I argue one must consider when planning a sustainable dinner party (while social distancing) is gratitude. My initial inspiration for including this tenet was my realization of how grateful I am to my participants for contributing their time and labour. I feel more than honoured to be close to so many individuals who were willing to go above and beyond to participate in a friend’s class assignment, particularly during times like these. Through this project I have discovered the true strength, depth, and meaning of the relationships I’ve developed throughout the past several years. Additionally, however, I wish to argue that gratitude in relation to a sustainable dinner party during a pandemic only begins with a recognition of how valuable it is to have friends who will share a meal with you. An understanding of gratitude is incomplete without concrete efforts toward justice. We may be grateful for the farmers who produce our food, as well as the essential workers who process our grocery order, but we must also support their fair treatment by advocating for living wages and by purchasing ethically-made products. 

Hosts must consider where the food on the dinner party table will come from, and understand that sustainable food is fair trade. According to scholar Michael K. Goodman, who cites Barrett-Brown and Raynolds, the fair trade movement works both “in and against the market” and seeks to improve the living and working conditions of Global South farmers and producers. Goodman also mentions that, according to Oxfam, fair trade promotes “trade, not aid” and challenges the “ways of trading that keep people poor.” Concretely, these elements may look like purchasing products made by people with the right to unionize who work in safe conditions and are paid enough to support both themselves and their families. Sustainable food, therefore, supports sustainable livelihoods. Finally, when considering gratitude in regards to the dinner party itself, participants should recognize it not only in the context of their relationships with those around the table, but of their relationship with the land they eat upon. Many sustainable dinner parties will be held on unceded Indigenous territory, meaning it was stolen by colonizers who caused the violent loss of cultures as well as hundreds of thousands of lives. Many event hosts represent this issue through land acknowledgements. However, as scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang wrote in their article “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor,” acknowledgement is not sufficient. Many scholars and activists use the term “decolonize” as a verb to describe the accommodations they are making in colonized spaces, without realizing the very real implications of the word itself.

Finally, creating space for gratitude at a dinner party in a pandemic must not only acknowledge the role of grocery store employees, cleaners, healthcare workers, and public transit drivers and maintenance workers in making it happen, but it must also fight for their fair treatment. As journalist Owen Jones argues, the movement during COVID-19 toward celebrating essential workers as “heroes” is necessary, but incomplete without advocacy from the privileged. Jones writes that “no floor can be cleaned remotely,” and yet those risking their lives to provide services like these are systemically underpaid and unfairly treated. Sustainable dinner party attendees who can (and should) work from home during this pandemic should spend time fighting in favour of normalizing essential workers’ higher wages and safer conditions, including access to personal protective equipment and sufficient distance from customers. It is additionally important that we extend our action-based gratitude during this time to our favourite establishments, such as restaurants, cafes, and bars. Many businesses still offer zero-contact delivery, and others provide the option of purchasing gift cards or merchandise online. Food writer Alicia Kennedy cites vegan business owner Chris Kim, who states that small businesses are relying on limited income during this time to prioritize their staff’s needs, like job security and reliable income with which to support their families. We owe those who keep these valuable establishments running the ability to do so. Therefore, sufficient gratitude while hosting a sustainable dinner party in a pandemic extends beyond recognition and into concrete action.

Tenet 2: Accessibility

Some experiment participants discussed the many costs associated with trying to live more sustainably, such as sacrificing additional income, time, or waste-intensive products, which can make participation in the movement exclusionary. Thus, a consideration of accessibility when preparing for and hosting a sustainable dinner party must encompass the many challenges and barriers that marginalized community members face on a daily basis. A sustainable dinner party during social distancing should still allow and encourage the participation of everyone, regardless of their situation. 

First of all, sustainable food itself evokes many accessibility issues. As dinner party participant Anna suggested, many grocery stores simply do not offer sustainable options, and access to grocery stores differs greatly depending on where you live.  For example, scholar Adi Segal discusses food deserts, a term which describes lack or difficulty of geographical access to healthy and nutritious food establishments, usually in lower-income areas. In New York City, small grocery stores (known as bodegas) are far more likely to exist in the neighbourhoods of East and Central Harlem than in the Upper East Side, and these bodegas are less likely to offer nutritious food options than those in the latter neighbourhood. Moreover, while many restaurants exist in all three neighbourhoods, those in East and Central Harlem are more likely to be fast-food establishments. Food deserts therefore limit access to healthy food options and further curb sustainability efforts. Additionally, disability rights blogger Crippledscholar argues that some things environmentalists tend to label as unsustainable, like straws or single-use packaging, make the lives of disabled folks easier. For example, when able-bodied environmentalists advocated for removing peeled, packaged oranges from supermarket shelves, it was harmful to the agency of disabled individuals for whom these products are incredibly valuable. 

Moreover, as dinner party participants Husayn and Juliette discussed, movements such as the zero waste one require additional labour for things like remembering to bring reusable bags and selecting more sustainable products at the store. This topic should be kept in mind in regards to accessibility because according to journalist Alden Wicker, this additional labour disproportionately falls on women since it has become included in domestic labour responsibilities. For these reasons, sustainable parties should adopt a BWYC (Bring What You Can) policy, both physically and intellectually. Participants should not be worried about preparing a perfectly-sustainable dish if it is not within their means to do so, and this experience should be a learning opportunity for everyone. No one should feel gatekept, or as though they do not have the knowledge or resources that qualify them to attend. 

Finally, in regards to accessibility and Coronavirus, one positive point to hosting a dinner party remotely is that it increases access to those who might not otherwise have been able to attend. For example, if I had held my event in my home, those who could not access stairs would have been excluded. Dinner party participant Juliette also addressed the impact of COVID-19 on mental health, stating how finding the motivation to eat and to cook has become more challenging with these new measures. As Ed Yong of The Atlantic wrote, human contact is a coping mechanism for many and social distancing has greatly reduced it. The effects of Coronavirus also negatively impact those with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, elderly people, those living in abusive homes, and Asian people dealing with an increase in racism. There is, evidently, no shortage of accessibility concerns one must consider when hosting a sustainable dinner party during the coronavirus. The host and participants should do their best to address as many as possible. 

Tenet 3: Environmentalism

No discussion of sustainability is complete without addressing issues of environmentalism, and rightly so. Although a sustainable dinner party must mitigate its impact on the environment, there are aspects of western environmentalism that override social sustainability in negative ways. For instance, in regards to food, environmentalists usually advocate for reducing or eliminating consumption of animal products, which is certainly important since up to 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from meat. However, as dinner party participant Delphine pointed out, being vegetarian does not necessarily mean being sustainable. Junk food, for example, is often vegetarian, but it creates packaging waste. The food sovereignty movement also reminds us how meat is significant to many cultures, and can be farmed and eaten in less carbon-intensive ways. Additionally, while an in-person sustainable dinner party event should encourage those involved to reduce their footprint through low-carbon transportation and low-waste dinnerware, holding the event remotely mostly eliminates these concerns. 

Finally, in regards to the relationship of COVID-19 to environmentalism, dinner participants Mariam and Husayn argued that sanitation concerns have increased waste. According to Mariam, products such as bunches of bananas are now wrapped in plastic, and Husayn shared that some grocery stores no longer allow shoppers to bring reusable bags. As a broader social dialogue, many social media posts have gone viral discussing how social distancing measures have decreased pollution, and how we should then conclude that “humans are the virus.” However, as writer Sierra Garcia argues, the negative social impact of the pandemic more than reduces a cause for an “environmental win.” This sentiment is also reminiscent of ecofascist, overpopulation-based environmentalism arguments, such as the one in Paul Ehrlich’s famous book The Population Bomb. Theories like Ehrlich’s blame Global South women for causing environmental problems through their role in increasing populations. To avoid unjustly blaming already-marginalized groups, a sustainable dinner party in the time of quarantine should discuss the systems which foster climate injustice, such as capitalism, globalization, mass industry, and corporate greed. Our learnings from COVID-19 should be less about reducing overpopulation and more about overhauling our systems to accommodate everyone, because it is possible. 

Conclusion

This essay provides a framework in regards to how one might host a sustainable dinner party during a pandemic. It has discussed the varying issues and considerations related to food, the event itself, and the impact of the Coronavirus on planning such an event. The community cookbook attached also represents a meaningful visual representation of this essay’s findings and should be read alongside it. Together, these elements conclude that hosts must incorporate three main tenets: action and justice-based gratitude, diverse considerations of accessibility, and environmentalism through an intersectional lens. Indeed, it discussed many considerations within the realm of each tenet, and hosts and participants should do their best to incorporate as many as possible. Future research should prioritize hosting such dinner parties with more diverse participant samples, therefore incorporating as many concerns and uplifting as many voices as possible. Moreover, sustainable dinner parties held following the COVID-19 pandemic that may not be forced to exist remotely might still consider including this as an option for participants who are unable to attend in person.

Works Cited

Broaders, Anna, Juliette Escande, Delphine Polidori, Mariam Grigoryan, and Husayn Jamal, video call with the author, April 04, 2020.

Coté, Charlotte. “‘Indigenizing’ Food Sovereignty. Revitalizing Indigenous Food Practices and Ecological Knowledges in Canada and the United States.” Humanities. Vol. 5, no. 57 (2016): doi:10.3390/h5030057 

Crippledscholar. “When Accessibility gets Labeled Wasteful.” Crippled Scholar, March 4, 2016. https://crippledscholar.com/2016/03/04/when-accessibility-gets-labeled-wasteful/

Derfel, Aaron. “Montreal public health scrambles to avoid community spread of COVID-19.” Montreal Gazette, March 17, 2020. https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-public-health-scrambles-to-avoid-community-spread-of-covid-19/

Garcia, Sierra. “‘We’re the virus’: The pandemic is bringing out environmentalism’s dark side.” Grist, March 30, 2020. https://grist.org/climate/were-the-virus-the-pandemic-is-bringing-out-environmentalisms-dark-side/

Goodman, Michael K. “Reading fair trade: political ecological imaginary and the moral economy of fair trade foods.” Political Geography. Vol. 23 (2004): 891-915. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2004.05.013 

Jones, Owen. “The undervalued heroes of the coronavirus crisis need our thanks - and our support.” The Guardian, March 21, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/21/undervalued-heroes-coronavirus-crisis-cleaners-supermarket-workers

Kennedy, Alicia. “Vegan Business Owners Share Coronavirus Challenges and Hopes for the Future.” Tenderly Magazine, March 31, 2020. https://medium.com/tenderlymag/vegan-business-owners-share-coronavirus-challenges-and-hopes-for-the-future-4aaee234f459

Kimmerer, Robin. “Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass.” In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2013.

Segal, Adi. “Food Deserts: A Global Crisis in New York City - Causes, Impacts and Solutions.” Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development. Vol. 3, no. 1 (2010): 197-214. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26167795 

Tuck, Eve and K. Wayne Yang. “Decolonization is not a metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society. Vol. 1, no. 1 (2012): 1-40. 

Van de Kamp, Mirjam E., S. Marjie Seves and Elisabeth H. M Temme. “Reducing GHG emissions while improving diet quality: exploring the potential of reduced meat, cheese and alcoholic and soft drinks consumption at specific moments during the day.” BMC Public Health, vol. 18, no. 264 (2018): 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5132-3 

Wicker, Alden. “The complicated gender politics of going zero waste.” Vox, May 9, 2019. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/5/9/18535943/zero-waste-movement-gender-sustainability-women-instagram

Yong, Ed. “How the Pandemic Will End.” The Atlantic, March 25, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/ 

How I Regained My Passion: Cooking as Healing

Hello all!

If you’ve been reading Ethigirl for awhile, or if you know me in real life, you probably know that I regularly struggle with my mental health and that burnout — more specifically, activist burnout — has played a huge role in my life.

Most of the time, it feels like I’m constantly surrounded and, frankly, suffocated by the issues which plague our world. In high school, I had a healthier work-life balance along with outlets like sports and art… but in university, the constant whirlwind of assignments and extracurriculars and pressure and struggle to succeed truly got to me, and I lost all of that.

Everything in my life orbited around its focal point: trying desperately, but always feeling like I was failing, to fix the problems of the world. And the worst of it all is that every problem was is so intertwined and entangled. You approach something as simple as single use plastics and are surrounded and caught inside and unable to escape the grips of capitalism and colonialism and environmentalism as an intersectional issue of social justice that affects some of the world’s most vulnerable people and species who have been oppressed and undercut for centuries.

Simply put, it’s difficult to approach an issue, to implement a solution, to see positive results, and to accept them for what they are without feeling defeated by what is left to do or what you cannot accomplish with what you’ve put in place. You’re always missing some component, or you can’t scale. And this tireless work — this chasing after some goal which is damn near impossible to reach — coupled with that constant discouragement breeds one thing alone: burnout.

I often feel that way with fashion, too. I fell in love with sustainable fashion because of how beautiful it is as a solution: sustainably-made clothes are better quality, more unique, and more exciting to wear. I thought that focusing on fashion would allow me to stay positive. It was fun and exciting. And although I certainly still often feel this way, there are some times when I don’t.

This past summer and fall, everything came to a halt: I just didn’t know how I could do it anymore. So I took a break from Ethigirl. I took a break from, well…everything. I was forced to leave a social action-oriented university extracurricular to which I’d probably dedicated hundreds of hours over the past couple of years. I dialed back entirely, leaving me to figure out who I was without activism and advocacy.

It was really scary. I came to terms with the fact that who you are isn’t based on what you do. You can do many, many wonderful things for the world and still hurt the people around you because you’re bad at keeping in touch, you hold grudges for too long, or you never properly learned how to resolve conflict. I learned that we are nothing without the people around us: being surrounded with those who make us feel whole are, well, what make us whole. And we need to take the time to genuinely and deeply foster those relationships for all that they are worth.

At some point during all of this self-learning, I revisited something many people had told me when I was in some of my hardest times: you really need to pick up a hobby. Something completed detached from activism. And that’s when I started getting into cooking. Though I had been meal prepping sporadically for about a year, I’d never put a lot of serious thought into it — probably because I was always so preoccupied with everything else I had on the go.

Vegetarian ramen with green onions, sesame seeds, and a ramen egg

But over this past summer and fall, thanks to the influence of Tyler (my boyfriend), I really started getting into cooking videos on YouTube. Big shout out to Bon Appetit in particular. And then, I started replicating what I saw. I started getting excited about buying my groceries every week. I wanted to learn every tip that I could. Every Sunday, I’d set aside (and still do) about four or five hours to prepare all of my meals for the week ahead. Tyler often helps me cook, and although sometimes he’s just as excited about the food as I am and takes over a little too much, I love having him around during the process.

Cooking has become a true form of self care for me: and not even just in the sense of having nutritious, prepared meals to eat for the week ahead (although that’s also a huge plus), but also because it’s an art form. When I am simply chopping up and simmering veggies for a delicious meal, I get so psyched about the process. It’s very reminiscent of my high school days, when I was doing watercolour paintings on the regular.

Tomato soup with parmesan and microgreens

It has helped me to relearn the simple art of creating something for myself that is just intrinsically good. I am not cooking to support any political or social cause. It’s something entirely detached from every other issue I have going on in my life, and I can just focus on it for those five Sunday afternoon hours while I play music, let some sauce bubble on the stove, and just allow myself to breathe for a minute.

Sick-day vegetarian curry with green onions and sesame seeds

About four months later, I feel deeply healed. I am not all the way better — nor will I probably ever be. But with deeply mindful cooking as part of my lifestyle, I have learned how to take even just five hours every week to take care of myself without any other concerns. And through this process, I know with some practice I can expand that five hours into an hour, or two, or more every single day. That’s something I’m pretty excited about.

With love and sustainability,

Ethigirl

(P.s. — let me know your favourite recipes in the comments. I’m hungry.)