Food Culture & Celebration

Special occasions are part of every culture, and more often than not bring people together around food.  The food we share with friends, family and community express our appreciation for one another and remind us of what we value and have in common.  We nourish our spirits and our bodies, and build community with food, and it is woven into every aspect of life. Manitoba is home to a cornucopia of foods and food traditions, giving us the opportunity to share our own food customs and experience others.

People are more often looking to make food choices that are consistent with their values as well as with their cultural traditions and heritage. For some people food practices include:

• buying directly from farmers, harvesters, and local producers
• cooking from scratch
• reading food labels more carefully
• buying food grown closer to home
• buying fair trade (globally and locally)
• buying free-range
• buying naturally or organically grown food
• eating vegetarian or vegan
• special diets such as raw or unprocessed food

Food is also an environmental issue because the ways in which food is grown, processed, transported, consumed and disposed of have significant impacts on our environment.  In addition the quality of the environment impacts traditionally hunted, fished, and harvested foods.