Food Web

Mushrooms and humans both seek efficiencies. But they handle the gains completely differently.

When a mycelial network finds an efficiency, the resources get redistributed across the whole network. When a human finds one, the gain tends to concentrate with whoever found it.

Justin uses this as a lens for thinking about economic systems, food infrastructure, and what a genuinely collaborative network looks like. Episode 10 goes deep on it.

What do you think — can we build human systems that distribute the way mushrooms do?

When supermarket shelves emptied in Venezuela, people started growing food in their backyards.

Verónica from Hope Blooms grew up watching this happen. The crisis was real — but so was the response. Neighbours sharing what little they had. Communities feeding each other because there was no other option.

She says: in every community going through a crisis, you see that happen. It's good to be reminded of the kindness of people.

That's what Episode 8 of the Food Web Podcast is about. Worth a listen.

Every single time you spend money, it's a vote.

Justin says he believes this completely — and not as a catchy phrase. He thinks it's more powerful than the vote you cast in an election. Because spending happens every day, multiple times a day, and every dollar shapes what businesses survive, what food gets produced, and what communities get built.

Where are your dollars going?

Students spend months building a better proposal for their campus food contract.

Local vendors, healthier options, real community benefit. Then someone in the student union signs the deal with the big company anyway.

It happens over and over. Concordia. Dalhousie. Same story.

Justin's take in Episode 11: writing the better report isn't enough. You have to understand what the person with signing authority ACTUALLY needs and build that into the deal.

It's negotiation, not just advocacy.

A little schmooze goes a long way....

The people growing food are the ones living climate change firsthand. They know what needs to happen on the ground.

When small and mid-sized farms get funded directly, that money goes into local jobs, local resilience, and more local food on the shelf.

Our food system used to be a network. Now it's a supply chain.

Networks are resilient, distributed, community-owned. When one node goes down, the rest hold.

Supply chains are optimized for efficiency. One disruption and the whole thing collapses.

We're building that network back.