Yesterday, participants from the health and community sectors came together to taste firsthand the possibilities for traditional Indigenous foods in health care institutions such as hospitals and long-term care centers. Working under the guidance of four different leaders, each team of participants cooked a dish representing a different Indigenous community.
From June 7 - 10, 2022, the Nourish Anchor Cohort gathered for the first time in person in Montréal, Québec. Over a series of workshops, visits to a farm, hospital kitchen, and various community food initiatives, participants saw, learned from, and tasted what it’s like when health care and community comes together to strengthen food security.
A plate of baked pickerel with potatoes, vegetables and a slice of bannock is one of the special meals given to patients at Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre every Thursday. It's part of the Miichim traditional food program co-ordinated by Kathy Loon. Read more here.
We are building an ever-stronger team to bring values-based procurement to Canadian health care. Today we are delighted to officially welcome Fasken Law and Buy Social Canada as project partners to one of our five Nourish collaborative projects.
The values-based procurement team's scan of best-in-class social procurement language is currently underway. Under the leadership of Buy Social Canada's David Le Page and Maija FIorante, the scan will cover provincial, domestic, and international examples of language that harnesses a public buyer's purchasing power to procure foods that support the health of patients, communities, and planet.
With the legal expertise of award-winning firm Fasken Law, led by Kathryn Beck, Vanessa Mui, and Daniel Fabiano, we will bring this research to life by developing and open-sourcing tested language for adoption by health care food purchasers.
We will develop, test, and open-source two sustainable procurement tools: one to support organizations with self-operated food services and one for organizations with outsourced food services. Creation and testing of two procurement tools aims to support the sector to break out of the current cost-driven process that defines healthcare food purchasing. Our goal is to advance more responsible procurement of healthy, sustainable and tasty meals for health care. Similar to our peers in the Nourish Sustainable Menus project, we are interested in the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability.
Over the next months, we will be recruiting health care sites to test the contract language developed by our team. Please send us a note through the Get in touch form if you are interested in being a beta-test site or would like to become otherwise involved.
With the growing circle of engagement around this project, so too is our confidence growing that we urgently need to bridge the gap between our desire and our capacity to bring our values more fully to life in our public institutions.
We will develop, test, and open-source two sustainable procurement tools: one to support organizations with self-operated food services and one for organizations with outsourced food services... We urgently need to bridge the gap between our desire and our capacity to bring our values more fully to life in our public institutions.
We couldn't be happier to be joined by Fasken and Buy Social as we continue on this journey.
Local food matters. The easiest way to convince people of this is to let them see it, hear about it and, most importantly, taste it. That’s the idea behind our Local Food Expo, which is a part of Local Food Week (June 4-10, 2017) in Ontario. Local food champions came together to share their knowledge, passion and food with patients, visitors, staff and volunteers at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital on June 8th. At this event, 10 of our partners spent the day with us serving up everything from herb and cheese appetizers to strawberry-rhubarb pie and sharing recipes and information to help people choose local.
The Expo is just the most visible part of our love of local food. Behind the scenes, our Food Services team, led by Manager Marianne Katusin, works to bring food from ‘farm to bedside” and creates their own recipes that use local ingredients. The result is tasty and nutritious meals that help our patients heal, while we also get the most value from our financial resources.
But we’re not stopping there. With a $51,000 grant from the Greenbelt Foundation (as part of Ontario’s Local Food Investment Fund), we’re launching phase two of our Good for You, Locally Grown initiative. We will continue to craft delicious meals that heal and help patients identify local food choices so they can enjoy the benefits of local at home.
Missed the Food Expo in June? See you in October as we celebrate Ontario Agriculture Week!
Located west of Toronto, Halton Healthcare encompasses Georgetown, Milton District and Oakville Trafalgar Hospitals. Our almost 5,600 physicians, staff and volunteers serve the healthcare needs of half a million residents. Last year we served approximately 575,000 nutritious and delicious meals to our patients.
Want to stay in touch? Click here to contact us or join our mailing list.
Désirez-vous rester en contact? Cliquez ici pour nous contacter ou pour vous abonner à notre infolettre.
