The Vancouver Food Policy Council is excited to let you know that the City of Vancouver has proclaimed Monday June 10th, 2013 as Meatless Monday.

Meatless Monday comes to Vancouver

While livestock can be good for environments and meat can be good for health, she said, too much is bad for the planet and public health.

We’re grateful to see the City, and our liaison Councillor Heather Deal, willing to get behind this initiative. Vancouver is the first Canadian city to take this step.

How can you get involved?

This proclamation is a chance to celebrate and educate! Whether you are a solo citizen wanting to host a potluck or a community organization with a goal to educate about a plant based diet, we want to hear what you’ve got planned!

Dinner ideas aplenty are coming in!

Here are a couple ideas:

If you’d like to cook at home tonight http://www.bcliving.ca/food/recipes-meatless-monday

Or, if dining out if how you’d like to celebrate  http://www.insidevancouver.ca/2013/06/06/5-ways-to-celebrate-meatless-monday-in-vancouver/

Or, if you’d like to curl up with a book, Mark Bittman’s new book VB6 is an interesting take on how to reduce meat consumption http://markbittman.com/book/vb6/

Over 64 municipal and regional governments across Canada are using a food systems approach to improve health, generate economic development, address environmental sustainability, and engage communities.

The report “Municipal Food Policy Entrepreneurs: A preliminary analysis of how Canadian cities and regional districts are involved in food systems change,” is the first scan of municipal and regional food policy development in Canada. It reveals that a growing number of communities right across the country have launched food charters, food strategies and action plans, and created food policy councils.

“We were surprised by the number of municipal governments involved in food policy work,” states Lauren Baker, food policy coordinator with the Toronto Food Policy Council at Toronto Public Health. “Municipalities are finding creative ways to improve people’s lives through the way they manage a broad array of food priorities.”

While municipal and regional governments have limited jurisdictional authority over the food system, many are springing into action on the food front. They are bringing together diverse sectors to stimulate the local food economy and generate more jobs, but also to address significant food issues such as agricultural land loss, climate change, food poverty, food affordability, and public health problems associated with inadequate or poor quality diets.

“The activity of food policy councils is clearly visible in almost every major city in Canada”, states Vancouver Food Policy Council member Joanne Bays. “Gardens and urban farms are sprouting in backyards, boulevards, rooftops and parking lots. Farmers markets, food vending carts, and food hubs are bustling businesses. And increasingly foods from nearby farms and oceans are found on the retail shelf and on our plates in restaurants, schools and hospitals.”

The research shows that Canada’s municipal food initiatives have varied governance structures. Some are formally linked to municipal departments; others have less formal structures and funding mechanisms, and some are largely volunteer-driven. The rate of growth of this food policy work has increased exponentially since 2005 and the most significant nodes of food policy activity exist in the provinces of British Columbia, and Ontario.

Given the increasing number and diversity of food policy initiatives, and the potential economic, environmental, social and cultural impact of these initiatives, the report recommends that the time is ripe to take a more systematic approach to documenting and evaluating their role and success. Further, it recommends the establishment of a national network to share best practices across municipalities, and to further efforts to clarify how governments at various jurisdictional levels can best support these efforts.

”With some 80% of Canadians living in urban communities, we need to understand how cities are creating change through food initiatives,” notes David McInnes at the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute. “Clearly municipalities are embracing food as a catalyst – to spur economic activity across supply chains, to improve the health of its residents and to respond to sustainability objectives, among other priorities.”

The report was prepared by researchers at York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, Rod MacRae and Kendal Donahue, and involved a diverse array of food policy organizations and advisors from across the country.

The information collected through this research will be available on this webpage shortly. If we missed your Canadian municipal food policy initiative, please send it to us and we’ll include it as part of this resource.

The Vancouver Food Policy Council is excited to let you know that the City of Vancouver will be proclaiming Monday June 10th, 2013 as Meatless Monday.

Those of you who were with us at our February meeting saw the presentation by local author Eleanor Boyle, who outlined scientific research showing the environmental problems of large-scale meat production and consumption. While livestock can be good for environments and meat can be good for health, she said, too much is bad for the planet and public health. We then discussed how we could support the international movement for more sustainable diets, and decided to recommend that Vancouver adopt the educational initiative Meatless Monday.

We’re grateful to see the City, and our liaison Councillor Heather Deal, willing to get behind this initiative. Vancouver is the first Canadian city to take this step.

Why Meatless Monday?

Because the city of Vancouver is dedicated to developing food systems that are sustainable and that support community well-being; and the city is committed to its Greenest City Action Plan encouraging citizens to make choices that will add to environmental health.

From a policy perspective, the Vancouver Food Strategy and Vancouver Food Charter have advocated for food systems that protect global resources and contribute to planetary health.

Policy initiatives and educational programs such as Meatless Monday have educated global citizens to moderate their intake of animal-source foods and choose meat, dairy and seafood that has been produced sustainably.

How can you get involved?

This proclamation is a chance to celebrate and educate! Whether you are a solo citizen wanting to host a potluck or a community organization with a goal to educate about a plant based diet, we want to hear what you’ve got planned!

Post your event to our facebook page, and send us the info so we can get the word out.

More resources:

meatlessmonday.ca

meatlessmonday.com

Imagine when you were a child and thought that the Chocolate Room from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory be where you would spend the rest of your adolescent life. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Now imagine the street you walk home to filled with lush strawberries, crunchy peas, fresh herbs and perfect greens. That would be nice as well!

Though the City of Vancouver is far from recreating a street filled with chocolate, it has jumped on board with the idea of introducing Boulevard Gardens, in their aim to become the greenest city in the world by 2020. The boulevard is the area between the street curb and the sidewalk that is typically planted with grass. Now the city is encouraging residents to transform the boulevard adjacent to their homes into a garden of your own!

While there is a list of plants that is suggested, it would be neat to see more food growing on city boulevards.

There are some guidelines, that can be found here, that will support yourself and make sure that the garden thrives in the city!

– Lihwen Hsu, VFPC working group

Please join us for our May 15th Meeting.

Our theme this month will be Where We’re at, and Where We’re Going.

The agenda includes updates from working groups, discussion about succession planning for the VFPC chairs, and fingers crossed, an early finish so we can all head out for a pint together on a fine Spring evening.

The full meeting goes from 6-8pm.

All of you who were at our meeting last week on getting local, sustainable foods into BC’s public institutions had a chance to taste one of Chef Steve Golob from the Place Vanier Dining Hall at UBC’s amazing soups. For more delicious recipes check out Steve’s soup blog, soupscoop.