Episode 4: Matt Noble and the Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank

In this episode we talk to Matt Noble, the founder of Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank, a volunteer-powered charity that has served over 250,000 meals worth of whole-food plant-based groceries to people struggling with poverty and food insecurity.  
 
We learn about the importance and operation of a vegetarian food bank and delve into a deeper discussion on social justice, food insecurity and policy. Food security represents a state in which food is available, accessible, and affordable such that there is physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet dietary needs for a productive and healthy life. There is often the concern that a vegetarian or vegan dietary pattern is expensive and out of the price range for those with food insecurity. Matt discusses these concerns, the challenges, the current situation, and what he believes could help potentially address these issues.

Matt also shares some news about exciting initiatives, he and his team are working on, such as veganic agriculture and education. Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank will be breaking ground on a new project – The Veg Food Bank Farm – in partnership with Piebird Farm Sanctuary in the Summer of 2021. 
 
 You can find details about Matt’s work and the Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank on Instagram and Twitter @vegfoodbank and on Facebook at Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank.
 
 The episode is hosted by Dr. Stephanie Nishi and Cassandra Carey, of Plant-Based Canada.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to another episode of the Plant-Based Canada podcast. Join us as we talk to the experts to explore the field of nutritional sciences and how our food choices impact our health and the environment. My name is Steph. My co-host is Cassandra, and today we are joined by Matt Noble to talk about the Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank initiative as well as food security and policy. Matt is the founder of Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank, a volunteer-powered charity that has served over 250,000 meals worth of whole food plant-based groceries to people struggling with poverty and food insecurity. He studied journalism at Centennial College and is an independent researcher in the areas of poverty alleviation, food insecurity, housing, economics, public policy, agriculture, and he's also an avid gardener. Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank will be breaking ground on a new project called the Veg Food Bank Farm, which is in partnership with Hybrid Farm Sanctuary in the summer of 2021. Hi Matt, thanks so much for joining us here today.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

To begin, why a vegan food bank? Could you tell us about the main purposes and the gaps that typical food banks aim to address and what you and your organization with the Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank are doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Yeah, so I get there's there's sort of two parts to that. Um so the the first part of the need for a vegan food bank, of course, is just the need for food banks in general, um, and that is just a result of poverty in Canada. So yeah, so that's the main reason um poverty in Canada basically uh affects, you know, the most marginalized people, uh people of color, women, single parents, that type of thing, and and predominantly people on social assistance. I think that's uh that that's an important point. The a lot of people who are considered food insecure um are like working poor and and from different have different kinds of incomes, but it's the people who are on social assistance specifically who largely rely on food banks, like food banks, like a large percentage of people on social assistance rely on food banks. Um in Ontario, um, social assistance is around $700 a month. So if you compare that to CERB, which is like $2,000, you know, a lot of us would probably be like, hmm, living in Toronto or wherever on $2,000 is would be a pretty tough thing to do. But people on welfare, on which is called Ontario uh works, uh are living off $700 a month. So it's basically impossible. And those are most of the people who rely on the food bank. Um when you talk about food insecurity, um, that is uh broken down into kind of three categories, which are marginal, moderate, and uh severe. And so the people who are on social assistance in Ontario and and like across Canada are the ones who generally account for the severe food insecurity. And uh those are the people who rely on food banks. So um we could talk about basic income later or increases to social uh services, of course. Um, and then the second reason, the the vegan component of it, um, is just that uh at food banks there's not really any vegan food. There's a lack of vegetarian food, but there's um obviously more vegetarian options at food banks than than than vegan because uh food banks partner with uh like dairy farmers and egg farmers. And I was actually just just uh doing some research for the uh for the interview today, and um I was looking at the Feed Ontario website, which is formerly the Ontario Association of Food Banks, and they have their programs like where you can donate, and there's like a there's a page, and there's like a cartoon chicken, a cartoon pig, a cartoon cow, and they have this this whole page dedicated to their different programs. There's like the egg program, the milk program, all these different programs. There's not a fruit and fruit program, there's not a vegetable program, there's not a whole grains, nuts, legumes, any kind of program like that. It's just pictures of animals. And if you click on these different things on the Feed Ontario website, you'll see like the egg farmers program. And the egg farmers donate $250,000 a year, but that $250,000 a year has to be spent on eggs. All these programs with uh with Feed Ontario and with the Food Bank system and Feed Ontario, sorry, the uh Ontario Association of Food Banks is the overarching kind of umbrella organization that um gives funds and foods, food out to all like the smaller food banks. It's the umbrella um in the same way that Food Banks Canada is the larger umbrella over the the national umbrella. There's Feed Ontario is the provincial umbrella. So so yeah, so you have like egg farmers donating 250,000 a year so that to the food bank, but so the food banks can buy back eggs only. They can only spend that money on eggs, and same thing, the beef farmers donate money that has to be spent on beef, and um but that's what's at food banks. So there's like beef at food banks, there's uh eggs at food banks. So like vegetarians can eat eggs, vegetarians can drink milk, obviously. But yeah, so that's what the situation is at food banks, and that um there's there's not there's not as many vegetarian options, of course, because you just have more limitations, but there are even less vegan options, and there's basically basically no vegan options if you go to a food bank. So uh we kind of exist to fill that void so that um among all the different levels of marginalization that people face to get to the point where they're using a food bank, if you're vegan on top of that, you're not kind of left out in in the cold, even when you're even trying to access the normal food bank system, which even then the food's not really great or sufficient.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

So it sounds like the need is twofold. At one level, there's the need for the proportion of the population who are on social assistance and just needing access to food. And then within that, there's a lack of options for those individuals who are vegetarian or vegan, and even just in general for fruits and vegetables and whole grains, nuts, and other foods within the plant-based type of diet.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Totally.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Within the food bank, could you tell us more about your team and what areas of expertise and experience they bring to the table? And what does this mean for the services that are being provided?

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah, so um, so we have an amazing team. Um, we started off with myself, um, Kimberly Carroll, who um is also she's uh one of the founding directors. She's also a director at Animal Justice Canada. Um, and the other founding director was uh Nick Wright, who was actually the founder of Animal Justice Canada, but he's uh no longer on the board of Animal Justice Canada or or the food bank. He lives in Mexico now. Um but um so myself and Kimberly and Nick started it. Uh Nick's a business lawyer, so he did all like the charitable setup and stuff for us, which was great. That made it a lot easier for me to focus on other stuff with starting it up. Um and since then, uh when Nick left, we had to fill his spot. So my sister Amanda, who um has basically she's a founder of the food bank as well. She was she's been there since we opened in January 2015. Um, so she came on, and then um with charities in Canada, you have to have uh 50% not arm's length. So we had to bring on someone else because my sister and I aren't uh arm's length, obviously. So uh so we brought on um uh an old high school friend of mine, Eva. Um, she's been with the food bank um since basically the beginning as well. And when we when we sign people up, there we we do like kind of do a one-on-one uh sign-up with everybody. So in that sense, uh we're sort of like a lot of our our core volunteers who do that. We only have a few volunteers who do the that kind of in-depth interaction with clients, but Eva's been one of the people who's been doing that since the food bank opened. So she's sort of like a volunteer social worker. Uh so she's she's really um she's really good at that and has been doing that for a long time. And then excitingly and recently, uh just uh recent just last month, um, we brought on three new directors. Um so one of them is our friend uh Nithal Jetalal. He's at the plant-based data team with uh Dr. Tushar Meta, um who you've probably heard of, and uh environmental researcher Nicholas Carter, um, who does the environmental. Tushar does the um the medical and the zoonotic aspect, and then um of the website, the plant-based data website, data. And um Nithel does the economics. And Nithel uh used to work for the for Agriculture Canada, so he's got a lot of experience. Um, as we might talk about a little bit, um, like the the food bank's gonna be doing some farming stuff and uh and we're really interested in food policy and anti-poverty policy. Um so Nithel's got like a lot of experience dealing with like stuff in the agricultural sector in government. Um, and then uh another director we just brought on, Javi Castro. Um she actually helped start the food bank and she kind of moved away for a little bit and she's back now, and she was like a perfect person to bring on. She's got lots of experience with uh volunteering in the food bank sector. Um, she also graduated from Ryerson um from the nutrition program and did the uh the year uh at this uh the School of Holistic Nutrition. Uh, I can't remember exactly what it's called in Toronto. Here, a lot of people do that. She did that after Ryerson. Um, and so she's great. She's great. She's a board now. And uh, and then lastly, uh our friend Eric Vautour, who's been volunteering forever too, and he's uh an Indigenous guy from Manitoulin Island. And so we we were consciously trying to diversify the board when we brought them on. It just it just happened to be because we because it was me and Kim really, and then we brought my sister on, and then Eva, the the board was very white, and we've been uh we've been trying to uh just basically keep up with running the food bank for the first few years. So it was nice to um be able to diversify it, um, bringing those three people on. Um and uh and and they're all amazing, and so it's gonna be great for the food bank. So that's really exciting. And then uh lastly, um our our nutrition people, which is which is kind of a nice evolution that happened with the food bank, was just um originally Dr. Pamela Ferguson, who's uh got a her PhD in nutrition. Um, she was the first ever to do nutrition counseling for us. So that that was a service that we were able to start providing, I think, in 2016 for the clients of the food bank. And so if people are already vegan or vegetarian, at a physical location, we had people could have appointments and go speak with Pamela, ask her whatever they wanted. She would help them with nutrition and um you know, even uh affordable options as well, trying to come up with affordable options for people as well to optimize their nutrition. And then uh after that, aim um we had uh Amy Symington come on board. She's a researcher and associate, a research associate and uh chef and um nutrition professor at George Brown, and then also uh Lauren McNeil, who's uh dietitian um with her master's in uh public health in nutrition, I believe. And um, and then Debbie Fong, who who's been Debbie Debbie's been doing a lot of since the pandemic started, a lot of the um the calls, like doing basically nutritional nutrition counseling over the phone with with our clients. So Debbie's been uh kicking butt during the pandemic doing all of the over-the-phone stuff. So between Debbie and Lauren and uh Amy and Pamela, uh, we've been able to provide that kind of um nutritional uh service to the clients, which is just an amazing little extra thing that I we never planned into it and it kind of happened organically, which is great because people don't have money for that. In the the people who use the food bank don't have money for that. And in general, just having those uh those four people like sharing their wealth of knowledge with everybody is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Wow. Well, it it sounds like you have such a diverse uh community and team of people that are working alongside you. I mean, between all the different kinds of experience and educational backgrounds, the you know, ethnic backgrounds that you're talking about. Um, yeah, I'm sure you're just so proud, you know, looking back to where you started uh versus today.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

It's uh yeah, it's it's beautiful. Uh I'm not uh I'm not uh I wouldn't I I'm not uh don't know about proud, but it's it's just a beautiful thing. I'm I it's so like it's been it's been a lot of work and and like I was saying, like the since we started, it's been just keeping up with like every little thing that's happened as we've grown. There's more more of this and more of that, and just more things to manage and do, uh more people to feed, more volunteers to organize, more bookkeeping, all that kind of stuff, which is which I've been doing the whole time. Um but uh but yeah, I mean just the the people who have come into it and like all the friendships that I have with people I might never have met otherwise, and all the relationships that we have and all the all the other people who've connected in those friendships. Um I'm really excited about yeah, the new directors because they've been with the food, those people have all been with the food bank forever, but just now having their their input and and shaping how we're gonna grow in the future and uh and just being more connected and having more people involved. And and as we grow, I think that and yeah, it's just I feel really lucky that I've been able to kind of be part of that. And I just feel lucky to have been able to work with all these people. So uh I love it.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

For sure. And speaking about, you know, diversity and intersectionality, you mentioned that the intention behind the vegan food bank was to be intersectional, so encompassing social justice, animal justice, and environmental justice. And within social justice, you know, food security, as you are well aware of, is affecting about one in eight households in Canada, according to the proof report, which I mean one would consider this, you know, an epidemic of food insecurity. And so yeah. So could you tell our listeners more about this proof report and why so many people are affected by food insecurity, specifically in Canada, and what are the impacts for these individuals and maybe for you know society at large?

SPEAKER_02 14:27

So the proof report is um it's a food policy project. Um, it's a collaboration. So Valerie Teresic is like, she's a she's awesome. Um, she's she's been doing this for years and she's amazing. It's she's got research on on food insecurity, obviously, is the main thing, but also with food bank, she's got research on food bank use and lots of stuff like that. So she's been like, she's been uh really in it. She's got a really amazing perspective. Um so the proof report is is led by her. Um, so it's uh collaboration with U of T, but there's also funding from like University of Calgary, I think, in Illinois, and funding from the government and and whatnot to develop policy. But it's it's a food policy um research initiative. And um what I what I'll say about that, I guess, because I was I was going over data today and I was comparing food security stats with poverty stats. And they're they're really close, but there's a lot of diversity in the statistics. Um, but they they they generally mirror each other. Um the proof report, it's got a when we're talking about food insecurity, we're talking about about poverty. Um food food insecurity is a lens of looking at an aspect of poverty when when people are dealing with food insecurity, they're also not paying their rent, they're also not able to afford their medication. They're um, like I said earlier, there's like different degrees of food insecurity. So if it's uh marginal, they're just sort of like worrying about food and maybe not paying some bills or something and getting worried about it. Moderate is like they're reducing their quantities of food they're eating, maybe the quality of the food they're eating, and then severe food insecurity is like you're missing meals, your kids aren't eating, or you're missing meals so your kids can eat, or you're not eating multiple meals. So that's just the food aspect. But yeah, there's all the there's there's the housing, there's not paying your rent, there's not being able to pay your internet or your your cell bill, which uh doesn't allow you to do other things, right? So um, yeah, we're generally just food security is generally talking about poverty, and that's one of the things Val has really been uh instrumental in advocating about. Um and she's been lately, especially during the pandemic, but I'm kind of all along um advocating for a type of a basic income. Um, because um there's there's data and her data and data that she's worked on with other people that shows that um people who are experiencing food insecurity when they're given more money, it reduces food insecurity. I mean, that's uh even the government's data has shown that with the recent um implementation of the increases to the uh Canadian child benefits. That's lifted families and children out of poverty. Just that's just a little extra money for families who have kids. Um but yeah, but so it's it's really just a problem of poverty. Uh the intersectional aspect uh of the food bank is that that, yeah, as I was saying earlier too, is the people who are using the food bank tend to be those who are severely food insecure. And those just tend to, when you look at poverty statistics or food insecurity statistics, it tends to be racialized, marginalized people tend to be over like represented. For example, uh a study that Val did with food share um showed that that black Torontonians are 3.5 times more likely to be food insecure than a white Torontonian. That mirrors also like the the poverty statistics too. It's like the the ratio in the poverty statistics is like four to one, so 3.5, 4. It's basically the same thing. Um, and then you find that with women, uh, single women, uh well, women are more likely to be food insecure than men, but especially if you're looking at throwing like a kid or two into the mix, like single parents, like a single mother is much more likely to be food insecure than a single father. Um, so when you look at every kind of indicator of marginalization, people are more likely to be food severely food insecure or experiencing poverty and rely on food banks. So that's what the intersectionality of the food bank was about. It was just helping the most in need people who are really, and and when those people choose to come to a food bank, they're really in need too. People do other things before they try to borrow money from family, they try to pawn things, they they skip on paying bills. Like food banks are often a last resort uh for people. Uh, and then the other level of marginalization, as we were talking about, is if people are vegan, they can't even go to another food bank, right? So that's a level of the intersectionality there. But then as vegans, everyone on the board is a vegan. Everyone who's ever been a board member, including our our our uh dearly departed Nick and uh and everyone who's on the board now are are all vegan. Um the people who volunteer at the food bank aren't all vegan. There's like like my mom volunteers at the food bank uh regularly, she's not veg. Um, and and there's lots of people who aren't veg, but mostly people are who volunteer are veg or vegan. But that was a whole other thing. We just when we were starting this, I I just kind of saw that there was no like like I've done animal rights activism for a long time. Uh Kimberly has been doing animal rights activism for like 15 or 20 years. So we've been in that space, and I just kind of noticed there wasn't there wasn't a lot of vegan activism, animal, animal focus activism in in food security initiatives or anything like that, or in kind of human rights initiatives. Um so I just kind of thought, hey, we can we can help people, we can uh we can show others that you can help people without hurting animals. And so that was kind of just like the other intersectional approach. And then, and then it just gives us a platform to talk about the climate aspect as well. So it's really a good way to talk about poverty humans are dealing with, but also what non-human animals are dealing with uh who are experiencing our food system. And uh and yeah, it gives us an opportunity to talk about the climate as well. And uh, as the food bank maybe does more with farming and stuff in the future, that might allow us to discuss agriculture a little more too.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Amazing. Um, I love how in within your organization you're able to touch on all these different, these different justice issues. And you mentioned food security. So just for our listeners who are at home, when we say food insecurity, we mean that uh food is available, it's accessible and affordable, and such that there is physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet their dietary needs in order to live a productive and healthy life. And I guess there is often a concern that a vegan dietary pattern is quite expensive and you know out of reach and quite not accessible for those with food insecurity. And so could you speak a little bit about the the difference in cost between following a vegan dietary pattern compared to an regular standard uh omnivorous uh pattern in respect to food insecurity? I mean, I know that there's a multitude of ways you can eat a vegan diet, and there's a multitude of ways you can eat an omnivorous diet, but just more generally speaking, I guess, um, could you touch a bit uh about that?

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Sure, yeah, yeah. And that brings in um some of the stuff we were just talking about when you talk about like the real cost of food, um, which is a which is a concept I really like talking about because when you take into consideration the the subsidies and externalities and what costs food does cost and should cost. But um, but yeah, just to start go back to the beginning of your Question. Um, it is a conversation we have a lot with that discussion about it's expensive to eat a vegan diet, which it's absolutely not. So we're we're trying to constantly debunk that, right? Like even the the chickpeas at the store are cheaper than like the tuna that's on sale, like three cans of tuna for like two dollars or whatever. Like the chickpeas are still cheaper and better for you, right? Um, so uh so yeah, we're constantly debunking that. Um, that the that the things that are expensive are maybe like more like luxury foods or expensive foods, or maybe just some foods that tend to be expensive foods, but but those are foods like let's just say, for example, broccoli is expensive, right? People who aren't vegan should also eat broccoli. So it's not just expensive to be vegan, it's just expensive to eat broccoli, right? So I'm not saying broccoli is expensive, I'm just using that as an example, but but but we should all be eating healthy foods. And um, the foods that like uh the plant-based foods that you would eat instead of meat or eggs or dairy, you can substitute, like you can just have soy milk in instead of uh instead of cow's milk, or if you're older is just soy, you can drink some other milk. But there's plenty of ways to get your food from a plant-based diet, and all those ways tend to be healthier for you anyway. But the expensive foods are ones that everyone should be eating. So it's not like being vegan is not expensive, it's just like certain foods are expensive. And then, and then just to uh kind of talk about the the real cost of food, you know, all the the animal farming industries are heavily subsidized, like the the egg, the eggs, dairy, meats are all heavily subsidized. And so not only are we paying as uh taxpayers, paying for the to prop up these industries, or just basically to give the farmers more money, we don't know that even the money we put in as taxpayers is trickling down and making foods cheaper for consumers could just be going to people along the supply chain and farmers and stuff like that. But we're paying for that, and we don't know if we're seeing savings. And uh and then there's the environmental consequences too. There's the land use, there's the CO2 and the methane from animal farming, um, and the the water degradation. Um, there's algae blooms all over the place in Ontario, just as one example, right? Like Lake Erie and uh Scoogog and like all around the Kawarthas and stuff like that, because there's so much farming, like you can't even kids can't even go swimming in certain areas um because of it. So we're all we're all paying for that type of thing. And uh, and so so yeah, I'm big on I'm I'm big on supporting the the carbon tax, um, even if that does sort of hit plant foods a little bit, but we know that that'll disproportionately uh affect animal food prices more so. And and I'm a fan of pollution tax and stuff as well. And that goes to the whole the other side of the real cost of food is um our social cultural expectations of how much food should cost, right? Like we all want food to be cheap, but that's also because we want to spend money on other things and we just think everything should be cheap, right? So um I really do think we need kind of like a cultural shift away from like wanting food to be cheap. And I think the food movement sort of perpetuates that too, right? Because we want hungry people to be able to eat. So we want food to be affordable, but instead of talking about that food should be cheap, which results in you know externalized cost of the environment to taxpayers, to workers a lot of the time, people along uh people who work in grocery stores or on farms who are laborers and all that kind of thing tend to make less than like the average Canadian wood, right? Or the median Canadian would. So if we want people to make fair wages and it takes a certain amount of time for broccoli to grow, there's just no getting around that, right? Like it's gonna take a few months or a week or, you know, whatever. So there's these built-in costs that we should just kind of, I think, be willing to pay, and we should be willing to say, like, okay, food is an important thing, and we should be willing to support this industry and pay the real, like a real cost of food that allows us to pay everybody and account for the pollution as well. Um, and if we don't get to do other things in our life because maybe we're spending a little more on food, that's okay. And and um we just need programs like a basic income to make sure that if food does increase in price a little bit, that we are giving the poor money to be able to buy at least buy food and pay rent.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

There's so much within that, there's the multitude of factors, it seems like. So not only are there the direct costs that individuals see, but there's all these indirect costs, and it sounds like changes needed, and many people have spoken about changes that are needed. But could you talk about policies? You had mentioned that there is data available, such as the research that's been done by Dr. Terasek and others, and the proof report, and information that we have on how our food affects the environment and vice versa. But could you speak more to what policies are currently in place or what policy changes you feel are needed to help address issues of both food insecurity and this real cost of food while also considering the nutritional health of people?

SPEAKER_02 27:07

So so that's a that's a main thing that that proof and and Val in particular and a lot of people in kind of the food world, uh, food charity world talk about is is increasing, has always talked about increasing social assistance. Um now it's it's it's easier to frame that as a basic income now because that's more in the zeitgeist and with with COVID-19, it's just a little bit easier to kind of talk about a basic income and and possibly a little more straightforward just in terms of of thinking about it. But so I'd say that's the principal thing. I'd say like the fact that welfare is maxes out in Ontario to around $700 a month, and the government responded to the pandemic with $2,000 a month, and that was like they had their reasons for coming up with that $2,000, right? Not, you know, they whatever their their reasons were, tons of factors. But part of that would have been the assumption that most they don't want like a rebellion in Canada, right? So 2,000 was this kind of like basic number where they're like, okay, people need at least $2,000. We got to give people at least $2,000, right? But the average person on welfare is getting $700, which is a third of that, right? So it's a third of what the government thought people should get. Um, so CERB's a great example of just kind of like an easy basic income. So the the government of Canada only really established a poverty line uh in the last few years, and that's like around in between like $17 and $20,000. So CERB is like 20 would be $2,000 a month would be $24,000 a month. So that's like a good place to start, right? It's like a little bit above the poverty line. But uh in terms of policy, so so that's that's a good policy, and then and then tweaking it, right? Like I was thinking earlier this morning just about like uh like pharmacare, right? Uh a basic income, when you're when you're thinking of a basic income, it's it's got to be comprehensive in the sense of like we're gonna give people money so they can afford food and shelter and like those basic things that everybody needs. But then when it comes to um maybe needing money for medication or this or that, that can be done on a more individual basis, right? Like it's not like you come up with a basic income and like everything's taken care of. You need kind of programs to remain in place for certain things where like like everyone doesn't need medication, right? So it's better just put that aside in its own kind of silo and deal with deal with uh pharmacare like as a separate thing and have basic income cover the basic things. But yeah, you just gotta figure we just gotta figure out kind of the um, I think actually the the government uses the the government of Canada uses the market basket measure to determine the poverty line. Um, and that's probably a really good measure of how we should establish uh a basic income because it takes into consideration like housing, uh food, little minor things like internet and and basic things like that that we all need. So I think that's a great place to start. And and I and I'm hoping, because I I have been doing the food bank uh while working another while working a full-time job for the last few years, um, I'm hoping that uh in the next uh year or so, if I'm able to come on full-time as the executive director, which which is which is possible, I'm I'm hoping that uh we'll be able to really focus on that a lot more because we don't want to as a food bank uh promote like food bank ism as the as the answer to to the problem, right? Like we are doing this to fill the hunger gap right now, but it's not the the policy answer. And because we've just been keeping up with the increasing demand and just the pressure of different things that come up over the last few years, we've really been just been focusing on the food bank and trying to feed people. But if I can actually come on full-time, then I could like spend a little more time really uh focusing on the basic income advocacy portion of it, which is what we really want to do. Like we want to put ourselves out of business as a food bank. If we got to a place where there was a basic income and stuff like that, you know, there might be still a need for an emergency food, something for emergency food. Like maybe if people have a basic income, there might still be some people who for some reason need emergency food, right? But that shouldn't be a charitable thing. It shouldn't be left up to citizens to do like the the government should be responsive to the needs of the most vulnerable in Canada, right? The most marginalized in Canada. So and then uh and then yeah, policy-wise, other than giving people the money to be able to buy the food, yeah, just just um like I said, I'm I'm I'm in favor of pollution taxes. I think we should tax pollution. Um the in the commodification of of everything, like land and water and and everything is is kind of like happened. Like there's no place on earth where there's not a country. There's no new place where we can just go and like start a new world, like the earth is full of people now. And money, money is uh an exchange, a value exchange mechanism. We use money to say, like, I value this, and I'm gonna give you this much for that and this for this. So we need to also put a value on pollution too. So yeah, we we can we can put the we can have environmental taxes. They might affect the cost of food. I don't know if we should, I don't think we should tax food directly. There's a lot of people who are for like uh meat taxes and things like that. And I I mean I haven't done a ton of thinking about that, but I just being in the food movement and knowing how people are with food and and the general consensus most people in Canada obviously aren't veg and like their like their animal foods, right? So I don't think it's really a viable thing. But uh yeah, I'm not I'm not thinking like taxing food directly is a good good thing right now. Uh maybe in the future, who knows? Uh we'll see see how it goes. But yeah, just just taxing pollution and making sure that people have the basics. And then the the, like I said, the other like side side things like pharmaceuticals and like just things like that that maybe a basic income shouldn't cover because everyone doesn't need it kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Yeah, it sounds like basic income and having the financial means to meet needs is a big thing that policy could or should be focused on. But currently there's a disconnect between this and sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Yeah, I was I I just remembered uh something that that I that I should have included there um uh from from some some stuff um that Val Valerie Terrasic has talked about, is and and like I was saying before, is there are all these overlapping things, like someone who's experiencing food insecurity is also um maybe not able, maybe skipping out on paying their rent or skipping out on meals or not able to pay their internet or phone bills, which might affect other things. Um and so the the data does show that when you give people money, they know how to use it. Like I think she, I think Val even says like they're not people aren't stupid. You know what I mean? Like people know what's essential to them and what they need to get by. And the data shows that people spend it on food. When when we give people the Canadian child benefit, when we increase that, food and severe food insecurity goes down. When someone who's um a really important study that that Val cites uh from 2016 is they tracked people who were on social assistance and you had to be making under a certain amount per year to even qualify to be part of the study. So they're tracking people who were essentially poor over a long period of time. And when those people turned 65 and got their pension, the average retirement pension with the with the federal top up is people get around 1,500 a month, around 1,500 a month. So if you're getting 700 a month from welfare, people are like waiting for that day when they turn 65. If you're on welfare, the day you turn 65 is like an amazing day because your income doubles, right? And so they the study shows as soon as people turn 65, there's just a drop in reported food insecurity among those people. Um, so it shows the protective effect of just increasing someone's income, even a little amount. And and the the Canadian child benefit shows that too. So there's lots of data to show that people will spend the money on food, but also there's just the principle of there's thinking of a basic income or or of so of social safety nets as like helping people who need help. But there's also kind of in my mind, um, as a citizen, you you sort of you're a piece of you're part of Canada, you're a piece of Canada as a citizen, right? Like the the land is yours, the the infrastructure is yours, like everything is is ours. And and so if you're if you're a citizen, you you know, you shouldn't be able to reach a certain level of poverty because Canada is part of the commons, right? So it's it's part of all of us and it belongs to all of us. And and so there's just that whole being a citizen aspect and just the dignity of not being poor, which I think is also just important in its own, in its own right too.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Since hunger doesn't wait for policy change, what other strategies in addition to the Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank are there? And what can people in other areas that such as outside of Toronto do when there may not be vegan food easily or affordably available?

SPEAKER_02 36:06

I mean, really food in terms of food insecurity, it's really just just food banks are picking up the slack and other kind of like drop-in like meal programs and stuff like that. There's there's not a lot of there's not tons of programming outside of just kind of the basic, basic charitable response, which just I would just say just emphasizes the the need for government intervention all the more so.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Yeah, it sounds like this is an area that still has a gap that could be addressed, whether it's through policy or other initiatives, or how do we bridge that gap?

SPEAKER_02 36:41

I I think it's up to up to the the government to make sure that that people don't reach such such um deep levels of poverty. And and and I guess without without kind of knowing going into the the specifics on all the the data, um if you if you just when you look at the the data that that housing advocates present and food security activists uh present, and just people in all these different kind of streams of of lenses of looking at poverty, there's there's almost always some kind of data data that's showing that like a dollar spent at upstream results in like ten dollars of savings downstream, right? So people who are food insecure use at least twice as much in healthcare spending, like cost us twice as much in healthcare spending. There's there's like mental health effects that that cost us money. Obviously, there's human beings at the center of this too. So, like, like I was saying, like just that the basic dignity of providing people, helping people not go down these spirals is is so important. But but just in terms of if you're thinking about from an economic perspective, um, the the costs to having to take care of people with with housing um and and with all these different factors, almost everybody says that like a dollar spent on the front end saves us like five to ten dollars in the long run. So there's really like an economic argument for just for the government just stepping in because the government, the taxpayer is going to be covering these more expensive costs down the road in terms of uh healthcare and housing and different services that we even even the the prison system, a lot of people who are in the prison system have done something as a result of poverty, and that's how they end up there.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Yeah, it's like the cyclical situation that we find ourselves in. You've shared quite a bit of information with us and our listeners already, but is there anything else you think our listeners may not be aware of in regards to food insecurity or those who use places such as food banks or the policy that surrounds this issue, or um that people or our listeners could be doing to help address these issues?

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Like I just would hammer home that welfare is $700 a month, which is ridiculous, and um and the answer is some kind of of increase to social assistance. So I would just say to people to um just reach out to your your politicians about it, like start a relationship with your your MP. Um uh just do a just do a little research. You can research, um, you can check out the proof report. You can see they they do annual updates, um, and there's different, and and even if probably if you Google like Valerie Teresuk, that's a good place to start. Um, but then there's like Canada Without Poverty, um has a lot of of data as well. But um just do I I just like uh suggest to people to to care and um and to get involved and uh just just uh like learn a little bit about it. Um you can volunteer at a food bank. I mean that's a good place to like meet people and get into that world. But uh but yeah, I mean ultimately talking, having a relationship with politicians and uh just voicing your concerns and letting them know that that you don't really think that the level of of poverty that exists, like you said, one in eight Canadians, which is now uh since the pandemic been revised to one in seven, which is basically five million Canadians are kind of in that poverty food insecure range, which is a lot. Um going through the data is really sad. And uh especially when you like the data on like kids represent an even higher proportion of those experiencing food insecurity. They uh it's it's at least one in at least one in six kids compared to like one in eight or one in seven. Like overall, kids make up about a quarter of the people who are food insecure in Canada or experiencing poverty uh in Canada. Um so yeah, so just I I just think talking to our MPs um and just letting them know that we care and letting them know that we support an increase to the most basic uh social safety nets that we offer. So that would be, I guess, I guess that would be that would actually be MPP, that would be provincial, the uh yeah, Ontario works and and I guess it's it's provincial governments. So I guess you'd go, you'd wanna you'd want to reach out to your MPP about that. And yeah, and I encourage that and just having an ongoing dialogue with them about and following up and just making sure they don't forget who you are and forget that you care, and even if you've had, you know, have a meeting with them, it's easy to get a meeting with your MPP, uh, follow up with them, and then you can even like once you have that relationship going, you can send email them articles and just keep that that dialogue going, right? And just uh just keep on it and let them know that you care about it and let them know that you're you're voting and and and get involved even with uh with with politicians' campaigns. Um join, you know, join a party, or if you don't if you don't want to join a party, that's cool too. Get involved with uh an initiative that's activated um that's uh advocating for something or start start something yourself. Uh people can it's really easy to just kind of like start small and get a group of people together and start advocating for something. So yeah, just get political, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Yeah, it's uh it's really crucial work to get political. And um just when you talk about children in Canada being food insecure, it's you know, that shouldn't be happening. I mean, that shouldn't be happening anywhere in the world. And um, it's not because there's a lack of, you know, resources such as you know, food, we can grow the food. It's just, you know, about money, about the finances. So, in terms of your food bank, I mean, what's next for the food bank? Could you share with us some of the projects that you currently have in the works, such as the veganic agriculture and uh and education?

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Yeah, totally. And and just um to to uh go to uh just go back to the kids really quickly and and tie that in with something that we're doing. So um we are applying to become a member of the coalition for healthy school food. Um we we do have a like an interesting conversation going on around there's a level of dignity associated with like being able to go to school and have food and not and and not stand out that you're the the sole person. Like if when you have a universal um school food program, all the kids eat. So there's no stigmatization, there's no like that kid needs it or this kid needs it, it's everyone uses it, and there's so there's a dignity in that respect. But then there's also a dignity in like in having income, right? And having like a basic income or a civ citizen's dividend or something. So so it's so it's an interesting conversation talking about is there more dignity in just giving people money so that they can send their kids to food with the food they want to give their kids, or is there more dignity to having the kids be able to have the the food at school? I'm sure there's um there are lots of good arguments why a school food program is uh is a is a good idea. Um, tons of great arguments. That's why we're joining as a member. But there's also an interesting conversation about what the best uh best approach is. But um so we're doing that. And and yeah, just to finish up on the kids, like the one of the one of the reasons that like a school food program, for example, is so important or just have or kids having food is so important is there's it's another one of those things where it's an upstream thing, right? Like kids who are hungry, they don't learn as good. They, you know, they're they're sicker, they have like they are more likely to have headaches. They're they're they sh they're less able to cope with things. Like you have all these little kids going to school who are hungry and they can't learn, they can't pay attention, they're like not feeling good. They go to the hot they go to the school nurse more often. Like um so so I mean it's having a school food program is just a really good way to just nip that in the butt and just give the kids some food help them learn it help and long term that's another thing where like it's an upstream thing that helps the Canadian economy right like when the kids do better in school we all benefit. And also just the fact that like having kids not be hungry is important too, right? So yeah, so that's a cool thing that we're doing um we're just signing up as a member for that. And that's also so we can we we're doing that just as like a an initi to be part of this initiative to make sure kids have food. But it's also good to get in there as vegans too, right? And see like because there's lots of members and they all want to do things in a certain way. So it'll be a good way for us to get in there and um uh see how it's working and there's four there's a meeting every quarter so we'll have a representative there we'll get a vote on things um it'll give us a good window into how that's operating we'll we'll finally kind of get it get a look at that and then uh be able to be a part of it as well. So we'll be able to shape that from sort of like a a plant-based vegan perspective which is cool. So that's exciting. Yeah new directors is exciting the uh joining the coalition for healthy school food is cool. And then the big thing for this year is going to be starting our farm. So um it's just gonna be kind of getting it going this year. Um we're gonna start with two locations. We have an acre um up north at Piebert Farm Sanctuary with our friends Yan and Sherry. So we're gonna have a veganic uh kale farm there. So we're gonna start small and just try to substitute for all the kale that we serve and we're gonna start with kale. And a few weeks ago actually we applied for to be able to do another thing under our charitable purpose. So right now our charitable purpose is the alleviation of poverty by running a food bank like verbatim that's like legally what we're allowed to do. But there's another category under the charitable sector guidelines which is advancement of education. So we've applied to be able to do advancement of education basically from the soil to the to the plate essentially so so if we're allowed to do that kind of educational stuff then hopefully we'll be also be able to do the farming but also um maybe have programs where people uh or kids or individuals can grow food. We'll be able to do videos to talk about that type of stuff. So um so all the we can we'll be able to talk about VNA farming which is fun that's just like a little passion of mine and that'll allow us to hopefully save money on food as well. So hopefully um we'll be able to use like some volunteers and maybe uh like myself or something doing a lot of the work to be able to reduce what we're spending on food and and substitute like the non-organic kale from like California that we're serving for like Ontario veganic kale which would be cool. And then uh and then we're um going to be laying the foundations of uh another farm about an hour out of the city to the east which is at our director Eva's property. So we're gonna like start that so we can start growing in 22. And then there's some other options for um I've been talking with some other sanctuaries and um some other uh friends who have property in in like southern Ontario as well. So the farm the we're starting farming this year we're definitely growing some stuff um um and and that's fun and exciting and it'll make the food a better quality as well and then uh and then we could conceivably expand that moving forward so it baby steps with that but um who knows where that could go it's it's exciting I love uh I love plants and and farming and stuff like that so it's really uh really cool and that's just that'll just be another um like an experiential window into like the real cost of food too because we'll be growing it we'll be waiting for it we'll be like testing the conditions and like um so it'll be it'll be an interesting kind of uh way to connect connect people with the food as connect us and the people with with the food more so and if we can do the educational component through that too. So yeah that's a that's an exciting uh project that we got starting this year and hopefully expanding in the future.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Yeah that's awesome. I'm just I'm just picturing you know a school field trip where you have a bunch of kids going to one of your farms and learning about you know food and agriculture and you know how to how to grow your own food which is so empowering.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

And kids who and kids who um grow food um end up having a better relationship with food for the rest of their lives and the the they they end up eating healthier and and wasting less food as well too.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Yeah that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 49:17

And so just to finish us off here could you tell our listeners uh where they can uh find you where they can learn more about your vegan food bank and the work that you and your team does yeah so um so our website is uh TVfb.ca so it's the acronym for Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank TVFB.ca um there's a there's a there's information there um uh given given that there's been so much to do during the pandemic and and whatnot I haven't uh been able to update the uh the website uh a lot lately but so there's an old video on there from 2015. Actually an exciting thing is we're hopefully going to be finishing up uh a new video that's a little more up to date it was shot pre-pandemic so we've been working on it like while we've been juggling all the pandemic food food emergency response we've been doing but uh but um yeah so the video the new video is almost done and that's kind of a there's so on our website there's a video from 2015. It it shows you the food bank like you can it's called like a day at Toronto Vegetarian food bank it's like four or five minutes but it gives you a really good sense of the food bank but but it's changed a lot since 2015. There's it's way we're you know we're obviously serving way more people we've grown a lot in a lot of ways we have like a a lot more uh team members and stuff and uh and and it features at the farm too and so you get to see Ian and Sherry and they talk about some of the animals at the sanctuary is uh as well um so that's a really a a nice little the new video is a nice little shot so maybe by the time uh people hear this podcast we might have that up on the on the website uh so yeah tvfb.ca and on uh instagram and twitter we are at Veg Food Bank and on Facebook it's just Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank. I guess the other thing that's an exciting thing that's that's coming up is we do an annual uh fast for hunger fundraiser where we uh we all pledge to not eat for a day and then raise money to support the food bank. So that'll be launching in May and then the act and then there's a few weeks of fundraising and then the actual day of the Fast for Hunger is in June where we all there's like a Facebook group where we can all we all talk and support each other and post pictures of being sad because we're hungry that day and whatever. So um it's a nice little community community experience and raises money to keep the food bank going. So uh so that's kind of the next thing um coming down the the pike other than kind of getting ready for the the growing season and just keeping up with the pandemic emergency response which is kind of what our obviously what our main focus has been for the last going on a year now.

SPEAKER_01 51:54

Before we go, you mentioned that you have been operating throughout this entire pandemic. Could you just briefly describe what that looks like and how that has been for you this past year.

SPEAKER_02 52:05

Yeah it's been uh it's been a lot of work um so when the when the food bank started out um I didn't really know what I was getting into and a lot of it the like 2015 1617 was me not like sleeping very much and like keeping up with it like working on it before and after work and just like it hitting a bit of a burnout point in like 2017 or 18. And then like in 2018 it we systematized some things and like I it wasn't as heavy on me in 2018 and 19. So I was had a bit more of a normal life at that point. And then when the pandemic hit it kind of threw us back into this whole new like reinventing the wheel and and just having it just requires a lot more labor. So what we're doing now is whereas we would usually be having hundreds of people coming to the food bank we are now have volunteer drivers deli making hundreds of deliveries to to people so essentially what we've done is we've just been working with Google Docs and we've been signing people up online. We we were lucky to have a volunteer who helped us get like when when the government came out with the uh those like grant supports for for food banks and stuff we were managed to get um a little bit of money which is basically just paid for us to have a couple one or two part-time people doing signups over the phone and email and stuff like that. So um we've had um two people doing like really part-time work just uh signing up new new clients um over the phone and email and then I've been designing routes um for deliveries um and uh and managing like all of the the clients who are signed up and just putting drivers with the routes and basically everyone who volunteers as a driver um we have we have like a little boxing hub where we have we only have maximum 10 people um and those 10 people are just boxing like mad just getting boxes out and drivers drivers come and pick it up and uh and yeah and about one driver will take about 10 deliveries to about 10 families um and that's you know usually a few hours or whatever and uh and they'll just do a little neighborhood like one person will do one neighborhood and one person will do another so it's it's um I try to keep it pretty streamlined for the volunteers um which just requires a lot of work on my end because as opposed to having hundreds of people coming to us now I'm organizing having food go to hundreds of people so um it's been it's been uh a lot of work um but hopefully it won't last that much longer and uh and and it's just worked out well having the having been able to have like a couple people helping me part-time uh so that's that's been good um it's it's funny every time I say something about the pandemic I always I'm I always say like this worked out really well but really it's only filling a gap that's a problem because the pandemic exists in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

So if the pandemic have never what had never happened it would have been a lot better but the situation worked out okay that we managed to have a couple people helping me um to keep it going because I I wouldn't have been able to uh to do it on my own so um yeah it's been nice to have uh have some help it sounds like you've been able to adapt to the situation and keep up with what's going on and um thank you so much to you and your team for being able to do that and rising to the occasion and thank you so much for joining us here today and speaking with us.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

Thank you so much for having me. It was a nice chat.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

For this episode your hosts are Cassandra and myself Steph and Clint was our audio engineer. A very special thanks to our guest Matt Noble for speaking with us and sharing his insights. And of course thank you for listening. Be sure to check out our next episode in two weeks. The Plant Based Canada Podcast is an initiative of the group Plant Based Canada which aims to educate the public and health professionals on the evidence-based benefits of plant-based whole food nutrition for individual and planetary health. To learn more about the show visit our website at www.plantbasedcanada.org and stay up to date by following us on Twitter, Instagram YouTube and Facebook at Plantbased Canada. Also don't forget to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify or wherever else you listen to podcasts and rate us five stars. Until next time