Category Archives: Sustainable food resources

Week 6: The research must go on!

Food Processing, Food security, Sustainable food resources

In the past week, our group has been discussing extensively on the revised research question. We are almost there and we hope that it will suit the requests of our community partner. We consider our most recent community visit our conference call last week. It is disappointing that we had to change our research question, but in the meantime we are putting the greatest effort in formulating a research question that not only satisfies our community partner’s expectations, but at the same time does not diminish our group’s academic interest. We have divided the FAQ portion of the manual among our group members and we have been hard at work reviewing articles of literature reviews. The FAQs for the manual are generally completed and now we are moving on to the science portion of the manual. Some of the hot topics our community partner was concerned with are the scientific background behind Clostridium botulinum and their strains, or the role of pectin in producing jam. We also explored additional methods of canning and assessed their safety and practical uses. Some of the interesting information we came across included:

-Lower temperature pasteurization of pickles (160°F for 36 minutes as opposed to 212°F)

– Pectin binding to water to only provide food structure in jams and jellies. They are not a factor in inhibiting microbial growth

-Sugar is not the sole factor in eliminating the risk of pathogen growth and inactivating enzymes in low acid foods; they are used for flavouring and colour.

-A very miniscule amount of botulinum toxin is enough to cause full body paralysis

-The botulinum bacteria are rod shaped organisms that are slightly bent and thrive in low acid, wet, and anaerobic environments

Our plans for the remainder of the week is to commence our in-depth research on the scientific background to ensuring the safety and viability of the canning process. We will then need to divide up each of the chapters of the manual. Once that is complete, we will then need to compile that and do an extensive edit to make sure that our new information well supplements the manual. Also, we need to ensure the language is at approximately a grade six level. As mentioned in the previous blog post, we have just had a conference call with our community partner. Our tentative research question is To what extent does educating people on how to can at home contribute to a person’s food literacy, resulting in improved food security with regards to personal health? Our focus group meeting is scheduled for the beginning of November and we need to have this done as soon as possible. Thanks for tuning in, and we will blog about our next experience.

 

Week 3: Progress Report + Project Planning

Food Processing, Food security, LFS 350, Sustainable food resources

 

       Welcome to our 3rd blog posting! How time flies! Last week we had a 3-hour group meeting to distribute the responsibilities among group members regarding the written proposal and the proposal presentation for our project.  Amy Huang, Drew Bondar and Sophie Dong were assigned to work on the introduction, focusing on introducing our group members, our project, and our community partner. Bonnie Chan and Joyce Liao were assigned to come up with a brief rationale for our research question and to relate it to a broader picture. Jasmine Lee and Nathan Lee were responsible for the selection of methods to conduct this research and explain why these specific research methods were selected. A work plan was created during the meeting to ensure that the entire group is able to complete the tasks before the due dates and to keep up with the progress of our project. Even though every group member has his/her own responsibilities, we will still help each other to solve the problems encountered while conducting the project.  This week, we also received great news from Shona from GVFBS asking whether we as a group would be interested in participating a canning workshop with them to better understand the process of canning.

     As the proposal presentation and the written proposal are due this week, our group will focus on these two tasks at the beginning of this week. We will draft our proposal presentation and meetup to practice on Tuesday and Wednesday. Also, we are going to complete our written proposal two days before the deadline, so we would have time to proofread it. At the same time, our group will send our tentative timeline to our community partner (GVFBS) once our proposal is finalized. We are now in the process of conducting literature reviews for the FAQs regarding the science behind canning and how to perform safe canning. Academic literature research about FAQs is going to be completed by the due date of our draft (Nov. 5) since we plan to finish the FAQs section in the next two weeks and then begin research and revision of the manual. The valuable information obtained from the canning session will also be used to revise the manual and answer the FAQs. Once we get our draft manual done, we will conduct a focus group interview to test the clarity and understandability of the new sections produced, and potential participants of the interview will be chosen by the Fresh Choice Kitchens. After that, we will finalize the manual with regards to the responses from the focus group, and then achieve the final version of the manual and the answers to the FAQs.

Thank you for reading our postings and see you next week!

Week 1: Introduction to Our Group

Food Processing, Food security, LFS 350, Sustainable food resources

Welcome to our blog!

This is a blog created by a group of students from the LFS 350 course that is working with the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society – Fresh Choice Kitchens for a research project throughout the term. The main purpose of this blog is to share with others about our progress on the research project, as well as to share thoughts and other exciting news on related topics. Our project, ” The Science of Canning”, mainly focuses on helping Fresh Choice Kitchens to revise their current manual given to their canning instructors and add in scientific concepts to clearly illustrate the science behind safe canning practices.

Our group members include Amy Huang, Bonnie Chan, Drew Bondar, Jasmine Lee, Joyce Liao, Nathan Lee and Sophie Dong. (Check out our personal introductions on the “Team members” page!) During our first meeting, we shared our reasons for choosing this project: some of us would like to apply our knowledge from food processing courses to real-life settings, while others may be entirely new to canning and are eager to learn more about it through this project. During our first meeting, apart from familiarizing with each other, we also set some ground rules, which we think are four important points we should always keep in mind when working as a group:

  1) All members should take responsibility for the project
– contribute equally and proactively!
– keep up with the progress and finish designated parts before deadlines
– check Google Doc and/or Connect group discussion board regularly for group
discussions and project updates
2) Meet up at least once a week for discussions and to update individual progress
– let the others know beforehand if you cannot attend a meeting and check for updates          on the project on Google Doc and/or Connect group discussion board
3) Don’t hesitate to speak up!
– feel free to let other members know if you need help
– don’t be afraid to express your own opinions
4) Respect others!

We also discussed on our strengths and preferences when working in a group and we identified the different roles within members. We have Drew as the communicator for contacting the community partner and Bonnie as the blog administrator for the overall maintenance of this blog. We also decided that all group members will take turns writing weekly blogs so that we can all have experience in expressing our thoughts and communicating with the community through the internet.

After our first meeting, Drew has contacted our community partner through email and he has scheduled a time in the following week to meet up with them and further discuss the project objectives. Drew and Jasmine will be representing our group to visit our community partner. However, before their visit, we will all meet up to discuss on possible questions that we would like to ask our community partner, as well as to start brainstorming for the project proposal and divide up the work. After the visit, Drew and Jasmine will update us about their discussion with the community partner so that we can incorporate that into our ideas for the proposal. Everyone will work on their designated parts of the proposal and we aim that we can formulate a draft for the proposal by week 3.

Thank you for reading our first blog entry! We will update soon on our progress in week 2!

Introduction to LFS 350

Farming practices, Food access, Food accessibility, Food and culture, Food marketing, Food Processing, Food security, Food sovereignty, Garden management, LFS 350, Surveying farmers, Sustainable food resources, Waste management and composting

The Land, Food, and Community series is a number of classes that the students of UBC Land and Food Systems take every year.  The students of Land Food and Community II (LFS 350; formerly known as AGSC 350) complete extensive projects on food security issues in British Columbia.  Students work in groups of 6 or 7 to explore issues within their assigned communities and themes, and team up with members of the community to tackle these issues.  In this way, students can engage in their education by learning from community partners and immersing themselves in “real world” situations outside the classroom.  Community Partners can learn about what students are doing and learning at UBC, and can work with students to make a positive impact on their organizations and communities in terms of food security.  The Land and Food Series classes are unique from most other university courses as they emphasize teaching as a “community of learners” and community based research instead of top-down instruction and research.  Students learn from the teaching team, their peers and the communities of British Columbia making for an education that bridges university academics with real world issues.