Eating and togetherness go hand in hand, or at least, that’s what our socioculture tells us. Yet many people, particularly seniors, live and dine alone. Even outside the home, eating can be an isolating experience. This episode probes how sound and space can encourage sociability and sharing, though it always takes an effort for that to happen. The Canadian Food Studies publication in focus is Melanie Binette’s “Invisible guests: A sound installation in a Montréal community restaurant,” from Vol. 4, No. 2 (2017). Alexia Moyer shares two very different soundscapes, and Art History master student, Samphe Ballamingie, responds to the sound installation at the centre of Melanie’s text.

Guests:

Alexia Moyer is co-Managing Editor of Canadian Food Studies and a founding member of the editorial collective, red line-ligne rouge, based in Montreal.

Melanie Binette is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and researcher who co-founded Milieu de Nulle Part, a performance collective dedicated to in situ and in socius performance.

Samphe Ballamingie is a filmmaker, video editor, writer, and podcaster who is currently doing a master’s degree in Art History at Concordia University in Montreal.

Mentioned in this episode:

- Milieu de Nulle Part

- Natalie Doonan – Le Sensorium

- Le Chic Resto Pop

- Stats Canada – single-person households

Credits:

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Executive Producers: Rachel Engler-Stringer, Laurence Godin, Charles Levkoe, Phil Loring, Kristen Lowitt

Music: Alex Guz and Evgeny Bardyuzha on Pixabay

Sound Effects: Aviana_Phoenix and BenKirb and freesound_community on Pixabay

Soundscapes: Rotterdam Library—Library 03 090724.wav by LG—Attribution 4.0; Montreal restaurant—restaurant.wav by rivernile7—Attribution 3.0

Image: Patrick Ma

#DigestingFoodStudies

Digesting Food Studies is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Lakehead University, and the Canadian Association for Food Studies.

As we slide into 2026, Digesting Food Studies is taking a break for a couple of weeks. But never fear, we have some other food and food-related shows to share! Listen on, or follow the links below to hear from some of the many other voices in food studies and socio-environmental podcasting.

Mentioned in this episode:

- The Ecopolitics Podcast

- The Ground Up?

- Second Transition Podcast

- Eat Your Heartland Out

- Handpicked: Stories from the Field

- Making a Meal of It

- bluedotstudio (video series)

- La Gastronomie sociale (video series)

Credits:

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Executive Producers: Rachel Engler-Stringer, Laurence Godin, Charles Levkoe, Phil Loring, Kristen Lowitt

Music: Alex Guz and Evgeny Bardyuzha and freesound_community on Pixabay

Additional music: BLACKBOX on Pixabay

Sound Effects: Aviana_Phoenix and BenKirb on Pixabay

Image: Nikin on Pixabay

#DigestingFoodStudies

Digesting Food Studies is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Lakehead University, and the Canadian Association for Food Studies.

There’s a lot of power in food and food systems. This episode explores the centralization of that power, particularly the ways in which corporations and governments operate and control spaces of production and transformation. The issue of Canadian Food Studies in focus is Vol. 2, No. 2 (2015), including its subsection, “Financialization in the Food System,” which our guest, Jennifer Clapp, co–guest edited. Alexia Moyer shares learnings from Brian Brett’s book, Trauma Farm, and PhD student Heidi Janes responds to a selection of CFS articles about corporate power.

Guests:

Alexia Moyer is co-Managing Editor of Canadian Food Studies and a founding member of the editorial collective, red line-ligne rouge, based in Montreal.

Jennifer Clapp is a Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. She is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems as well as the Scientific Advisory Committee of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub.

Heidi Janes is a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Victoria, where she researches corporate power in the food system and how philanthropic and humanitarian logics play roles in the political economy.

Mentioned in this episode:

Food by Jennifer Clapp

Titans of Industrial Agriculture by Jennifer Clapp

IPES-Food "Land Squeeze" Report

“Watt” on Wikipedia

Credits:

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Executive Producers: Rachel Engler-Stringer, Laurence Godin, Charles Levkoe, Phil Loring, Kristen Lowitt

Music: Alex Guz and Evgeny Bardyuzha and freesound_community on Pixabay

Sound Effects: Aviana_Phoenix and BenKirb on Pixabay

Image: Johnson Martin on Pixabay

#DigestingFoodStudies

Digesting Food Studies is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Lakehead University, and the Canadian Association for Food Studies.

Bringing food to school from home implicates a lot of issues: logistics, taste, temperature control, shame, pride, and carrying devices. This episode unpacks the packed lunch, in particular those that the kids of first-generation immigrants bring to school. Two articles from Canadian Food Studies are covered, both co-written by Yukari Seko, “Unboxing the bento box” (Vol. 8, No. 3) and “Feeding children while Asian” (Vol. 12, No. 2). In response, PhD student Shay Quinn offers perspectives on arts-informed research.

Guests:

Alexia Moyer is co-Managing Editor of Canadian Food Studies and a founding member of the editorial collective, red line-ligne rouge, based in Montreal.

Yukari Seko is an Associate Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University, and Director of TMU’s Centre for Studies in Food Security.

Shay Quinn is a PhD student in Community and Population Health Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan who examines how Indigenous youth express ideas about traditional foodways.

Mentioned in this episode:

- The Lunchbox (film written and directed by Ritesh Batra)

- Canada’s School Food Program

- The Miner’s Lunchbox, designed by Leo May

Credits:

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Executive Producers: Rachel Engler-Stringer, Laurence Godin, Charles Levkoe, Phil Loring, Kristen Lowitt

Music: Alex Guz and Evgeny Bardyuzha from Pixabay

Additional music: Saseendran VV on Pixabay

Sound Effects: Aviana_Phoenix and BenKirb on Pixabay

Image: David Szanto

#DigestingFoodStudies

Digesting Food Studies is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Lakehead University, and the Canadian Association for Food Studies.

Feminist studies and food studies have a fascinating history of difference, alignment, and emergence. This episode covers some of that span, from rice pudding (without eggs) to an issue of Canadian Food Studies (Vol. 5 No. 1) that is dedicated to feminist food studies. Lots of voices this week, including two different student reading responses!

Guests:

Alexia Moyer is co-Managing Editor of Canadian Food Studies and a founding member of the editorial collective, red line-ligne rouge, based in Montreal.

Jennifer Brady is an Associate Professor at Acadia University, cross-appointed to Women's and Gender Studies and the School of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Barbara Parker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Lakehead University, researching food and gender, critical dietetics, food pedagogy, and the school food environment.

Elaine Power is a Professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University and is currently researching arts-based knowledge mobilization in relation to food insecurity.

Liz Lovell is a Community Food Systems Coordinator with the Food Action Network of Northwestern Ontario, and a recent master’s graduate from Lakehead University.

Steph Chartrand is a PhD student in Adult Education and Community Development at OISE, at the University of Toronto.

Mentioned in this episode:

- “Waste management as foodwork” by Carly Fraser and Kate Parizeau

- “Finding Formula” by Lesley Frank

- From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies edited by Arlene Avakian and Barbara Haber

- The Home Cookbook (1877)

- Baking as Biography by Diane Tye

- The Practice of Everyday Life: Living and Cooking

Credits:

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Executive Producers: Rachel Engler-Stringer, Laurence Godin, Charles Levkoe, Phil Loring, Kristen Lowitt

Music: Alex Guz and Evgeny Bardyuzha on Pixabay

Sound Effects: Aviana_Phoenix, BenKirb, and freesound_community on Pixabay

Image: OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay

#DigestingFoodStudies

Digesting Food Studies is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Lakehead University, and the Canadian Association for Food Studies.

Tackling food waste is a big issue, particularly in wealthy countries. It emerges from all aspects of the food production-consumption web, implicating individual, municipal, regional, and global actors. This episode starts off with Alexia Moyer’s Amuse Bouche segment on historic approaches to waste in the home, leading into a discussion with Tammara Soma about her article, “Critical food guidance for tackling food waste in Canada” from Vol. 9 No. 1 of Canadian Food Studies, and a response to the article from PhD student, Dante Gbejewoh.

Guests:

Dr. Alexia Moyer is co-Managing Editor of Canadian Food Studies and a founding member of the editorial collective, red line-ligne rouge, based in Montreal.

Tammara Soma is an Associate Professor at the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University. Her research includes food systems planning, food loss and waste, and circular food economies.

Dante Gbejewoh is a PhD Candidate in Environmental Studies at Queen’s University and a member of the Food Policy Council for Kingston Frontenac Lennox & Addington. His research examines on-farm conservation activities and agroecological transformation.

Mentioned in this episode:

“Waste management as foodwork: A feminist food studies approach to household food waste” by Carly Fraser and Kate Parizeau

Credits:

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Executive Producers: Rachel Engler-Stringer, Laurence Godin, Charles Levkoe, Phil Loring, Kristen Lowitt

Music: Alex Guz and Evgeny Bardyuzha on Pixabay

Sound Effects: Aviana_Phoenix, BenKirb, and freesound_community on Pixabay

Photo: David Szanto

#DigestingFoodStudies

Digesting Food Studies is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Lakehead University, and the Canadian Association for Food Studies.

How academics know and learn things is dependent on a myriad of conventions, many of which are coupled to a history of extractivism and colonialist structures. Coming to grips with that—and re-learning relational and reciprocal methods and habits can be challenging. This episode dives into un-learning, starting off with Alexia Moyer’s Amuse Bouche segment on the partial sharing of traditional knowledges. The focus article is Alissa Overend’s and Ronak Rai’s “Un-learning and re-learning: Reflections on relationality, urban berry foraging, and settler research uncertainties” from Vol. 11 No. 2 of Canadian Food Studies.

Guests:

Dr. Alexia Moyer is co-Managing Editor of Canadian Food Studies and a founding member of the editorial collective, red line-ligne rouge, based in Montreal.

Alissa Overend is an associate professor at MacEwan University in Edmonton, learning and teaching about food and nutrition, health and illness, critical disability studies, and intersectional inequality.

Ronak Rai is a PhD student at the University of Alberta did her master’s studies on the challenges and opportunities that first-generation immigrant therapists face in the context of working with Indigenous clients.

Annika Walsh is a transdisciplinary food artist and researcher who recently completed a master of science degree in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems at UBC.

Mentioned in this episode:

- Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson

- Elements of Indigenous Style

- Shifting Food Facts by Alissa Overend

- The Ground Up? podcast

- AnnikaWalsh.com

Credits:

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Executive Producers: Rachel Engler-Stringer, Laurence Godin, Charles Levkoe, Phil Loring, Kristen Lowitt

Music: Alex Guz and Evgeny Bardyuzha on Pixabay

Sound Effects: Aviana_Phoenix, BenKirb, and freesound_community on Pixabay

Cover art photo: Bonnie McDonald on Pixabay

#DigestingFoodStudies

Digesting Food Studies is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Lakehead University, and the Canadian Association for Food Studies.

(show notes in English)

Alors que la contestation mondiale contre les herbicides à base de glyphosate s'intensifie et que les politiciens et les entreprises chimiques ajoutent leurs propres pressions concernant l'utilisation des pesticides, il est temps que tout le monde se penche davantage sur notre (sur)utilisation des intrants agricoles. Le terrain est toutefois complexe, comme nous l'expliquent Marie-Hélène Bacon et Laure Gosselin, invitées de cet épisode. Et ça l'est depuis des siècles, comme nous l'aide à comprendre Alexia Moyer dans son segment Amuse-Bouche, qui fait référence à une ressource historique assez révélateur. L'article phare de ce numéro est « Pesticides : Le Talon d'Achille des politiques alimentaires canadiennes et québécoises », tiré du vol. 5, n° 3 de La Revue canadienne des études sur l’alimentation.

Invités :

Dr Alexia Moyer est co-administratrice de La Revue canadienne des études sur l’alimentation et membre fondatrice du collectif éditorial red line-ligne rouge, basé à Montréal.

Marie-Hélène Bacon est chercheuse et coordinatrice au Collectif de recherche écosanté sur les pesticides, les politiques et les alternatives, un groupe interdisciplinaire de chercheurs à l'Université du Québec à Montréal.

Laure Gosselin est doctorante en sciences politiques à l'Université Laval (au Québec) et à la Technische Universität Dresden (en Allemagne), et chercheuse en systèmes alimentaires au sein du groupe Forum Recherche-Action Alimentaire Montréal au Collège Dawson.

Mentionné dans cet épisode :

- CREPPA

- The Monsanto Papers

Crédits :

Animateur/producteur : David Szanto

Producteurs exécutifs : Rachel Engler-Stringer, Laurence Godin, Charles Levkoe, Phil Loring, Kristen Lowitt

Musique : Alex Guz et Evgeny Bardyuzha sur Pixabay

Effets sonores : Aviana_Phoenix, BenKirb, u_jd81cxyq22 et NickyPe sur Pixabay

Photo : Kath Clark/USC Canada

#DigestingFoodStudies

Concentré d’études sur l’alimentation est financé en partie par le Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada, l'Université Lakehead et l'Association canadienne des études sur l'alimentation.

Well-conceived and collectively enacted school food programs can bring numerous, cascading benefits to students, communities, and food environments more broadly. As Federal legislation brings into being such programs across Canada and Indigenous territories, ongoing research and reflection will be needed, as Rachel Engler-Stringer tells us in this episode. Starting things off, though, Alexia Moyer’s Amuse Bouche segment reveals a number of lessons—some more useful than others—from Saskatchewan’s early 1900s school food planning. And in the After Taste, Penelope Stam responds to the focus article, “The case for a Canadian national school food program” from Vol. 5 No. 3 of Canadian Food Studies.

Guests:

Dr. Alexia Moyer is co-Managing Editor of Canadian Food Studies and a founding member of the editorial collective, red line-ligne rouge, based in Montreal.

Rachel Engler-Stringer a professor in Community Health and Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan, and a leading expert in school food programs.

Penelope Stam is an undergraduate student at Western University and a food systems researcher with Food Research-Action Montreal at Dawson College.

Mentioned in this episode:

- The Rural School Luncheon by Fannie Twiss (Saskatchewan Department of Education)

- Canada’s National School Food Program

Credits:

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Executive Producers: Rachel Engler-Stringer, Laurence Godin, Charles Levkoe, Phil Loring, Kristen Lowitt

Music: Alex Guz and Evgeny Bardyuzha from Pixabay

Sound Effects: Aviana_Phoenix, BenKirb, and freesound_community from Pixabay; applehillstudios on Pond5

Cover art photo: Alexia Moyer

#digestingfoodstudies

Digesting Food Studies is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Lakehead University, and the Canadian Association for Food Studies.

Indigenous food sovereignty—and the lack thereof—is intimately linked to histories of colonial oppression and present-day exploitative capitalism and extractivism. Nonetheless, as this episode’s guest Kaylee Michnik shows us, rebuilding sovereignty can happen through intergenerational learning, land-based practices, and relationality. During the Amuse Bouche segment, Alexia Moyer tells host David Szanto about the tasty and tenuous history of camas cultivation by Coast Salish peoples. And in the After Taste, Courtney Vaughan responds to Kaylee’s article, “Moving Your Body, Soul, and Heart to Share and Harvest Food” from Vol. 8 No. 2 of Canadian Food Studies.

Guests:

Dr. Alexia Moyer is co-Managing Editor of Canadian Food Studies and a founding member of the editorial collective, red line-ligne rouge, based in Montreal.

Kaylee Michnik is a registered dietician and is finishing her PhD at the University of Saskatchewan, where she has been researching and contributing to school food program and policy development.

Courtney Vaughan is a researcher, writer, and community organizer who completed a master degree at Carleton University in 2019 in Indigenous and Canadian Studies. She is currently doing her PhD at Lakehead University.

Mentioned in this episode:

OCAP® protocol: the First Nations principles of ownership, control, access, and possession (in research)

photovoice methodology

illustration of Camas plants by Bryony Penn

Plants, People, and Places, edited by Nancy J. Turner

Credits:

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Executive Producers: Rachel Engler-Stringer, Laurence Godin, Charles Levkoe, Phil Loring, Kristen Lowitt

Music: Alex Guz and Evgeny Bardyuzha from Pixabay

Sound Effects: Aviana_Phoenix, BenKirb, and royalty_free_music from Pixabay

Cover photo: Jacques Gaimard on Pixabay

#digestingfoodstudies

Digesting Food Studies is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Lakehead University, and the Canadian Association for Food Studies.