All Posts Tagged With: "Food"
Food prices to rise modestly in 2012: study
University of Guelph economists predict grocery store competition will slow price increase
Photo courtesy of rick on Flickr
Canadians can expect some relief in food prices in the next year, according to a report by two University of Guelph economists.
The study, released Monday, predicts that retail food prices will rise 2 per cent in 2012, a modest increase compared to the 4.3 per cent pace of current food inflation. The price of meat, fresh vegetables and baked goods could rise up to 3 per cent, but the increase is small compared to what Canadians have endured in the past. In 2011, meat rose 5 per cent, fruit rose 6 per cent and baked good rose 7 per cent. Fresh vegetables topped the list with a 10 per cent increase.
The study notes that the opening of new grocery stores—specifically Wal-Mart Canada’s planned crop of super-centres and Target’s Canadian debut in 2013—will keep competition between stores high and slow food prices from increasing. Canadians spend an average of 10 per cent of their household budget on food.
Sylvain Charlebois, associate dean of research and graduate studies at Guelph’s College of Management and Economics, co-wrote the study with Guelph economics professor Francis Tapon. Charlebois told The Globe and Mail the modest increase will give budget-conscious consumers a break.
“The Canadian consumer will benefit from what will likely happen in the next couple of years in the food distribution sector,” he said. “There will likely be a price war.”
The dirt on farming
Urban students are getting dirty on campus
Photo by Andrew Tolson
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings, on newsstands now. Story by Jason McBride
This past September, New Brunswick’s Mount Allison University held an event unprecedented in its 172-year-long history: a you-pick potato harvest. For the first five Saturdays of the new school year, students and Sackville residents were able to pick Russet and Superior potatoes from a boggy, 9.7-hectare farm in the heart of the campus. The rest of the spud harvest—a yield of 30,000 pounds—was transformed, to the delight of many ravenous undergrads, into fresh, hand-cut french fries and mashed potatoes in the kitchen at Jennings Hall.
Nutrition ratings don’t change eating habits
Even when shown that it’s unhealthy, students pick bad food
Photo courtesy of SpecialKRB on Flickr
Sorry dietitians, but a new study says that showing students how unhealthy their food is won’t change what they eat.
“Although it is important to inform consumers about the nutritional characteristics of the food offered, providing nutrition information in less healthy food environments is unlikely to alter consumers’ food choices,” researchers Christine Hoefkens and Wim Verbeke told Reuters.
Their study at Ghent University asked 224 students who regularly ate at the university’s cafeterias to log their diets for several days. Then, without participants’ knowledge, the researchers started putting up posters that showed how health meals were, using a three-star rating system (one star for the worst meals and three for the best) and warnings about high salt, calories and saturated fat content.
Six months later, the participants, once again logged what they ate. The posters didn’t change a thing. Students ate the same amount of bad food and no more good food than before.
Want to be a father? Watch your diet.
New study shows a father’s diet can have a genetic impact on his offspring
A father’s diet can actually have an impact on certain genes in his offspring, according to researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Texas at Austin.
The study, which was published in the journal Cell, involved feeding one group of male mice a low protein diet, while another group was fed a normal diet. Hundreds of genetic alterations were observed in the offspring of the low-protein mice, including genes involved in fat and cholesterol production.
This finding suggests that transgenerational inheritance of environmental information is possible in mammals. In other words, it’s not just a matter of ‘nature versus nurture’ anymore- your parents “nurture” can affect your ‘nature.’
So if there are any nasty surprises on your transcript this semester, your study habits might not be the problem- you can blame your father.
-Photo courtesy of † Jimmy MacDonald †
4 students + 1 pot = yum
If you’re living on a scurvy diet of raisin bread and Stove Top Stuffing, Maclean’s is here to help
Four 21 year-old University of Toronto undergraduate students are gathered around the table in their Woodsworth College residence’s communal kitchen on a recent Friday night inspecting a bounty of fresh vegetables. “Leeks!” shouts Tingting Zhang, a psychology and neuroscience major who could point out the difference between a ganglia and an axon in her sleep, but takes childlike delight in recognizing the ubiquitous vegetable before her roommates do. Karen Sohn, an economics and psychology major, holds a bunch of thin grass-like spears. “Chives?” It’s more of a question than an answer. Aaron Shapland, who studies Middle Eastern civilization and geographical information systems, takes the easy road and correctly identifies the lone red onion. Meanwhile, the bag of baby arugula stumps Dorin Manase, who studies biology and computer science. In fact, they’re all baffled. “Is that leaves?” asks Tingting. “It tastes like nuts.” In an age when all things gastronomic are featured front and centre in television, movies and blogs, you might think this bunch would be more food-savvy. But as Karen pops a yellow-coloured cherry tomato into her mouth, she confesses, “you couldn’t find four people who make more disgusting food.”
Maclean’s is here to help. We’re armed with three simple recipes, for a soup, pasta and mussels. All require just one pot, minimal ingredients and extremely basic kitchen know-how. Our mission is to get these four students eating better fare than Stove Top Stuffing, pasta topped with ketchup, and Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup poured on top of a microwaved chicken breast, “Chicken à la King”: staple student meals from the 1990s. Surely times have changed.
Nobu Adilman, actor, writer, and one of the hosts of the Food Network’s Food Jammers, who graduated from Halifax’s Dalhousie in 1995, says, “It’s a matter of having only so many minutes in a day. You’ve got so much s–t flying at you and you don’t want to spend all that time on cooking. So you just eat to soak up the booze.”
Most students juggle full course loads, part-time jobs and extracurricular activities, which doesn’t leave a lot of free time to visit farmers’ markets, let alone plan a week’s worth of meals. Luckily, in downtown Toronto there are other options: “I don’t know if you saw the hotdog vendor across the street, but she’s going to be my best friend next week during exams,” says Aaron as he chops an onion. Dorin, who just finished an exam, ate cereal for his last three meals, while Tingting polished off an entire loaf of raisin bread yesterday: “Breakfast, lunch and dinner, just in my room,” she says. “I didn’t even use a plate because I was cramming: I had two assignments due.”
Bestselling cookbook author Bonnie Stern, who also runs a Toronto cooking school, has a brighter outlook on students’ eating habits. “They’re much more savvy than they used to be because of the Food Network. They love that feeling of making something—the excitement of it. It’s very cool now.” She ought to know: for the last 15 years her school has offered a university survival class for students leaving home for the first time. “They do have a short attention span so we try to just do one class and then pack it full.” One of the most popular recipes is an Asian-inspired salad dressing, named after her daughter Anna, “who went through all of university without eating a salad.”
Not all university students are clueless come dinnertime. Amanda Garbutt, 22, has been preparing meals since her first year at McGill University in 2006. “I would whip up something in the floor’s kitchen and no one else could even fry an egg.” Soon she was teaching her roommate basic kitchen fundamentals. “We’d buy identical ingredients and split the stove in half and she’d take the left side and I would take the right and we’d make identical meals.” Friends started coming over to watch. “They’d bring wine and it became a social event. And then I came up with BYOI, bring your own ingredients, and I would pick a recipe—a risotto, stew or soup—and assign everyone an ingredient to bring and it would end up being very cost-effective, and we’d all take turns stirring and chopping. It was fun.”
April Engelberg, also 22, met Amanda on their first day at McGill and came up with the idea of filming these sessions. The result was The Hot Plate, a show launched through TV McGill, the University’s student-run television station, in the fall of 2008. Engelberg and Garbutt, who graduated this May, are now developing The Hot Plate’s website, which features about a dozen instructional videos for simple dinners, and their cookbook, which comes out this month.
Like Stern, Engelberg has “noticed a massive trend toward students caring more about cooking. It’s cool to say last night I made risotto, and people are always taking pictures of their food and posting them.” Still, Garbutt says, “Some students go for the McGill pizza down the street. ‘Two bucks? I can do that for breakfast, lunch and dinner until I get scurvy.’ I actually know someone who got scurvy from a pure mac and cheese diet.”
Back in the Maclean’s kitchen, so far scurvy-free, we’ve hit a few snags. Tingting discloses that they don’t have a cheese grater. “I usually use a potato peeler,” she says. There’s also no measuring cup—no measuring device of any sort. More surprising is the absence of a colander from the kitchen of this pasta-loving group. “We use our hands,” says Tingting. “It’s not what you’re supposed to do?” When her three roommates cast steely glares in her direction, she adds, “We wash our hands first.” “Welcome to college,” says Aaron.
After they devour the leek and potato soup, which Tingting says “tastes like it’s from a restaurant,” the pasta is successfully drained, sans colander, and tossed simply with extra virgin olive oil, ricotta salata, cherry tomatoes and basil. “Mmm,” they hum. We do a second version with a handful of the arugula mixed in—a clever way to sneak a salad into a main dish. “I like it,” says Dorin, who’d earlier confessed to usually eating just meat. “I was skeptical. But it’s really good.”
The last recipe for curried coconut mussels, courtesy of Chatelaine, requires the most effort out of our three dishes—that is if you consider ripping out a few beards from the shells laborious. Not only are these bovines cheap (Chatelaine’s food editor, Claire Tansey, says they usually cost about two dollars for 250 grams) but they’re also high in zinc, protein and omega-3 fatty acids. Pair them with a buttered baguette and call it dinner.
The four students gather round two kilos of steaming mussels piled high in a stainless steel bowl; not an ideal serving vessel for hot food, but it worked in a pinch. They all like mussels, but this was their first time making them. It’s also the first meal these roommates have shared since moving in together this September, although you’d be hard-pressed to tell: as they dunk their bread into the sauce and devour dinner, they talk and laugh as though this were a typical evening. “We should definitely do this again next Friday night,” says Aaron. Mission accomplished.
Students Unite!
How to be a student locavore
Top tips from Canadian local food movement leaders Sarah Elton, author of Locavore, and Nick Saul, executive director of The Stop, a Toronto-based organization that strives to make healthy food available to everyone through community building, cooking, gardening, and food banks.
Get organized: “Students are great at pushing policy forward and getting their administrations to change,” says Elton, food writer and columnist for CBC Radio’s Here and Now in Toronto. She suggests students push to get “the university to have food procurement protocol that guarantees a certain percentage of food comes from local and sustainable farms.” Which is exactly what Local Food Plus, a non-profit organization committed to creating local sustainable food systems, did when they first teamed up with Aramark food services in 2005: a partnership that resulted in 10 per cent of the food served at U of T’s Aramark venues being certified local and sustainable, a figure they hope to increase to 25 per cent this year.
Buy in bulk: “It’s an affordable way of buying local,” says Elton. “Or buy directly from farmers. If a group of people share a purchase, it can ease the financial burden of a one time pay-out.”
Start or join a co-op: That’s what Elton did in university. “Choose one that focuses on buying local and sustainable food. I was able to buy great food at a price I could afford.”
Ask questions: Nick Saul of The Stop says, “Do a bit of a food audit on campus; that could extend to asking, ‘Why do we have these crappy pop machines?’ Or, ‘Why is the cantina serviced by these big bad companies?’ Doing a bit of muckraking in that sector is really important and can make a big change fast.”
Start a cooking collective or garden: “The food movement is pretty robust,” says Saul, “and I can’t imagine it not finding its way onto campuses, whether that’s more individually expressed through a house on campus where everyone is interested in local, organic, sustainable food and they figure out a cooking collective, or they take over a green space and have collective gardens or individual plots—that could easily make a pretty big mark.”
The slow cooker: a starving student’s best friend
The crock pot is not just for you grandma
When I got a slow cooker for Christmas last year, I was ecstatic, and so were my roommates. While you may think a slow cooker, crock pot as it is sometimes referred to, is something only your grandma would use, it’s actually a great investment for a busy student.
After coming home after a long day of working or studying, the last thing most of us want to do is cook. The beauty of the slow cooker is you can toss in any kind of meat, frozen or not, some vegetables, seasoning and a bit of water before you head to class. When you get home, you’ll have meal that is ready to eat, involving very little cooking whatsoever, and is probably much better for you than another late night trip to McDonalds. Most slow cookers cost about $50, but you can also find smaller models for $30 or less, so they’re good for your budget too.
You can find hundreds of slow cooker recipes online, but here’s a couple super easy recipes I found courtesy of the Manitoban:
Beef Roast:
- 1 beef roast
- 1 pack of dry onion soup
- 1 pack of gravy mix
- 1 cup of water
- carrots and potatoes
Instructions: Put all the ingredients in the slow cookers, set on low, and cook for approximately eight hours.
Roasted Chicken
- 1 whole chicken, or however many boneless chicken breasts you like
- ½ tsp of crushed black pepper
- ½ of basil
- ¼ cup of chopped red onion
- 2 celery stalks
- 1 cup of chicken stock, or water
Instructions: Put the chicken, stock or water, celery stalks, and onion in the slow cooker. Spread the spices over the chicken and vegetables. Set the slow cooker to Low and cook for approximately eight hours. You can make this with carrots and string beans as well.
No, I did not miss anything. These recipes are actually that easy, and delicious!
I cook, I clean, I… just grew up?
I’m not quite sure what happened, but I appear to be growing up. No, no, it’s not one of those tearful milestone moments – I don’t have a graduation cap in hand, I haven’t received any prestigious awards, and I still don’t have a job. In fact, the growing up I’ve been doing appears to [...]
I’m not quite sure what happened, but I appear to be growing up.
No, no, it’s not one of those tearful milestone moments – I don’t have a graduation cap in hand, I haven’t received any prestigious awards, and I still don’t have a job.
In fact, the growing up I’ve been doing appears to be rather mundane. It’s the day to day things, the little efforts that are changing. I’ve finally been applying some of the lessons I picked up from reading that O magazine that’s always on the coffee table at home. Eat well! Look great! Feel happy! In fact, according to Oprah, all I need now is a jewel-toned twin set to achieve whatever is at the end of her aspirational rainbow.
Big change number one: I now own a hairbrush (not just one, but two brushes – these things come in spurts, apparently), so I’m looking slightly tidier.
I also bought a bike, so I suddenly get regular and vigorous exercise riding along Ottawa’s beautiful canal, which allows me to lower my cholesterol levels and get in touch with nature. And although I ride at a very leisurely pace (I have no other), I still spend the rest of the day trying to air myself out underneath the hand dryer, which allows others to notice how much exercise I’m getting, too.
Since my little adventure with cooking began, I’ve begun returning home from the grocery store overwhelmed with yuppie staples like fresh mozzarella, yellow zucchini, and Tuscan sausage, whipping up semi-elaborate meals with a total lack of modesty.
I didn’t even see that movie Julie & Julia, but it seems to have unleashed some sort of long-buried desire to revel in the sensory pleasures of anything with an expiration date.
I even clean things now. Last year I did not clean things – ever. My roommate will attest to this. But I swept the floor three days ago. And I put my shoes on the shoe rack last week (I am still working out the details of what else needs to be cleaned.)
The best part of “getting my act together” (as certain individuals have put it), is the ability to shock and amaze with skills that others would consider standard. It has been a long time since I have impressed anyone with my more prodigious skills – reading very bad novels very quickly, for example, or making up lewd limericks for people on their birthdays.
Still, lest I become the inspiration for another Margaret Wente column on spoiled, incompetent young people, let me attest that lots of third year students have long mastered basic domestic tasks, and are busy living smooth and successful daily lives.
My friend Rebecca, who is a music student at York, makes her own pasta sauce from scratch. I’m pretty sure she even had an herb garden at one point. Ivy, a forestry student at UBC, eats a lot of strange vegan-type grains, and does the stairs to Wreck Beach as a morning workout (for anyone who has not trudged up them before, these stairs appear to number around one billion.) Last year, Jess, the roommate, cooked a whole ham. A ham. It wasn’t Easter, and I don’t even think it was Sunday. She just felt like cooking up an enormous pig flank, I suppose.
Continual disarray is certainly not the rule for university students, although the road to fresh vegetables and well laundered sheets can be long and arduous, the road to adulthood even more so. However, the struggle is beautiful (or at least appreciated my roommates and Mums), and possibly inevitable.
After all, I resisted for years, and it seems to finally be catching up with me.
Cooking: for useless and impatient slobs
If you can put it in a sandwich, you can put it on these pizzas – and impress your friends, too
I am on a bit of a culinary kick at the moment.
This would surprise almost anyone who knows me well, as I am not known for my enthusiasm in the kitchen. If anything, I invite friends over for dinner and then learn how to cook the chicken. Gives it a sense of urgency, I find.
Because of this, I’ve received an endless number of cook books for Christmases and birthdays – “Easy Chicken”, “Rookie Cooking”, “Cooking for Useless and Impatient Slobs”, etc. None of these have enticed me. I open them, I look at the pictures, but something stops me from re-creating the meal.
Namely, there are too many ingredients involved. Really – when am I going to need oregano again? Let alone capers.
So I am providing here a series of impromptu recipes. I say recipes loosely, because to qualify for my approval, they have to be too simple to appear in any genuine cook book. So simple they would shame any genuine cookbook. So simple they can be made in about ten minutes, while reading the paper, washing the dishes, and talking on the phone.
The first recipe is my Mum’s, and it has been my saving grace at endless dinner parties. It is called the “gourmet pizza.”
The “gourmet pizza” is only gourmet because it looks more attractive than the average pizza.
Use a pita of any size or disposition, layer on what you want, put in the oven on broil, and take out when it looks crispy. The only key is good, colourful ingredients (this we have learned from the Italians.) Here are my favourite combinations:
The Italian Pizza: Pesto sauce with fresh mozzarella, a combination of green and red peppers, onions and zucchini, plus shrimp or prosciutto.
The Cowboy Pizza: Barbeque or chipotle sauce, Monterey jack or cheddar, with caramelized onions, red peppers, and roast chicken (you can always use a full, cooked chicken from the grocery store for this one.)
The Asian Pizza: Peanut sauce, plus mozzarella, red peppers, cilantro and shredded carrots, roast chicken or shrimp.
I’ve also tried sausages, bacon, feta cheese, cucumber, goat cheese, asparagus, and a particular favourite – slices of avocado. I rarely use actual tomato sauce. A good rule of thumb is: if you have it in your fridge, you can put it in a sandwich, and if you can put it in a sandwich, you can put it on a pizza and serve it to friends.
If you’re entertaining for many, supply the pitas and the spreads, and get everyone to bring a different topping. Everyone picks what they want, and the combinations get a little more exciting than your average pepperoni.
For other lazy, sloppy and generally unwilling student cooks, I’ll be including a series of super short and easy “recipes” from time to time, suggested by competent and creative friends across the country (and one in Australia.)
Soon to come are tips for making Mexican salsa burgers (with sweet potato fries and fresh guacamole), and the world’s easiest salad wraps.
Students celebrate Ramadan in food-obsessed culture
Students tell us what it’s like to fast from sunrise to sunset for one month
In a Muslim country, celebrating Ramadan is relatively simple: Most people are fasting from sunrise to sunset.
But in the U.S., most people are eating, and enticing food commercials, an overabundance of restaurants and watching others eat can make celebrating the holiday more challenging.
How do Muslims deal with the cravings, the puzzling looks and the “Are you on a diet?” questions?
The Associated Press interviewed several university students about Ramadan, which begins around Aug. 21, according to Muslim scholars, and runs for 30 days. (Ramadan is set by sightings of the moon.)
Here are their stories, edited from their own words:
NAME: Saba Shahid, 17, of Naugatuck, Conn., an incoming freshman at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn.
HER STORY: I can remember when I was younger, both me and my brother would pretend that we were fasting. We would go up to our parents and say, “We’re not going to eat. We’re fasting too.”
Our parents never had to force us to do it. We were brought up with Muslim customs and traditions from a very young age.
I’m pretty sure the first time I did it the correct way I was in fourth or fifth grade.
I went to a Catholic high school and everyone was supportive. I had non-Muslim friends fast with me. Sometimes I would go to the cafeteria, and other days I would go to the library at lunchtime.
There’s been days in the morning where I have been so busy I just had a glass of water. But I’m not going to lie. There are some days I can’t wait until sunset so I can eat.
At the end we have Eid (Eid al-Fitr). Everyone gets all done up and stuff. We go have community prayer and then break fast together. We’ll come back home and we’ll get presents and go to neighbours’ houses. It’s kind of like our Christmas.
NAME: Abdullah Shamari, 19, of Pomona, Calif., a rising sophomore at University of California, San Diego
HIS STORY: A lot of kids are really excited to fast. I can remember when I was six or seven, I would fast at school and then break my fast when I came home.
Now you see six-or seven-year-olds fasting all day. Their parents tell them they don’t have to, but the kids want to.
I was about 11 when I started fasting the entire day. As you grow up, you realize the significance.
There’s more to it than fasting or abstaining from food. It’s more of a moral fast. You’re bettering yourself in all aspects.
The first day and you haven’t fasted for a whole year, you’re going to get hungry. You’re going to have a headache. But generally no, you don’t get hungry.
The ethics of psychology experiments
Ryerson prof shares chocolate secrets
Don’t keep your sweets in the fridge, and other tips
If that beautiful box of premium chocolates you received for Valentine’s or Easter has been stored in the refrigerator, don’t be surprised if the sweets develop a hazy tinge.
“When chocolate is subjected to variable temperatures its exterior gets chalky and it no longer looks appetizing,” says Derick Rousseau, a food science professor at Toronto’s Ryerson University.
He says the condition is known as fat bloom and occurs for a number of reasons, but often results when chocolate is exposed to temperature fluctuations.
When the temperature of the chocolate goes up and down, some of the cocoa butter in the chocolate melts and resolidifies. A small amount of this resolidified cocoa butter will end up on the surface as microscopic crystals or bumps. This produces the hazy whiteness called fat bloom, Rousseau explains.
“As consumers of chocolate we say, ‘gosh, the sheen has gone and it looks kind of chalky and not very appetizing.”
“But it hasn’t gone mouldy, and you can eat it. The texture might not be exactly the same, but it is still fine to eat.”
Rousseau says another drawback in storing chocolate can happen when it is exposed to damp and wet conditions. This is called sugar bloom.
“If chocolate is exposed to humid conditions, moisture in the air will condense the surface of the chocolate and dissolve the sugar. When conditions become dry again, the sugar will re-crystallize and the surface will look hazy.”
Rousseau’s work examines the microscopic appearance (the microstructure) of chocolate and the physical and chemical factors that negatively affect its quality and shelf life. His research is aimed at helping to keep chocolate fresher and tastier.
Here are some of his tips on storing chocolate:
- If stored properly, chocolate can last for years. Filled chocolates and truffles are best consumed within a month.
- To preserve the flavour of chocolate, it must be kept in a cool, dry, well-ventilated place where there is little variation in temperature and low humidity.
- To avoid fluctuations in temperature, do not store chocolate in cupboards right next to your fridge or stove.
- Chocolate should be stored in an airtight container.
- Because chocolate contains fat, it easily absorbs other flavours and odours. Don’t store near chemicals, cleaning products, perfume, air fresheners or anything else you don’t want to taste in your chocolate.
- The Canadian Press
University food services expand beyond campus walls
More money can be made serving good food with a smaller profit margin
Food services of St. John’s College (disclosure: I’m a member of the college) at the University of Manitoba has won a contract to provide food services at the Government of Canada’s Freshwater Institute.
The Freshwater Institute is located within the University of Manitoba grounds but is independent of the university.
St. John’s College has also been granted the food services contract at St. Andrew’s College.
In both cases, it was the reputation of St. John’s food that gained the college the new locations.
When I was fighting the horrible food served by Aramark at the University of Manitoba in my first year, I noted there was more money to be made in serving good food at a smaller profit margin than serving extremely poor food at a high profit margin to a captive audience.
This proves the point, a small college operation is winning contracts instead of companies like Aramark.
Eating disorders worsen in residence
Cafeteria dining, independent living, and competition linked to the development of disordered eating
When Erica* carries her tray into the eating area of Bishop Mountain Hall residence cafeteria (BMH), she feels scrutinized by seated students. She hates the food, which she describes as baked, fried, oily, and salty, but most of all she hates that other students watch her eat it.
“When I go to the cafeteria, I feel like I’m on display. [Other students] stare at you. When you get up to leave, they take inventory of how much you’ve consumed. I try to be better than them. To deny more than they can,” she said.
Five years ago, Erica was diagnosed with perfection anxiety disorder and anorexia nervosa. Her condition improved greatly with the support of her parents and psychologist before she came to McGill, and now she blames its recent flare-up on her living conditions as a first-year student in an Upper Residence.
“I was okay at home. It was a more controllable environment, and there wasn’t the X-factor of 14 18-year-olds living with me on a floor,” she said.
According to Molson Hall floor fellow Anna Lambert – a registered nurse and upper-year student whose job is to help foster a sense of community in residence – there is at least one student suffering from an eating disorder at every McGill residence. In her two years as a floor fellow, Lambert has seen and heard of many students with eating disorders whose symptoms have worsened upon enrolling in residence.
“Usually they had a more supportive environment at home; parents and friends know their history and recognize their eating disorder,” said Lambert. “First year university is a fresh start, but [eating disorders] become more severe.”
Lambert also noticed a large percentage of students in residence halls with disordered eating habits, which encompasses all potentially dangerous eating patterns. She described students picking at meager portions of the cafeteria food and working out or fasting the day after binge drinking as common patterns.
On her wall in her single-room dorm, Erica charts the days she has gone without eating. Her fridge is stocked with take-away lunches and dinners from the BMH cafeteria, a compulsion she described as food hoarding.
Susan Campbell, the manager of Food Services at BMH, explained that their menu caters to the majority of students by offering a variety of balanced food choices.
But both Campbell and BMH’s staff dietician Monique Lauzon said that faced with so many choices, many students gain weight while living in residence.
“Students sometimes tend to overeat, students gain a little weight and that can maybe lead to compulsions,” Campbell said.
Working with a facilities that are 30 years old, Campbell was looking forward to a renovation next year that will expand the steam table so a wider variety of hot entrees can be served.
Lambert made a presentation to all the floor fellows in August about recognizing disordered eating patterns. She urged the group to be more observant by eating with students and making referrals to the appropriate health professionals when an unhealthy pattern is identified.
But Lambert said floor fellows and others have been without appropriate referral resources as the Eating Disorder unit at McGill Mental Health Service (MMHS) Clinic was non-operational for the past year and a half.
When Erica approached MMHS in early September with a referral from both her hometown general practitioner and psychologist they requested an additional note from her psychiatrist before scheduling an appointment. Erica will sit in her first psychiatry appointment next week, more than two months since she walked into the clinic.
“I went [to MMHS] because I can’t do four years of not eating. Studying becomes near impossible. You eat so little that sometimes that you can’t think,” Erica said.
According to Denise Rochon, who is in charge of the MMHS eating disorder unit, they are in the process of restarting operations, but faced a rocky rebirth this year with its staff dietician on maternity leave.
Lauzon felt external psychiatric help was crucial to helping students with eating disorders.
“We are alerted by the floor fellows or the dons that a certain student is loosing a lot of weight and our red flag goes up. My implication [with those cases] is very limited because very often these students don’t want to come see us, unless they want to seek help they are more or less in denial,” Lauzon said.
In her clinical work with first years at MMHS, Rochon noticed a high level of competitiveness over body perfection.
“It is possible [eating disorders] will develop associated with a competition over marks – perfectionists are always looking at someone whose body is closer to perfection than one’s own – and the residence environment tends to encourage that,” she said, adding that McGill attracts perfectionists given its high acceptance standards for prospective students.
“I can study my ass off and still fail an exam, but I can control my eating. It becomes a game,” Erica said.
Erica has made a deal with other first years to skip dessert and work out three times a week to slim down before returning home for Christmas vacation.
Dr. Howard Steiger, director of the eating disorder program at the Montreal Douglas Mental Health University Institute, pointed to studies that establish a link between the exacerbation or development of eating disorders and dormitory living.
“Eating disorders are activated at times of stress or when a person’s sense of control is challenged,” Steiger said. “Some students moving into dorms are not quite prepared for the transition to more independent living and becoming responsible for structuring one’s own eating for the first time.”
Steiger also cited high stress levels associated with academic performance, the discomfort of weight gain caused by binge drinking and heavy cafeteria food, competition among students for body perfection, and pressure to integrate into a new social group as potential factors that could cause disordered eating among first years in residence.
*Name has been changed
- Originally published in The McGill Daily
