Photo by De'Noia Woods, Photography Intern

As a triathlete, Lecturer of Sociology Rebecca Matteo fuelled her body with sports drinks and power bars and pushed herself to her physical limits. Then a life-changing biking accident forced the vivacious and engaging woman to rethink everything about what it meant to be athletic, healthy and happy.

“I was forced to sit and think. It was time I would not have made for myself,” Matteo said. “I had that kind of light bulb moment when I realized that what I was doing to be healthy wasn’t what was best for me as a whole person.”

The person that emerged from that accident has taken an academic passion for health care service delivery, combined it with an ever-evolving personal commitment to sustainability (and a lot of yoga) and turned it into a wildly popular course in the university’s sociology department.

“The Politics of Food” seminar course examines a wide range of food-centered topics from an academic perspective and integrates a high level of hands-on experience. Students can participate in a number of activities – from volunteering in a community garden to helping plan Food Week with Campus Kitchen – so long as they engage the local sustainable foods movement.“The active learning is really what I think lights up the students,” Matteo said. “They are living the choices.”

The jump from a public health dissertation to a seminar on sustainable food systems was an easy one for Matteo. “We are not dying from infection anymore – we are dying from long term diseases and there has been a shift from reactive to preventative medicine as a result,” she explained. “When you talk about prevention, it’s about lifestyle. We have to make choices, including food choices, to keep ourselves healthy.”

Though her course provides an overwhelming amount of information about food issues ranging from global and national to local scales, the take-away message is a personal one. “Sustainability is not an all-or-nothing proposition. You don’t have to be radical to be sustainable,” she said. “Every choice makes a difference.”

By Caitlin Brooks, Communications and Outreach Intern

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