Adding to the last post, U of T’s Water Initiative is also underway. Campus partners encourage the use of refillable water canteens or bottles. There are filtered water stations in cafeterias, and water fountains in almost every building on campus. You can fill your canteen at any of these locations for free: save yourself some money and keep plastic bottles out of the landfills.
If you are almost convinced to switch to stainless steel canteens, check out The Good Human to be fully convinced.
Cheers!
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Tomorrow, Wednesday afternoon, the U of T Farmer’s Market will be running inside UC from 2:30pm until 5:30pm. Among the fabulous local farmers, we have a chocolatier with an amazing story.
Mathieu is one of the people who works at ChocoSol: local chocolatiers who produce pedal-powered, stone ground chocolate right here in Toronto. We asked Mathieu to give us a quick introduction to ChocoSol, and here is what he had to say:
We are ChocoSol Chocolatiers. We make stone-ground dark chocolate directly from the cacao bean here in Toronto. We make locally processed chocolate which is made in a traditional Mexican style instead of an industrial factory. Traditional Mexican chocolate is like the “Drinking Chocolate Pucks” (sold at the market) which are used to make chocolatey which is a traditional form of Mexican drinking chocolate. Chocolatey comes from the word xocolatl which means “bitter drink” in Mayan. We draw our inspiration from the tradition of chocolate from the region the chocolate is grown in. Our project in Toronto has an educational component. We try to connect people here with the tradition of cacao and inform them of where chocolate comes from. We also combine this chocolate with local Toronto ingredients like local hemp seeds from Peterborough and locally grown chillies and mints, some of which are grown on our green roof. It’s a wholesome dark chocolate that is ecologically produced, nutritional and delicious. You can come out and try the chocolate any time- we have free samples here. We are here every Wednesday. Everything is done on bicycles around the city, so we are all over the downtown core.
They encourage volunteers to join ChocolSol and participate in the production of chocolate the way it has been done for centuries in the Mayan regions. There are no skills needed, and no predetermined hours. It is a great way to connect with the food you consume. Feel frère to ask Mathieu about volunteering, and to try some of the free chocolate (by the way, the vanilla seed chocolate is to die for!).
So drop by the Farmer’s Market tomorrow afternoon, bring your own mug, sip on some of the best hot chocolate in town and learn about chocolate-making, from the fields in Mexico to the Farmer’s Market at U of T.
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Guest Post: Public Water Initiative at U of T
The life and death nature of water for survival of all creatures means that it should remain in public hands and consumed at environmentally sound rates…
“It is deeply concerning that the 1 in 3 Canadians who primarily drink bottled water as their source of drinking water, are consuming an unregulated and environmentally harmful product” says Joe Cressy, Campaigns Coordinator of the Polaris Institute and co-author of the report: Murky Waters – The Urgent Need for Health and Environmental Regulations of the Bottled Water Industry, available for free:
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/files/Murky%20Waters%20-%20The%20Urgent%20Need%20for%20Health%20and%20Environmental%20Regulations%20of%20the%20Bottled%20Water%20Industry.pdf
Concerns Against Bottled Water:
Health & Economics:
– bottled water plants are inspected about once every 3 YEARS
– tap water is tested at least 4-5 times per DAY
– since 2000, there’s been 29 recalls of 49 bottled water products in Canada
– Health Canada recommends that you DON’T drink bottled water purchased for more than 1 year
– the industry itself doesn’t recommend re-using their own bottles
– bottled water corporations pay a VERY CHEAP fee of $3.79/one million litres… which is bottled and sold at up to a 2000X mark-up compared to tap water – more than gas!
Environmentally:
– 40% of the bottles are NOT recycled
– it takes 10X amount of water to create the bottle than what’s in it
– it is as much as 2000X more energy intensive than tap water
– creates 150X the amount of GHGs than tap water
– Dasani & Aquafina have now admitted that their water is from the tap
– Bottled water corporations PUMP MILLIONS of litres of groundwater per DAY distrupting local ecosystems and ground water supplies of small communities
(ground water is not renewable, when Nestle pumps on average of 3.6 million litres PER DAY, it is a concern because almost half of Canadians rely on groundwater and we have yet to map out how much we have left)
Public Accountability:
– aggressive marketing now has 1 in 3 Canadians believing bottled water is better than tap when the complete opposite may be true
– it has undermined public confidence in the publicly funded tap water system affordable to all
– support of bottled water is support of commercialization of a dwindling resource without accountability towards sustainability, health and water as a human right first
– there are water shortages in every single developed country including Canada
You can follow PWI’s work on their blog.
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Dear UeaTers,
This is going to be a very exciting week on campus. We know that you have too many assignments due on the same date, and no time to think about food. That is why we have made a FULL OF FLAVOR AND NUTRITION FOOD ITENARY for you to follow this week.
Monday, February 8, 2010: To kick off Aboriginal Awareness Week, First Nations House is serving lunch at 12:00pm. Check out their calendar for events lined up all week!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010: ABORIGINAL AWARENESS WEEK LUNCH
Bring $3.00 (plus tax) to Medical Sciences Building Cafeteria, Robarts Cafeteria, Sid’s Café, Veda in Sanford Fleming, Howard Ferguson Dining Hall at UC, or Sammy’s at Hart House, and try some Aboriginal Soup. We are serving a Three Sisters Soup with Corn Biscuit.
You may be wondering, who are the three sisters, and what are they doing in your soup? The Three Sisters are crops native to some Aboriginal cultures: squash, beans and corn. They are called the three sisters because they are usually planted close to each other, because each one helps the other grow. You can find the full description on their Wikipedia page.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010: Between 2:30pm and 5:30pm, stop by the U of T Farmer’s Market with your reusable mug and some cash. You can pick up cheese from all over Canada, chocolate bars, bread and fresh produce. And while you are there, enjoy a cup of ChocoSol’s amazing hot chocolate.
Thursday, February 11, 2010: CHINESE NEW YEAR LUNCH
$6.95 (plus tax) will get you Barbequed Pork with Steamed Rice and Sautéed Bok Choy at the following locations: Victoria College, Trinity College, Howard Ferguson Dining Hall at UC, Medical Sciences Building Cafeteria, Robarts Cafeteria and Sid’s Café.
Sammy’s at Hart House will serve Chicken Chow Mein.
Chestnut Residence (open to all U of T members) will also be serving a Chinese menu included in their all-you-care-to-eat menu.
The Fresh Food Company at New College, from 11:30am to 1:30pm, will serve a special menu which includes chicken balls and pineapple tapioca.
Friday, February 12, 2010: Stop by Veda in Sanford Fleming for some healthy Indian food.
With such a food-filled week ahead, we wish you nutrition and energy to help you study for those assignments and tests!
Posted in Events @ UeaT, Tips and Shortcuts, UeaT | Comments
Here’s something you didn’t know: U of T has bee hives on campus! We visited the hives on top of New College this week, and saw how the bees get ready for the winter. Brian Hamlin (bee keeper extraordinaire) let us sample the honey (and it was delicious!)…he also told us some fun facts about bees:
- 90% of the bees in the hive are female. 10% of them are male, and the males are kicked out (or die) in the autumn.
- All the work is done by the female bees. The male bees are simply around to fertilize the Queen.
- Bees don’t normally sting, unless they feel threatened.
- Bees are not scary. They’re quite nice actually.
- New College cafeteria uses the honey from its roof top in its menu. Yumm!
- Bees travel within a 3 mile radius to collect pollen for the honey. That means that the honey made and used at New College is from flowers at Queen’s Park and other green spaces in the area!
- Contrary to popular opinion, bears don’t love honey, they love bee larvae (rich source of protein).
- In Canada, the winter months are dormant for bees. In late winter, the Queen begins laying eggs, and they bees starting working inside the hive. During the summer months, they go out to collect pollen and produce honey.
- Honey has antioxidant and antibiotic properties.
In future months, we will pay a visit to the other hives on campus. If you know of a hive we haven’t visited yet, do let us know!
Although “beekeeping” appears to be a very benign type of activity, I think it’s important that one examines it from a more critical perspective.
Bees produce honey for their own consumption and do so in quantities that ensure their survival. To steal this hard won food source is unconscionable in and of itself but the fact that bees are also invariably killed throughout all stages of this process (the “keeper” in the video even points out that he’s just “squashed” a few of them simply removing the lid) makes it even more so.
There’s also a question of confinement as the screen that he points out at the top of the hive is meant to keep the queen (who is larger than the others and cannot pass through the openings) from leaving. This further highlights the fact that “beekeeping” is analogous to (and a euphemism for) slavery, in that not only is their labour being fully and non-consensually exploited, but these beings are also kept in a state of bondage (bees will not abandon their queen; so long as she is confined to the hive so shall they be obliged to remain with her).
Also, the claims typically made by beekeepers that they are providing a “service” by facilitating pollination of plants is simply not true as the VAST percentage of pollination is accomplished thanks to the work of the approximately 3500 native pollinator species in North America. These various species also typically perform this pollination much more efficiently as, generally, they tend to favour remaining within one specific crop area as opposed to the European honeybee which is much less selective . Unfortunately (for the beekeepers that is) none of the honey producing species included in that list do so in any quantities that make it economically attractive for humans to exploit (this is a good thing!) which further illustrates how self-serving many of the statements coming out of this industry really are.
Further to the above, there is a real detriment to native species caused by the great number of “migratory beekeepers” traveling all over North America with their respective bee captive hives. Aside from the obvious competition for food sources (or “crowding out”) with native species (including birds), there’s also the very real issue of disease and “pest” transmission as has been so clearly seen with the prolific spread of the Varroa mite which has wreaked havoc with native bee species. Even”stationary” hives contribute as these non-native European honeybees also tend to range much further than native species thereby increasing their impact on the environment.
In summary it’s quite clear that the practice of this type of “beekeeping” is so fraught with negative impacts, from both ethical and environmental perspectives, so as to make it not only unworthy of support, but something which we should heartily decry.
Hi Paul,
Thank you for your thoughts on bee-keeping, both on campus and in the world in general.
At UeaT, our purpose is to encourage the U of T community to be involved in University initiatives, and to create a dialogue.
The bee-keeping initiatives on campus are engaging the community, and that is why we chose to do a story on them. Whether it is an ethical or unethical initiative is not for us to judge as we are not providing the space, nor the bees or the services of the bee-keeper. We do, however, encourage the coming together of students, staff and faculty due to this activity.
Also, some view urban bee-keeping to be a more sustainable food resource, than, say, shipping jars of honey from New Zealand. At UeaT, we do support local food sources, and therefore, chose to do this story.
I am sorry I could not address your concerns, perhaps Brian Hamlin or the New College staff would be able to do a better job?
Thank you again for your comment.
Sarah Khan
Communications and Marketing Coordinator
Food Services
University of Toronto