Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation

A growing, though still loosely connected, body of academic work has started placing meat at the centre of critical discourses regarding climate change and environmental sustainability, human health, economic wellbeing, food futures, and animal and ecological ethics. This special themed issue seeks to bring these multi-disciplinary scholars into direct conversation with one another under the umbrella of ‘Meat Studies’ as an emerging sub-field of study. Indeed, the recent establishment of Vegan Studies necessitates a parallel effort to better understand meat’s persistent social, economic, political, and cultural status in human societies. By situating meat at the centre of critical analysis, we identify, articulate, and address the challenges that meat poses in the twenty-first century. More generally, Meat Studies allows us to critically re-examine our cultural conventions regarding the ways in which we classify different foods, diets, identities, and culinary practices.

Guest editors Ryan J. Phillips and Elisabeth Abergel

The articles outside of the themed section are firmly focussed on and around the classroom. Amberley Ruetz and Jane Poppendieck look to the United States for lessons on the design and implementation of a national school food program.

Dian Day examines children’s fiction from elementary school curricula and interrogates their assumptions about children, poverty, food, and hunger.

Sarah Clement et al. Examine the whys and wherefores of developing a community food hub at UBC-Victoria that moves beyond emergency food relief services to address food insecurity with a more dignified, holistic, systemic, and justice-oriented approach.

And finally, Andrea Bombak et al. explore how food pedagogies in Canadian university classrooms are prioritizing inclusion, diversity, and sustainable, resilient communities.

Stefanie Foster offers us a review of Annika Lusis's contemporary art piece, Distasteful: Sexual Harassment in the Restaurant Industry, while Jennifer Sumner reviews Chris van Tulleken’s Ultra-Processed People: Why We Can’t Stop Eating Food that isn’t Food.

And finally, we close this issue with a third installment of the Choux Questionnaire, featuring… ChatGPT.

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