The 2021 Banff Pork Seminar offered a trove of valuable information for Canada’s hog producers.

Pandemic rewriting food fundamentals

Expert urges farmers to get in on direct-marketing wave

He’s known as the “food professor,” an educator in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and senior director of the university’s innovative Agri-Food Analytics Lab. Sylvain Charlebois spends his days on “predictive analytics,” looking at the future of food. Many will know him from frequent mainstream media appearances. He is also […] Read more

Pandemic cooking revival

Pandemic cooking revival

First We Eat: In unstable times there can be comfort in cooking

Food has always been essential, right up there with sleep, water and shelter. But it’s more than that: food is what we use to mark momentous occasions and events — brunch with the bunch, cake for a birthday, anniversary suppers, restaurant date nights, cookies with the kids after school. We’ve lost many of those occasions […] Read more


Salad rolls with dip.

How can you get your kids to care about food?

First We Eat: Try these tips to get them thinking and talking about what they eat

When my millennial kids were young, on the last Friday of each month I showed up at school early, having first made a trip to the recycling centre to return our household’s contributions. “Noon dismal,” my kids called it, that early discharge. We made it into a family ritual by going out for Vietnamese pho, […] Read more

Chicken, Lemon and Wild Rice Soup.

Helping kids learn to cook

First We Eat: By creating a fun and safe environment even a young child can help out in the kitchen

The knife was small, with a curved tip and serrated blade. As knives go, it looked safe. But that didn’t prevent my anxiety the first time I put it into my child’s hand. He was four, and stood on a sturdy chair. He used that knife to saw up carrots and celery, spuds, an apple. […] Read more


Poutine is considered by many a delectable dish on its own, but how will it fly in a pie?  Photo: iStock/Getty Images Plus

Would you eat a poutine in a pie this holiday season?

The Conversation – I recently saw a culinary invention that made me think about “tourtine.” The dish, as its name suggests, is a hybrid of tourtière and poutine. Poutine cheese curds and sauce are added to the tourtière’s pie filling, along with festive ingredients such as shredded meat and the inevitable foie gras. The tourtine […] Read more

Spread out the work over the day to make assembly a quick job. Makes four rounds or two large rectangles.

How to share food with people outside of your household

First We Eat: Dropping off a meal is still one of the best ways to show you care

Worrying about food is part of the times, especially for those of us who feel responsible for others — our elderly friends and relatives, new moms with a babe in arms, immune-compromised cousins, kids at university or on a tight budget. Drop- ping off a meal is still one of the best ways to administer […] Read more


Anything for dessert — as long as it’s chocolate

Anything for dessert — as long as it’s chocolate

First We Eat: If you love chocolate try this sourdough cake recipe

My family recently marked the first anniversary of my dad’s death. I miss him. He and Mom lived fairly close by, and Dave and I visited them weekly for movie night with our dog Jake, sometimes with dessert in hand. Like a good chocolate, Dad had a soft heart within a crusty exterior. Chocolate was […] Read more



An image created by Nexu Science Communication, together with Trinity College in Dublin, shows a model structurally representative of a betacoronavirus, the type of virus linked to COVID-19. (Nexu Science Communication via Reuters)

Irritated trade partners push back on China’s coronavirus food tests

Canada rips testing as 'unjustified trade restrictions'

Beijing/Geneva | Reuters — Major food-producing countries are growing increasingly frustrated with China’s scrutiny of imported products and are calling on it to stop aggressive testing for the coronavirus, which some say is tantamount to a trade restriction. China says it has found the virus on the packaging of products from 20 countries including German […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

FCC identifies export, market opportunities for Canadian food

The ag lender's latest report highlights canola oil, pork, potato products, crab meat

Canada is already a major exporter of agricultural goods, food and beverages — but increasing food and beverage exports is still one of Canada’s biggest trade opportunities, Farm Credit Canada (FCC) says. And by diversifying exports, farmers will become less dependent on current major markets, reducing their financial risk. “When borders close for any number […] Read more