By: Siobhan Watters
This month, the MLFPC is heeding the call for Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Canada.
So far, we learned about the historical role that food played and continues to play in the colonization of Indigenous Peoples (blog 1), and how access to traditional foods and medicines are integral to healing for Indigenous communities (blog 2). To round out this series, we are sharing what we learned in conversation with Indigenous researchers and community organizers about the importance of Indigenous food sovereignty.
For genuine truth and reconciliation to occur, action is needed, and that means supporting our Indigenous peers in their struggle for autonomy and self-determination in relation to health care and food systems.
In July 2025, we were welcomed to meet the team behind “Planting Seeds for Urban Indigenous Food Sovereignty: Growing SOAHAC’s Traditional Food Bag Program,” a collaborative research project between Western University and the Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Centre (SOAHAC) in London, Ontario. The project is unique for focusing on urban Indigenous food sovereignty and is sensitive to the diversity of Indigenous peoples represented by SOAHAC’s clientele, including people who identify as Ojibway, Lenape, Haudenosaunee, Metis, and Inuit.
To understand more about the work done at SOAHAC and what food sovereignty means for our local Indigenous communities, I spoke with “Planting Seeds” team members Colton Hart (Tuscarora, Six Nations) and Danya Carroll, PhD (Navajo, White Mountain Apache).
Cooking and Sharing at SOAHAC
Colton Hart is SOAHAC’s first Indigenous Food Sovereignty Coordinator. Prior to his start at SOAHAC in early 2025, he made the transition from working in fine dining (he is a classically trained chef), to long-term care, then to Indigenous food programming through his work at Standing Stone elementary school on Oneida Nation of the Thames. There, he encouraged the adoption of traditional Indigenous foods like venison and bison in the school’s food program. Hart also led the creation of a community garden, built with the school’s children, to contribute fresh produce to traditional recipes, prepared at the school without settler ingredients like salt, dairy, or flour.
Hart takes a slightly different approach with food programming at SOAHAC, introducing local youth to traditional foods by incorporating them into nontraditional but familiar dishes, like substituting ground bison for ground beef in spaghetti and meatballs or meatloaf. With this approach, Hart and SOAHAC’s registered dietitian Jocelyn Zurbrigg aim to promote food literacy for participants without introducing more barriers, when access to traditional foods is already difficult and expensive.
Just as important, says Hart, is the need to link traditional foods with Indigenous ceremonies and storytelling, connecting SOAHAC’s clientele with not just food but their ancestral knowledge and culture. This includes developing seasonal programming that marks the arrival of sacred and traditional foods like strawberries and the three sisters—corn, beans, and squash. Cooking classes are led by Indigenous chefs and Knowledge Keepers like Mary Lou Smoke (Ojibway), who joined SOAHAC’s spring cooking class celebrating maple syrup.
In addition to cooking classes, Hart and Zurbrigg oversee SOAHAC’s weekly Food Hub and pantry program, where clients have access to fresh food received from the London Food Coalition, and the bi-weekly Farm Box program featuring produce from Turner Farms, made possible with funding from United Way. These programs go a long way towards addressing food access for the urban Indigenous population of London, but supporting food sovereignty is far more complex. Rather than treating food as a necessary input for healthy lifestyles, food sovereignty projects pursue the health and longevity of the community by incorporating traditional food practices and knowledge in holistic ways.
In this sense, Indigenous food sovereignty projects move the needle from supporting access to food, to promoting autonomy over the systems that provide it.
Traditional Food Bag Program and “Planting Seeds”
Beginning as a year-long pilot project in 2023 for distributing traditional Indigenous foods like white corn, pickerel, and wild rice, the Traditional Food Bag program at SOAHAC inspired the Centre’s collaboration with Western University researchers. Led by Dr. Chantell Richmond (Biigtigong Anishinaabe), the CIHR-funded ”Planting Seeds” project seeks to support and extend SOAHAC’s traditional food bag program to include land-based activities that are integral to Indigenous food sovereignty.
Moreover, the original food bag program was funded by a non-renewable London Community Foundation grant, meaning more sustainable solutions for food programming are needed at SOAHAC. Slated to take place over five years, the project’s first goal is to support SOAHAC’s hands-on cooking classes and the development of a cookbook, activities made possible by the Centre’s move to a new facility at 493 Dundas St, complete with a kitchen, food-preparation, and dining space. The MLFPC was welcomed to this very table to hear about the work of “Planting Seeds.”
In subsequent years, SOAHAC and “Planting Seeds” will develop programs focused on growing and storing food, food gathering and hunting, as well as the traditional ceremonies that accompany nearly all seasonal food events. In addition, the research team is developing ways to measure the cultural impact of SOAHAC programs informed by Indigenous methods, such as map-making and storytelling. Hart explained that storytelling is very important for connecting Indigenous Peoples with their food and culture, stating that “there’s always a process, a story, a reason” that goes along with the foods Indigenous peoples prepare and call sacred.
Hart is eager to see SOAHAC extend its facilities to include land on which to garden or engage in other Indigenous land-based activities, looking to organizations like 13 Moons Land-Based Learning as a model. This September saw SOAHAC and 13 Moons partner for a day camp where participants joined the harvesting activities at the site’s garden, ate lunch prepared from produce supplied by the garden and local hunters, and made fresh salsa in 13 Moon’s open-air kitchen.
Events like these highlight what “Planting Seeds” researcher Dr. Danya Carroll (Navajo, White Mountain Apache) said is so important about land-based learning for Indigenous food sovereignty. During her community-based work with the “The People’s Farm” on White Mountain Apache homelands in northeastern Arizona, she observed how the farm was much more than a point of access for food.
The Tribal farm supplied education, connection, and community through youth apprenticeship programs, behavioural health programs, and supported intergenerational learning by bringing Indigenous Elders and school youth together. Carroll says this is why there needs to be a “system shift” to greater emphasis on food production and Indigenous autonomy over food systems as a whole, not only the endpoint of accessing food.
How Can You Plant Seeds for Indigenous Sovereignty?
Carroll says there is space for sharing and collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples in the pursuit of better food systems for all. She emphasized, however, that “the word ally is a verb not a noun”—to be an ally requires action. For example, if you consider yourself an Indigenous ally and work with the land or water, how can you put that allyship into practice? Carroll suggests that non-Indigenous Peoples can demonstrate allyship by working with Indigenous communities to address federal and provincial policy barriers to food sovereignty. She asks, what existing farm policies create barriers to Indigenous communities to growing their own food, or using traditional methods to do so? How can we work together to see these barriers be removed? Familiarizing yourself with the Land Back movement and recent Indigenous opposition to federal Bill C-5 (the “One Canadian Economy Act”) are other steps you can take towards understanding and acting in support of Indigenous land rights, which are foundational to food sovereignty.
The MLFPC is putting the verb in allyship this month by educating ourselves about Indigenous histories, cultures, and struggles for sovereignty instead of placing that burden on Indigenous Knowledge Keepers. And where we were welcomed to the table or had knowledge shared with us by Indigenous researchers and community organizers, we reciprocated with gratitude and gifts, as is traditional. We hope you will join us in continuing to work towards Truth and Reconciliation beyond September 30, demonstrating allyship everyday through consultation and collaboration with Indigenous communities—especially where food is concerned.
As Hart says, “food is healing” for Indigenous Peoples; “it creates connections …and brings out stories.” From the conversations we had with the team at SOAHAC and “Planting Seeds,” it’s clear to see that supporting Indigenous food sovereignty may just be the best recipe for reconciliation.
Moreover, in efforts to demonstrate corporate social responsibility, Nuts For Cheese strengthens food equity in London and surrounding communities through donations to the London Food Bank, Youth Opportunities Unlimited, and Bub’z Soup Kitchen on the Oneida reserve. Nuts For Cheese also donates over 2,000 free product coupons each year to organizations hosting community-focused events and helps to introduce plant-based eating to new audiences and support causes that align with its values. These efforts reduce product waste and help community members access vegan food that might otherwise be out of reach.
