Cook What You Love, Love What You Eat: A Food Justice Workshop Series
Download and explore our latest Community Food Programs food justice-focused workshop series – “Cook What You Love, Love What You Eat.”
Here you’ll find the lesson plans and supporting documents for all seven sessions in the series, each of which draws out connections between anti-oppression, anti-racism, and the food system. Be sure to check out the educator training resources before diving in!
Who is this workshop series for?
We designed these workshops with middle school-aged youth in mind – complete with Ontario curriculum links for grades 6 through 9! We think that a lot of the workshop content can easily be translated and delivered with youth of all ages, though, so we encourage educators to read through the resources to see how they can use different activities and conversations in their own learning spaces.
Who can use these lesson plans?
We recognize that learning happens in many different spaces. This series will work delivered as in-class lessons with students, or it can be facilitated as a part of community-based programming with youth!
Educator Training: This workshop series covers subject matter that requires basic knowledge of anti-oppression and anti-racist concepts. Facilitation of these workshops must be undertaken with thoughtful consideration of the content. Before you start, make sure you’ve watched our training video and read through the lesson plan in its entirety.
Evaluation Resources: Use these pre- and post-workshop surveys to capture what participants have gained from the series. Please forward survey results to Brooke, our Community Food Programs Manager (brooke@foodshare.net) to help us measure impact!
Hungry for Knowledge: Participants will engage in conversations about the landscape of hunger in Canada, unpacking common myths and misconceptions about its prevalence, causes, and impacts.
Food (In)Security 101: Students will gain a better understanding of what food insecurity is, and will participate in hands-on activities that explore the intersectional factors that impact people’s access to food.
- Lesson Plan
- Supporting Documents
- Supporting Documents – Meal Planner
- Supporting Documents – Tasting Graph
- Recipe
Is Wealth Good For Your Health? Participants will learn about structural poverty and its connection to hunger and food insecurity and why the “charity model” won’t end hunger.
Putting Race on the Table: Students will gain a better understanding of what food justice is and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) experiences of systemic racism and food security.
- Lesson Plan
- Supporting Documents – Indigenous Food Insecurity Fact Sheet
- Supporting Documents – Black Food Insecurity Fact Sheet
- Recipe
Reconcili-ACTION: Participants will learn about the historical and ongoing impacts of colonialism on Indigenous foodways, taking a look at how residential schools disconnected youth from traditional cultural diets.
- Lesson Plan
- Supporting Documents – Food Secure Canada Discussion Paper
- Supporting Documents – TRC Archival Menus 1/5
- Supporting Documents – TRC Archival Menus 2/5
- Supporting Documents – TRC Archival Menus 3/5
- Supporting Documents – TRC Archival Menus 4/5
- Supporting Documents – TRC Archival Menus 5/5
- Recipe
Green New Meal: Participants will learn about the environmental and social impacts of our food system. This workshop will explore the journey that food takes from field to table, looking at how we can ‘eat for the planet’ in ways that are both sustainable for nature and ethical for people!
- Lesson Plan
- Supporting Documents
- Supporting Documents – Foodprints
- Supporting Documents – Footprint Outline
- Recipe
Everybody for Every Body: Participants will explore the concept of ‘body positivity’ during this session. This workshop will invite participants to engage with the assumptions we make around food, and to reflect on how these judgements might contribute to body policing. The goal will be to reframe these ideas, and participants’ relationships with food, within the framework of body positivity.
Curriculum Links: Use this guide to make meaningful connections between the content of this workshop series and Ontario’s middle school curriculum.
These lesson plans created with the support of Community Food Centres of Canada.
