This past Monday I had the pleasure of participating in “Food on the Public Plate: Lessons from Canada, US and Denmark”, an event put on by Nourish and hosted by the MaRS Solutions Lab.

It was a chance to share the work UHN’s Energy & Environment Team has done looking into local food at UHN, assessing hospital readiness for climate change’s impact on food, as well as some of the existing and planned gardens we have.

But while I always like to tell UHN’s story, I also enjoy learning what others are doing, and the event also featured two visiting speakers. First Skip Skivington, Vice President, Healthcare Continuity and Support Services at Kaiser Permanente, spoke on “food as medicine” and his organization’s work to promote and support healthy and sustainable diets for both their staff and the people they serve.  What resonated for me was Skip’s image of the healthy food “tsunami” that is building.

Next was Dr. Jens Kondrup talking about “the importance of policy and power for change in food and healthcare” and how organic food went from being a novelty to being part of the mainstream in Copenhagen thanks to the work of the Copenhagen House of Food.

The evening ended with members of the audience asking questions, which not only provided further opportunity to share and learn, but also to hear how people, many of whom worked with food, how attitudes and ideas are changing.