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 Welcome to Invasive Eats of Canada !

Happy Earth Day! My name is Cora Filipetti and I'm a past Canadian Conservation Corps (CCC) participant. The CCC is a Three Stage program designed to engage youth in nature and encourage them through education and experience to take conservation to a new level. As a part of my outreach and service portion of the program, I decided to introduce fellow Canadians to a more sustainable approach of killing invasive species in my Stage Three project. If you know me, I'm all about environmental conservation. More specifically, I'm interested in aquatic sustainability and the interconnections between ecosystems. 

I was inspired by the invasive Asian Carp in the Great Lakes to create this cookbook. There are billboards all over Northern Ontario telling fishers not to transport this invasive species, and if caught, to kill them immediately and not to release back into the water. I thought this was a waste of meat as many people are probably skeptical about eating invasive species, so I decided that I wanted to change this stigma around the eating of non-native plants and animals and create ~ a more sustainable approach to getting rid of pests ~ and promote the idea of making something out of resources that would otherwise go to waste.

As a part of my journey to create this space to give you culinary inspiration with ingredients you can find in your backyard, I faced the challenge of working with invasive ingredients that very little research has been done on. My biggest fear when I started this project was that I'd end up killing somebody because of the very unexplored nature of many of these destructive plants and animals. Confidently, I can now say that I'm 99.9% sure that none of these recipes will poison you after I spent countless hours researching each species, respectively, and the ways in which they must be prepared and consumed.

I'm from Southwestern Ontario, and an invasive species here that poses extreme threats to our environment are Zebra and Quagga Mussels. I really wanted to focus on this species because they are now almost all across Canada. But unfortunately, like others invasives I came across, I had to scrap the mussels in creating recipes due to inedible properties. Zebra and Quagga Mussels are filter feeders which mean they intake many toxins, and by us eating them, we would be ingesting those toxins. So unfortunately, I learned that in certain cases, there is no sustainable approach to killing some invasive species.

I received input from fellow CCC participants and friends of mine across the country about what invasive species are most troublesome in each of the provinces where they live. I decided not to make any recipes out of insects because the idea just made my stomach turn and I figured it would for you as well, even though they're a delicacy in some countries. Keep in mind that most of the invasive species are spread out across rather large regions in Canada, so don't limit yourself to just looking at the recipes from your home province!

I wanted to create a space that is inclusive of all dietary restrictions, so each recipe is labeled as pescatarian, vegetarian or vegan where it applies. As a new vegan myself, I also thought this would be a good opportunity to acknowledge the impact that meat production has on the environment. My field of study and research, as well as my involvement with the CCC, has made me more aware of the unknown and negative aspects that the meat industry has on the environment and the role that consumers play in environmental degradation. 

Cattle is the number one agricultural source of greenhouse gases globally, responsible for the production of more emissions than the entire transport sector each year. Finding a way to sustainably feed the population has presented many challenges in recent years as environmental threats from cattle have become more widely known. Meat plays a role in 92% of Canadian diets and over the past 50 years, meat production has more than tripled globally. Methane, the main gas produced by livestock, has one of the largest atmospheric lifetimes and heat-trapping potentials when compared to all other greenhouse gases. Besides the release of methane from cow emissions, cows also expel more than 100 other types of greenhouse gases, including two-thirds of the world's ammonia which is linked to acid rain. The raising of livestock also contributes to pesticide runoff and eutrophication, deforestation, as well as countless other environmental catastrophes present in this farming frenzy. So rethink what's on your dinner plate and opt for a more plant based diet!

Invasive Eats of Canada acknowledges that the recipes created have been gathered from plants and animals on the customary, traditional and unceded lands of the Indigenous Peoples of this territory. Many of the plants mentioned in this blog were first discovered by Indigenous peoples and have been utilized for their medicinal properties for centuries. The unexplored nature of many invasive species have been known in the traditional knowledge of these respective nations. Indigenous peoples have customs build on respecting the earths resources and living sustainably, with creating the smallest ecological footprint possible. As Invasive Eats of Canada strives to create sustainable alternatives to getting rid of invasive species, the traditional way of life of Indigenous Peoples can be seen as a model for how all people should respect the earths resources and do their part to ensure the continuance of flourishing future generations.

Now sit down, pour yourself a glass of Coltsfoot Wine and check out the recipes from Coast to Coast. It will help fight the waste produced from conservation efforts to stop the spread of threatening invasive species to native plants and wildlife. Be sure to check back in as I'll be adding posts from every province and territory of our beautiful country I'm glad to call home.

Happy Cooking!

~ Cora