Rachel Katz often shares her cooking and baking with other people. After a time, people began to tell her that she should start a food blog. While Katz decided a blog would be too much to handle whilst being a full-time graduate student, she figured Instagram would be a manageable platform. So last summer while she was working one job and had relatively free evenings, she started her food Instagram, Fork in Progress.
On the account, Katz shares photos of the recipes that she’s tried. Unlike many other food accounts, her unfiltered photos project accessibility and make anyone scrolling feel like they could get in their kitchen and make the same meal.
The recipes that Katz tries are not necessarily easy, but she believes basic kitchen confidence can be applied to make more complicated recipes. She looks for recipes with very specific instructions that she can follow along with. She also looks for versatile recipes that she can add her own flavours to. In her captions, she highlights her innovations and provides tips.
One benefit to Instagram for her is the interactivity. It is easy for her followers to ask her questions and provide feedback. The platform also makes it possible for her to share step-by-step videos that break down the recipes into easier steps. This is to prove to people that anyone can learn how to cook delicious dishes.
“I was frustrated with a lot of students… saying ‘oh I have no time to cook’ or ‘I don't like cooking’… [But] food is so important, food is delicious and there's a kind of pride that you get from making your own food that you don't really get from anything else,” Katz said.
Katz understands how difficult balancing food with student life can be. The McMaster grad lived in residence in her first year where the meal plan limited the choice she had over what she ate. In her second year, she shared a six-person student house with a tiny kitchen. In both years, she didn’t feel like she had a fully functional space where she can cook her own meals.
For Katz, this resulted in patterns of disordered eating. In her second year, she committed to recognize these patterns in herself so she can create healthier eating habits. Preparing her own meals has been one tool in repairing Katz’s relationship with food.
In her third year, Katz moved into a two-person apartment with a nice kitchen. In her new kitchen, Katz explored cooking more. Working at the Silhouette also encouraged her as she began to regularly bake for the office. This practice allowed her to receive feedback on her food and grow as a baker.
“I don't use words like clean… or like detox, cleanse… [T]here are all of these other food bloggers out there who use those lines and a lot of recipe bloggers who have these crazy extravagant recipes. But there wasn't really anyone to fulfill the student niche for people who wanted to cook actual meals but didn't really know where to start,” Katz explained.
While developing a healthy relationship with food is important to Katz, food is also a tool that she uses in her relationships with others. Cooking is an activity that she likes to do with family and friends. Her food-related memories stretch all the way back to her childhood.
Katz grew up eating a lot of homemade meals. She is inspired by her mother, who is an accomplished home chef and baker. Not only does she adore the chocolate chip cookies that she grew up eating, but she also admires her mother’s diligence. Her mother can spend months trying to perfect a recipe.
Now an adult, Katz is making her own food memories, many of which include food she’s made for others. For her, cooking for people is a way of shaping their experiences for the better. By making a caramel corn cake for her partner’s birthday, she was able to make the day more memorable. When she makes her mother’s birthday cake this year, she will make that day more special.
However, as the name of her account indicates, Katz is still growing her skills in the kitchen. She wants her followers to continue learning, experimenting and trying new things.
“[H]aving a name that has associations of things that are not quite perfect, that I'm still learning but it doesn't mean that I don't know anything, I think… that embodies the mentality that I'm hoping I can encourage people to take with food and feeding themselves,” said Katz.
For this reason, Katz is not focused on monetizing Fork in Progress, as she and her followers operate within a student budget, she does not want to promote products that are inaccessible. While she would consider a column in a publication, she believes the account can only remain authentic by staying fairly small.
As long as she’s a student, Katz wants to continue spreading positive messages about food and cooking. She wants Fork in Progress to show students that they can make their own cakes and eat them too.
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By: Saadia Shahid
On Feb. 27, the McMaster Students Union promoted its three-day education campaign “Compost at Mac” which highlighted several composting bins around campus. The campaign encouraged students to locate areas within the university where compost bins should be placed.
This was done in efforts to reduce the waste produced by students and also to promote composting.
Another table that I came across in the McMaster University Students Centre asked students to make pledges to limit their use of disposable items. I pledged to limit my use of plastic cutlery, but how feasible is that really?
As a student, making sustainable choices is difficult when there are plastic straws and cutlery distributed all over campus. It is hard to make the environmentally-conscious choice when those items are so easily accessible.
It is easy for the MSU to put up boards encouraging students to help combat climate change, but would it not make more sense for McMaster Hospitality Services to abolish the use of plastic cutlery and disposable items altogether? This would probably help reduce the carbon footprint of the entire university.
This may seem like a drastic change, but the ease lies in switching to more environmentally-friendly and sustainable options like steel cutlery and straws. Reusable mesh grocery bags should be also sold on campus to make it easier for students to adopt sustainable habits.
In making these changes, the MUSC eating area could be also revamped into a proper food court with steel cutlery and plates given out in La Piazza. Students can then return to these items to workers stationed at the food court.
A system like this is already implemented at plenty of malls with food courts and helps to reduce waste due to the availability of reusable cutlery. The cost may seem a little high, but it is not higher than the one we will have to pay due to the effects of climate change.
This initiative can start during Welcome Week with new students introduced to the green changes.
Speaking from a student’s point of view, these changes would make things easier for us and also be more beneficial for the Earth. An institution equipped with the funding makes a bigger difference than opposed to individual students struggling to find sustainable alternatives.
The MSU has done a lot of things that students didn’t vote for, such as starting the composting initiative. They encourage us to follow along as it is a change for the better, but they must at least make it easier for students to adopt.
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By: Sevda Montakhab
University students face constant challenges including exams or projects that interfere with their ability to maintain good health through exercise and a healthy diet. The first year of university can especially take a toll on students’ health — equipped with a limited budget and unlimited access to cheap snacks, students can encounter serious hurdles when trying to eat healthy.
For the majority of students, university is the first time that they are living independently. While these students may have knowledge of their nutritional requirements, the transition to university provides immense freedom over food choice. This is critical as it marks the formation of students’ dietary habits, which can follow them throughout adulthood.
Unfortunately, it is common for students to make unhealthy dietary decisions, as they aim to choose the most convenient food options available, which are not necessarily the most healthy. At McMaster University, the most convenient food options available to students on-campus are those provided by the university’s hospitality services.
It is sad then that McMaster Hospitality Services consistently fail to provide students with affordable and nutritional food options. In doing so, they seem ignorant of the critical role they play in shaping the dietary habits of McMaster students.
The type and quality of food provided by Hospitality Services put students at risk for making poor dietary choices. Despite the variety of food options available, there are only a handful of meals served on-campus that are reasonably-priced and of good quality.
Most food served on-campus is frozen and unappetizing, earning McMaster Hospitality Services a bad reputation among students who a month into the school year often resort to convenience foods including fried and processed meals.
The seemingly-healthy food options offered across campus such as the premade salad packages sold at La Piazza are expensive, stale and sometimes even inedible due to a lack of attention paid by the staff to properly handle the fresh ingredients.
Another cause for concern is the exuberant price of on-campus food, a concern that is severely overlooked by McMaster Hospitality Services. For example, ordering a plate of food at East Meets West Bistro can cost students $15. This poses a serious issue to students who in addition to trying to navigate the most healthy food options available are also constrained by a tight budget.
Observing the rise in costs over the past few years, it is clear that McMaster Hospitality Services focuses on profit rather than quality, and seems to care little about its student customers.
McMaster Hospitality Services needs to change to meet the financial situation of their students as well as provide them with quality food. There is an urgent need to provide more affordable, appetizing and nutritional food options that can encourage students to make more healthy decisions.
The implementation of such changes is sure to not only improve the quality of student life on-campus but also improve the overall health of the community of the future.
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