The Depot Community Food Centre, formerly the NDG Food Depot, won the Coup de coeur des ministres award last Friday for its innovative healthy food policy.
Ministers Danielle McCann, Lionel Carmant and Marguerite Blais selected the community-based non-profit’s healthy food project for the Quebec Health and Social Service Ministry’s annual honour.
“Emergency food services and food banks are often not viewed through a health lens,” said Daniel Rotman, executive director of the Depot.
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“The reality is that if you’re living on a tight budget, the foods available to you are often not healthy foods because they are the most expensive. Processed and fast foods are much cheaper,” said Rotman.
Organizations that have the responsibility to give out a certain percentage of people’s diets have a responsibility to ensure that people have access to healthy food, said the executive director.
According to The Depot’s website, the organization’s healthy food policy ensures that the food it prepares and distributes is fresh, whole and nutritious. The organization also works to build nutritional knowledge in its community, The Depot’s website says.
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The Depot Community Food Centre works to ensure food security in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and surrounding areas. According to a press release from the organization, 25 per cent of residents live below the poverty line in NDG. That amounts to one in three children, Rotman told Global News.
The discrepancies between health and life expectancies of people living on low incomes versus their middle-class counterparts are in large part due to the foods people consume, said Rotman.
“We believe access to healthy food is a universal human right,” he added.
The Depot has seen a 31 per cent increase in requests for emergency food baskets since 2016, according to the press release.
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