Nutrition student helps MUHC add Indigenous option to menu
When an Indigenous patient receiving treatment at the MUHC refused to eat, McGill MScA candidate Manveen Sethi was enlisted to find an authentic recipe for Bannock bread, a traditional Indigenous snack. Through research and with the help of Indigenous patients who taste-tested recipes, Sethi found a recipe that will now be permanently available on the MUHC menu and hopefully offer a little comfort to Indigenous patients being treated at the facility.
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Food carries meaning
Treena Wasonti:io Delormier, the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Food Sovereignty at McGill University, says this new menu item is a step in the right direction.
Having worked as a clinical dietitian in Indigenous communities, she says she met people who, like Matches, refused to eat food they associated with residential schools.
"Imagine not having your food, not being able to eat enough food, being severely lonely, being kept in an abusive environment and you don't even have the comfort of food. (It's) probably the root of a lot of difficult issues for people who survive residential school and their relationships with food… We need to be aware that food is not just nutrients, that food carries meanings."
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