On food banks

Hello, hello, and welcome to this week’s edition of The Stitch—where I drop a little piece of evidence-based research straight to your inbox.

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This week, I thought to focus on food insecurity, given the increasingly high cost of groceries. Here in Canada, where I’m writing this email, the stats are pretty staggering.

An estimated 8.7 million people living in Canada are food insecure, so it’s maybe not surprising to learn that a whopping 2 million people visited food banks in March 2024. That’s up 6% from the year prior, and 90% from 2019 (yup, 90%, not a typo).

If those figures aren’t depressing enough, consider that 33% of food bank visitors last year were children—again, not exactly surprising given that, in Canada, at least 2.1 million children are estimated to be living in food insecure households. That’s all data shared by Food Banks Canada and PROOF (Food Insecurity Policy Research, at the University of Toronto).

When it comes to food insecurity, longstanding stereotypes are alive and well. You may be familiar with some, like those implying that people who visit food banks are ‘lazy.’

These myths are incredibly dangerous. So, here’s a bit of evidence-based research to help breakthrough the stereotypes.

📖 READ //

For context, a great place to start is with this research review from Sara Shostak, published in 2023 in the journal Annual Review of Sociology. In the article, Shostak underscores how safe and consistent access to food is linked to social inequality and structural racism, as food systems reflect wider societal issues.

🎧 LISTEN //

Pair the article with a Social Science Bites podcast interview with Kayleigh Garthwaite, who shares her research on food banks in the United Kingdom. This is an important but uncomfortable listen, as Garthwaite explains some of the barriers people have had to face in order to access food in their local communities.

📺 WATCH //

Towards the end of last year, the Put Food Banks Out of Business campaign interviewed Dr. Valerie Tarasuk from PROOF on her epic research, which shows how food insecurity is tied to more than just (low) household income, and how it can have a ripple effect on peoples lives. Check out the video interview here to learn more:

In sharing just a little evidence-based research from Shostak, Garthwaite, and Tarasuk, it’s clear that food insecurity is not something to be easily solved through food banks alone.

To take this issue seriously, we’ve got to get real about structural inequality. Easy, right? I’ll save some evidence-based insights on that topic for another week…

⁉️ Okay, question time! Are you feeling the price crunch where you are? What are some of the stats on food insecurity in your local context? See what you can find out. You can reply directly to this email or share your thoughts in the comments below.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with anyone you think might also enjoy it!

Until next time,

Mary

If you have an academic, evidence-based, article or project you’d like readers to check out (whether already published open access or not), be sure to submit a pitch here: