About

Welcome to my website. My name is Maisie Vanriel and I am now a  retired Registered Dietitian. I am a graduate of The University of Toronto with an Honours Bachelor of Science degree in Food and Nutritional Science and a Diploma in Food Safety from the Guelph Food Technology Centre.

Now that I have retired I have more time to spend on something that has always facinated me, the politics of food. Everything about food has always been political but like so much else in Canadian culture we just pretend that this is not the case. Let me give you some examples: Canada’s Food guide, so much outside lobbying from the packaged food industry, the food marketing boards, the agri-food industries and politicians looking out for their neck of the woods that after awhile the food guide ended up being so generic people just ignored it and placed no value on it. I am not even sure if it is still taught in elementary schools which it used to be! The “natural food’ and “nutrition supplement industry”, two terms that should be stricken from our vocabulary for good. Real food is both natural and supplements us nutritionally, if you are eating real food-don’t act confused, you know what real food is-there is no need to shop for natural food or food supplements.

This  blog will focus on reminding you of what real food is, in case you have forgotten or never knew. Showing you that the focus of food and nutriton in Canada is about White people because the industry believes that is where the money is and politicians believe that is where the votes are and so Black and Indgenous people  are ignored until it benefits White people. Wild Rice-a nutrient-rich food used pretty much only by First Nations people for centuries- but then it became ‘gluten-free’ and suddenly you can’t keep it in stock, cause White people now hate gluten. Oxtail, when I was a child I would go to Kensington market with my mother, a child was needed to carry home the two and a half dozen egg carton wrapped in newspaper by the ‘egg-lady’. While there mother would get an oxtail at the butchers for very little cost or free-depending on whether the owner was sitting at the door handing out tickets that day. This is a bargain when you are a family of six with four fast growing kids. Now White people want oxtail, oxtail stew, jerk oxtail, oxtail patties etc, etc. Woe betide a growing family trying to eat oxtail today, with the rising costs of food (lots to come on this issue), you might as well be buying Beluga Cavier packed in Truffle oil.

So join me and hopefully pick up some pointers on eating food and avoiding politics and misinformed hype.