Telling stories you can sink your teeth into

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: My wife is African American, and we just learned that she is going to need a kidney transplant. I heard that most of the people on the waitlist are people of colour, and I’m wondering whether people from diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds end up having to wait longer for a transplant?

ANSWER: It is true that most people on the waitlist for a lifesaving organ are people of colour. Of the

▢ Mayo Clinic

Professional Clinical Health Advice more than 106,000 on the waitlist in the U.S., roughly 60% are minorities. More than 30,000 Black patients are waiting for a transplant, followed by more than 22,000 Hispanic and Latino patients. I often am asked why people of colour make up such a large share of people on the waitlist. One of the reasons has to

Leah Gerber

Observer Staff

FOR ANYONE LOOKING FOR SOME inspiration when it comes to cooking pork, Ontario Pork has you covered with a new cookbook called “The Whole Hog: Recipes for those who love local food and yearn for everyday sustainability.”

The book features contributions from people who work behind the scenes to get pork from the farm to the table, including some local faces.

The idea for the cookbook was born while Ontario Pork staff were creating an advertising video campaign to bring attention to the lesser-known professionals in the pork supply chain, the likes of veterinarians, drivers and chefs.

More than a cookbook, Ontario Pork’s “The Whole Hog” puts a spotlight on the variety of people involved in the sector reactions to the second question that really piqued her interest.

“We started doing some interviews where we wanted to reach beyond farmers. We wanted to talk about everybody that’s involved in getting pork to the plate, because it’s not just a story of farmers and consumers, it’s everybody along that chain that has to care and has to be committed to what they’re doing,” said Stacey Ash, the director of communications and consumer marketing for Ontario Pork, who coordinated the book.

During production of the video, Ash and her staff would ask the people they were interviewing two main questions: What do you wish people knew about pork grown here in Ontario, and what is your favourite way to eat pork?

Ash says it was peoples’

“People’s faces just changed. The conversation became completely different because food is so rooted in emotion. It’s part of our history, it’s where we come from, it’s about experience. And we saw people getting really excited, remembering great meals or their favourite family recipes,” she said.

“That was what said to us, 'this is more than just a short video.' This is something that is real and solid, and it has the potential to be a really incredible book, not just a cookbook, but really a storybook about the pork sector as a whole.”

Ash and her team decided to create a recipe book. The recipes were