Chef Joshna Maharaj is​​ a chef and activist using social gastronomy to rebuild our food system. She fights for our right to healthy, scratch-made, delicious food anywhere institutional food is provided. This includes community food centers, hospitals, schools, prisons, etc. Her work has proven what’s possible when we commit to revolutionizing our institutionalized food systems. In this conversation, you hear us belly laugh all the way through about the gross corruption she used to see and has helped influence to change, but we also get very serious in discussing the long road of change ahead. The energy switches to praise when we talk Earth and connectivity. Joshna says, "Resisting a true connection with good food is similar to resisting a true connection with your own humanity."  Facts.  We also dig into her first experience learning to cook in an ashram in India and how this showed her the ultimate truth: we eat the energy of the food, we consume the energy of the folks who made the food, grew the food, and served the food… and all of us are connected. Her book, “Take Back the Tray: Revolutionizing Food in Hospitals, Schools, and Other Institutions,” walks us through the revolutionary changes we need in our broken, institutionalized food systems so that we can begin to heal in holistic, well-rounded, people-first ways.  WORKS:- Author, “Take Back the Tray: Revolutionizing Food in Hospitals, Schools, and Other Institutions”- Finalist, Basque Culinary World Prize, which highlights “chefs who show how gastronomy can be a motor for change”- Former Chef at The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto. About The Stop: “For over 35 years, we've connected low-income Torontonians experiencing poverty to good food in spaces that are warm, dignified, and respectful.” TOOLS:- Reminders of where energy comes from and reminders of how to cultivate energy in a way that supports your being and the well-being of those around you- Massive encouragement to go off the “regular path” in life - Insights that will elevate your understanding of basic human rights and the food system- How waste is directly related to disrespect - Reminds of what IS and ISN’T food to support your connection to food as our essential lifeforce   LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
BETTER is recorded on the unceded and ancestral territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and has been stewarded by them since time immemorial.  BETTER with Mark Brand is produced by Pamela Rothenberg of I HEAR YOU STUDIOS and Adam Karch with Orbyt Media

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