Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/987827
BY STACEY MCLACHLAN Meal Exchange is helping to create campus food systems that are sustainable, socially just, humane, and healthy Good Food T wenty million dollars: that's the amount that B.C. universities spend collectively each year on food for their campuses. But that gure has an impact far beyond the administrations' budget – these institutional purchases often wind up coming from corporate suppliers whose production practices may contribute to climate change, pollution, and sometimes the destruction of wildlife. Not exactly an appetizing picture. To people like Rawel Sidhu, UBC Meal Exchange Chapter President, it seems like this purchasing power could be an incredible opportunity for positive change. "Fundamentally, food is not just something that lls you up; it's a relationship with our community, with producers, with the planet," says the science student and food-security activist. Sidhu and the other volunteers at Meal Exchange – a national non-prot connecting campus, community, and industry to drive demand for eco-positive agricultural practices – are pressuring campuses to make a conscious decision to support producers that have a positive impact on B.C.'s ecosystem. It's why the group has taken on its latest project: the Good Food Challenge, a nationwide pilot overseen by Good Food Challenge Co-ordinator Celia White and inspired by a successful and similar project in the U.S. The ultimate goal? To have Canada's university presidents sign the Good Food Campus Commitment – a pledge to ensure that by 2025, at least 20 percent of campus food will meet or exceed Good Food standards. Good Food is a holistic, catch-all term for foodstu"s that are nutritious and sustainable, a"ordable, and culturally appropriate. To choose Good Food is to embrace not just food