Ever see something and try to figure out why it's happening? ("Why is someone eating that way?")

We all make observations and create hypotheses to explain them. ("Maybe they don't know that's not nutritious. Maybe they know it's not nutritious, but don't know how to cook. Maybe they just need a cooking class. . . .")

Barb Sheldon, a chef and nutrition pro, wanted to help marginalized youth improve their nutrition literacy. But instead of convincing herself the simple solution was to offer cooking classes, she took a step back. She created an opportunity to dig deep, challenge her hypothesis, and actually find out what they really needed.

She LITERALLY went to university to do the research herself!

Yes, Barb found a professor to oversee her research into the true barriers of nutrition literacy for transgender and gender-nonconforming youth. After four years of painstaking, methodologically sound, ethically approved research, she earned her Master's degree uncovering some of the true barriers to nutrition literacy in marginalized youth.

(Hint. The solution isn't as simple as offering cooking classes!)

The brilliance behind this is that when you can put your assumptions, hypotheses, and biases aside to objectively uncover what's truly and deeply behind something (anything!), that's when you can start to really make a difference!

Listen to this episode of the rEATsearch podcast to find out why nutrition literacy in marginalized youth is so near and dear to Barb's heart and what she learned by using the scientific method to conduct research ethically and objectively. Barb shares what she learned about removing barriers to nutrition literacy, how graduate school has changed her life for the better, and how she is now able to combine her passion with her culinary nutrition business to have the best of both worlds as an entrepreneur.

For more information on Barb, visit: 
https://www.barbsheldon.ca/

For more information on Leesa, visit:
https://leesaklich.com/

For more information on Lindsay, visit:
https://www.lindsaycarvalho.com/

*** TRANSCRIPT ***


[00:00:00.490] - Intro/Outro

rEATsearch is a podcast that explores current nutritional research and health studies. Our lawyer says we have to let you know that this podcast is for entertainment, educational, and informative purposes only. If you have any health questions, see your doctor or licensed health professional.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to rEATsearch podcast. We have a really exciting episode coming out now. So my name is Leesa Klich and my pronouns are she and her. And we want to do land acknowledgement, as well. So I want to acknowledge that I'm in Kitchener-Waterloo in Ontario, and we are situated on land that is the traditional home of the Neutral, Haudenosaunee, and the Anishinaabe people.

Welcome back, everybody. I'm Lindsay, your co-host. My pronouns are she, her. And I would like to acknowledge that I am in Edmonton and our land is situated on the land that is traditional to the home of the Cree, the Tsuut'ina, and the Metis people.

And we are very excited to welcome Barbara Sheldon as our guest interviewee on this episode. So, Barbara, go ahead.

Yay. This is exciting. Welcome, Barbara.

Hi. Thank you both. I'm so grateful to be here. My name is Barb. My pronouns are she and her. And I am so grateful to live, work, and play on the Treaty seven regions of Southern Alberta and to the people of the Traditional Territories, the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsuut'ina and Stony Nakota Nations, and the Metis Nation (Region 3).

Awesome. Thank you so much. So for our listeners, Barbara is an excellent guest that we're looking forward to interviewing. Now, here's a bit about Barbara before we dive right in. Barbara has over 20 years of food expertise and this comes from her research. She has extensive academic research as well as scholarship. And the areas that she's been focusing on are food dignity, education, and leadership. Welcome, Barbara.

Thank you so much for having me. I love the idea of a podcast that focuses on the research portion of nutrition. It's so needed and I really appreciate you both doing this so much.

Thank you. We're going to dive right into question one for you because this is focusing, and a lot of it is based on the fact that you recently did a Master's degree in the area of nutrition, but a very unique area. Can you tell us a little bit about what that was about? What was the topic?

For sure. So my thesis topic was the role of food literacy education in the lives of marginalized youth, particularly transgender and gender nonconforming youth. And there is no actual program, I'll just say right off the bat, that studies that specifically. It's very specific research, but it came about just briefly, I'll tell you, because I have a child in the transgender community, and I noticed as a chef and as a nutritionist that the more that I worked with his friends in the community, the more I saw improvement in their overall confidence and health. So I really wanted to study that and contribute research to the field so that we could see for sure if teaching people about food and providing food literacy education actually improved their health through cooking.

So I looked for a program that would align with what I wanted to do. So I kind of did it backwards. You know? Instead of finding a program and then deciding on a research topic, I already knew my topic. And I ended up going to Royal Rhodes University through their Masters of Arts of Interdisciplinary Studies program. Because interdisciplinary studies means you can pull from a variety of faculties and disciplines and then pile that all into your research, which is wonderful.

So then I pitched it to them, "So this is what I'd like to do." And they loved it immediately. That's the wonderful thing about adult education, I think, is that really good institutions really want to support your learning. And so then I luckily stumbled upon the Dean of the program who happened to be a transgender person. And so it was just this incredible alignment. And I had no idea that at the time he was not taking on any Master' students. And I just very brazenly asked him if he would be my research advisor. And he liked the topic enough because his area for his PhD was also obviously transgender research that he decided to take it on. And I only learned afterwards that people said, oh, my gosh, I can't believe he decided to take you on. That's such an honour. And it certainly was an honour. Working with him was brilliant and really helped me understand my own level of scholarship as well.

That sounds fascinating. I love the unique perspective. You must have learned quite a bit during your time there. Would you be able to share with us a little bit about your research, what you specifically were looking at, like boots on the ground, what you were doing. And then share some of your results and your findings with us?

Sure. Well, first of all, I think it's important to note that as a new graduate student, of course, I went into my research with bias, and I just explained that to you that my bias was that I saw kids youth within that community doing well, and I wanted to contribute research that showed that. And so that was my first unlearning was making sure that I didn't have bias in my research, even though I just so wanted to prove that food literacy education is effective for marginalized communities. So, after removing my bias, it was really helpful because it started to reveal to me that, sure, there was efficacy in programming, but there was also a lot of barriers to the education that marginalized youth experience. And so most of my research time was spent understanding the barriers that transgender and gender non-conforming and experienced in relation to education of all types.

And I would say the biggest surprise and the most impactful finding was learning that one of the barriers is actually the youth's own sense of worth. And if they do not feel their own sense of worth or dignity moving into a program, they actually won't even bother with the program, even if it's the best program, and we've given them a budget for it or found space and made sure the kid has transportation and all the opportunities in the world to take the program, even parental support or caregiver support, because all those things are barriers. But what it really boiled down to is if somebody doesn't feel worthy of taking programming, they're not going to take it. And that was both heartbreaking and really revealing because from there, I've been able to work with organizations like the Food Literacy Center in Sacramento, California, and help them understand that this is a major barrier. That society has essentially put this barrier in front of these kids and sort of pigeonholed them into often judging their own sense of worth. So that was surprising, for sure.

And then the other barriers were equally important, like, for instance, understanding that marginalized youth don't like to be studied. Nobody likes to be a test subject, particularly a group of people who already feel like they're under a microscope. So, really starting to understand the ethics behind how to work "with" in a participatory way, not like the "overlord" or "overseer" of some academic research study. And they were feeling like test subjects. So that was really important as well.

And then understanding how to develop the program in an effective way so that they could really hear it, get it, understand it, digest it, use it—was also hugely important. And the outcome of that was knowing that follow-up for all of these programs, both cooking and nutrition programs, consistent follow up over the course of a year, is really key to ensuring that the skills, these life skills, like, for instance, basic knife skills, nutrition skills, really sunk in and actually started to make an impact in their lives.

That's fantastic. I love hearing about that.

Yeah, I was saying that it's just so fascinating. I love the emphasis on checking your biases at the door to begin with. I think that's a huge root in any kind of research, whether you're doing primary research yourself as you do when you're going through grad school or whether you're reading studies or articles about studies online. I think that's a great one.

It's such a sneaky one, too. Bias is such a sneaky one. It really, I think, surprises a lot of people when they stop. I love how you just took a moment to stop and realize, "oh, wait a second, I have bias here. I need to be aware of this, and I need to figure out how to get rid of it." And if we had more people that were able to do that and say, "wait a second, I do have a bias."

Yes.

Bias. How can I try and work this so that it's not there inhibiting me anymore?

And the bias was clouding the ability to truly see the research. The research was not that food literacy education is effective. The research was it's effective sometimes, but there are barriers in the way. And so if my bias was, "oh, nutrition and culinary education is so important for everybody," then I never would have seen the barriers. And that was what made the most profound impact and will continue to make the most profound impact practically in the lives of the people that I'd like to work with.

I totally see this. And knowing where they're coming from, what incentives they have and need in the kinds of supports and understanding of just the whole system in order to be successful at this. And this is just such a—it was so interesting because your Master of Arts degree was really based on: how do we get in touch with people, how do we help people? And the whole thing is you kind of step back, step back, step back and say, okay, you tell me, you tell me what you really need and what's really going on, because I'm coming at you with an open heart an open mind.

Yeah. And we can have all the intention in the world, but intention doesn't necessarily improve on conditions around intersectionality. You know what I mean? Or intention can often be clouded by privilege, I suppose, is what I'm saying. So in our own research, we have to move our intentions out of the way. And with qualitative research, I should say too, this is sometimes harder to grasp because these are not quantitative. Like, I could have measured cholesterol, blood pressure. I could have gotten quantitative results. But that's not what this research needed. This needed qualitative findings, which are more abstract. Right? And so that was actually one of the biggest surprises was—how do we really get to the root of the qualitative research to make sure that it's concrete and solid? Because we're not measuring blood pressure.

Right. Which is the exact segue for the next question was: When you went back to school and you were doing this kind of research, what kind of surprising challenges did you come across that you weren't expecting to happen? Just in terms of the process of collecting your data and synthesizing it?

Part of it was making sure I understood how to write really good surveys. That was definitely a big thing that was brand new for me. So I had written a bunch of survey questions out and given them to my advisor, and he was like, "No, you're not even close to what this is supposed to look like." And so then it was this deep dive into how do you write proper research questions that have no bias? Once again. Same with the survey questions.

And then the other big piece around that was the ethics. The ethics piece is enormous. And so obviously, as every graduate research project does, you have to undergo an ethics review. And thinking that my question seemed right and ethical and polite and all of those things, but then having it reviewed to say, "You have to word this differently because we are protecting the rights, the freedoms of your study participants." Right? And this has to be in a way that is correct, according to the ethics research board. So especially when you're working with youth and with marginalized youth, to top it all off. Right, so it was really nice to have my advisor and the whole ethics board, and in fact, the University in general behind me so that I can make sure that that part was done properly. The ethics review took longer than anything else that I did.

I love that you're including that, too, because I think that's a big misconception among the general public who doesn't understand the research process. Getting approved by an ethics board in any research capacity is a huge step that everybody who does research has to do every single time you want to start a new project. And so this isn't the way it used to be you know . . .

Yeah.

50 years ago, and you would just be like" That looks interesting. Let's go!" You know, you have to write the approval. You have to be willing to grow and modify, listen to them, and make sure it meets all the requirements so that everybody is respected and has voluntary participation and it is done with the utmost standards.

It was interesting because I started what I thought was going to be the practical portion of the thesis, which was going to be cooking classes, in person, right before COVID. And so it took me forever and I got this proper consent form together for the participants, and even having to connect with a participant and say, "I need you to sign this and to consent to this."  Then they've got all these ideas in their head, like around: "What am I getting into? Is my information going to be disclosed? Is my anonymity protected?" All this stuff that I had, they had no idea. Right? They wouldn't have thought of that. They just want to take their cooking class. But then you actually put the ethics portion in their head and they get very protective. And I actually found I got very few participants because once they started to read the consent forms, it kind of freaked them out. And then COVID happened and I wasn't able to do the practical portion anyway. I had to go back and lean on actual . . .

Oh no.

Yeah, so I leaned on actual research from other studies in the past to compile my research. So it didn't turn out exactly the way that I wanted, but it was still important to do.

Yeah. Okay. So onto our probably last question, but I have a feeling this conversation might snowball. Would you be able to share with our audience and nutrition professionals how you were able to take the results from your study and turn them into a business that you can now run that still aligns with your values and still aligns with your business?

That's such an excellent question. And one thing I think in school, for anybody that's a caregiver like we are, the business portion of schooling is always a small portion, whether you're a doctor, a dentist, a nutritionist. We don't all learn to be entrepreneurs. And I've had my own business for 20 years, consulting. And trying to grow and change and shift as my knowledge grew and changed and as the industry grew and changed. So I knew when it was time for me to go back to school, first of all, because I kind of felt like for my business and for my clients, I had hit the max of what I could do and I wasn't doing much different than other really excellent qualified nutrition professionals. So when I found this niche that I wanted to work with.

First of all, it's never my intention to make money off of marginalized youth. I think that's really important to understand. And so I've set up a business model whereby my leadership skills that I learned through my degree, because I took mostly leadership-based courses regarding emotional intelligence and running organizations and that kind of thing. I'm using those skills to power my business and to work with other corporate leaders and leaders that are in the social justice world and social enterprise world.

So that's how I'm using that portion of my academic learning, to kind of go to corporations and say, I can offer your teams, your employees, really true, deep, rooted-in-research type help. And then as far as the youth go, then I'm able to take some of that money and funnel it towards programming for marginalized youth.

So I have sort of a twofold way of looking at my business. The money has to come from somewhere. We're all in business, right? I mean, I still could start a non profit that's in the back of my head that the other way to go about this would be to take the information that I've used, start a non profit, and then apply for grants and funding to work with marginalized youth. But there's so many people to help in all different areas. So still, working with corporate leaders and their teams is an interest of mine. So the money comes from there, and then I'm able to funnel it and create programming for the people who don't have the money to pay for it.

Yeah. So interesting how you are able to kind of have two branches where you're doing something, but you're also doing something else. And it's hard enough to run one arm of a profession, but you have them both together. And it was such a unique combination that you have that it was really interesting to hear about how you were able to kind of separately but put them together but keep them completely separate from each other.

Yeah. And I thank you. And I have this little sort of mission, I don't know, you know, to make sure that all kinds of people everywhere really understand about equity, equality, dignity, and justice. So talking to the social corporate responsibility world about this kind of thing is still really motivating to me. And yes, like nutrition consulting with them is great. But I also wanted to point out that another way to generate revenue is to do talks, keynotes, lectures. This is a better use of my time and money. Teaching, particularly, I find, is a better use of my time than, say, just one-on-one sort of nutrition consults where you're truly trading your time for money, like minute by minute. So for me, being able to reach a larger audience, to lecture to 50 or 100 or whatever people and to maybe look at the higher ticket price for that, then allows me to free up time to develop programming for youth. So it's a better use of my time for money trade off, I guess.

Yeah. I love it.

So do I. I think that's a really great framework for other nutrition professionals and health and wellness professionals to look into if they do have this drive to work more in the community with whatever strikes passion in them. So, that's fantastic.

Yeah. And to bring it back to the research, I think, without scaring off your community, graduate work is not for the faint of heart, as you know. And when you put four years of your blood, sweat, and tears into this research, it is valuable. It is very valuable. Right? And so I want to be able to use my effort and my energy that I put into the research that I know is solid to really make a difference and make an impact globally. Because I believe that it should be shared. Listen, I do one-on-one nutrition consults all the time still, because I like it. So I still do that. But I do think that using your research as the backbone for higher-level education for your community is part of the reason we do the research. Right? Contributing back to the community is part of the research, and then contributing to the academic community and filling in gaps. There is the other reason to do the research. So it's valuable stuff and it hurt. It took a long time to do it, and it was a lot of sacrifice. Sometimes I didn't see my kids very much, and I'm very proud of the research that I did, and I will never neglect it. It's always a part, from this point forward, of my business. And it helps, I think, elevate our entire industry because the research is so needed. So the more we use the research that we have and the more we talk about it and the more we continue to contribute to it. I'll never stop researching and I'll keep writing papers. I weirdly love it. I don't know. I think Leesa and I can both, I don't know how you feel, Lindsay, but I live in the APA world and I don't even have to continue to write in it. But it's just how I write now. It's a skill, like anything else, that we've learned in order to help our clients and our communities.

I think anybody who's listening knows how research-based we all are here.

Yeah.

We believe in so much that we created this podcast so we can carry that message through to whoever wants to learn, which is great. It's awesome that you're able to join us and share what you've learned. Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you.

It's my pleasure. And I would say my final words to anybody listening would be, Congratulations on the schooling that you've already done. Never stop learning. And never stop getting to the root of research. And never listen to the "facts," whatever you want to call them on social media. Always ask what the research says and always ensure you understand what research means. And hopefully you've got a teacher as good as Lindsay that can help you understand that . . .

Thank you.

You're welcome—even research has its bias, and we have to be really careful. So if we want to do our nutrition community service, we have to be really good scholars.

I completely agree. I think that it's a really fantastic mentality to take, and it's something I really drive home whenever I'm teaching the nutrition course that I teach at CSNN as well. It's a stepping stone. It's a way to really get grounded in that deep understanding of health and nutrition and how the body works, and then take that knowledge and continue to learn on your own. Take courses, do the research, ask people as many questions as possible, and just always continue to grow and evolve with the knowledge that you're learning. And that is constantly coming out.

It's always changing and it's important, more than anything else I think, to be really patient. Research requires you to be incredibly patient because reading even one academic paper, if you don't know how to do it properly, you won't even do it. Right? You won't even get past the abstract. To be patient, but also to not underestimate yourself. We all have the ability to grow and really understand academics. It all sounds fancy when you read research papers. And I've had so many students because I also teach at CSNN, who have said, "I just can't like it's just way over my head. Even the languaging." Learn the basic languaging. You're smart people learn it. Take a course. Take a course on what academic research means. You'll get it, over time. And then you can ask other people in your community when you need help. But don't be afraid of it.

Yeah. Can I ask one last question,

Yeah.

If that's okay? One of the things I also think is a big misconception among the public is how our opinions and our understanding and pool of knowledge really evolves as we grow and learn more. Did you find when you were doing your research and as you continue after, that that was a challenge for you? Or is this something that you were kind of expecting because you have a science base? I guess what I'm trying to ask here is, this is something that is very common in science, but were you surprised by how much your opinion and your understanding evolved as you were doing the research?

I would say that not only was I surprised about it, but so pleased by how I grew as a human being. This degree changed my life. It changed who I am as a person. And part of that was my peers, the amazing group of scholars that I worked with for four years, who would challenge me so deeply that it hurt sometimes. I would throw together some response paragraph to an assignment that I had, and my prof would maybe mark it as, whatever you met requirements. And then one of my peers would come back to me later and say, "What did you mean, XYZ?" And I would be like, "Oh, God, I don't know. I have to think harder about this." And you dig deep. I'm actually touching my solar plexus right now because it hurts right there. Like, you have to dig so deep to come to the level that your peers are at. And that's where I function from now because of research. And those friends that I made in school are now my dearest, closest friends because we all were in the trenches together, digging deep. Not only in our research, but when you dig deep like that, that raises your vibration in general. And then you dig like that in your own life. And it's changed me as a human being. That might sound dramatic, but it's honest to God, the truth.

I don't think so. I think it's a really astute observation that growth is painful and it's hard,

Yeah.

But it is so necessary to just become who you're supposed to be. It's not easy. If it was easy, everybody would do it, but it's worth it.

It's so worth it. I was just going to say in our industry— in the nutrition industry, in the culinary industry, too, because I bridge both—there's a lot of really base; I don't want to disparage anybody, but there's just a lot of fluff out there. And I'm not saying that academics is everything. It's not. In fact, academics comes from a place of privilege. The fact that we could even afford to go to University is pretty incredible, right? But it's the growth opportunities and the challenge to look beyond whatever fact you just learned about kale, or whatever. And to dig super deep and always be questioning and asking the deep, hard questions. That's where growth comes from. And that's what my peers at school taught me, I would say.

And I think it also, for me, helps to welcome new information. Because what we knew . . . the example I give all the time is like microbiome. Honestly, 10-15 years ago, what did we know about the gut microbiome? Next to nothing! But as technology has improved and now we can take a whole genomic capture, and run all of these assays on a sample from a person and see all of the different bacteria and all the things that live there and what their enzymes are doing in those actual organisms. It's like you get into the research and you're like, you answer a question when you go into doing grad school. And you come out of it with four more questions because now you've dug deeper into this and you're like, "Oh, wow. So I just found this thing out. But now that we know about this and that and the other . . " There's just this world opening, right? It's like fascinating, the curiosity—You have that too. Lindsay and I talk about this all the time.

I remember saying to my prof, my research supervisor mentor, who I respect and admire so deeply, he would always tell me: "Simmer down, this isn't a PhD dissertation. This is just graduate work. This is JUST graduate work." He would keep saying and I was like, this is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But I'm just a baby. Like, I am only a baby. I have only just given you a very general thing and you really do have to keep digging and keep learning. And it never stops because it's like a Spider web, right? The depth and breadth keeps going in all dimensions. The more you research. And of course, now am I addicted to learning? Oh,  100%. Do I want to keep going and get every other degree out there? Oh, absolutely, I do. I'm not tired. I don't want to stop. I just want to keep doing it.

I think it's funny what you were both talking about. Most people don't realize I'm a little bit of a history buff, as well. I love learning about history. And I think it's hilarious that it used to—I guess it still is—where researchers really say, "Oh, if I could just find this out, then I'll have all the answers and I'll understand." And it goes back, Leesa to exactly what you said, where as soon as you find the answer, you're like, "But wait. I have more questions." And this is really why the research becomes such a black hole and such a slippery slope, because you find one thing and then you're like, "But wait, what about this?" And then you go down this rabbit hole. I feel like it's lovely and horrible all at the same time. But we learn so much. Yes.

I don't know if you listen to Brené Brown talk about—because she's really one of the only public scholars who really talks about actual research techniques. And when she talks about coding her research and how she gets sticky to the point that they literally cover, like, every surface in her house as she codes, I felt like I was like a detective, an investigator, with the red yarn, attaching this fact to that fact, and it could go forever. My whole house would be covered in sticky notes.

Yeah. I think my favorite one that she talked about, there was one where she was discussing her history with alcohol and overeating and some of the issues in therapy she's talked about. And she said, I have a sticky note in my pantry. And the person said, "Well, what does your sticky note say?" And she said: "Why are you here?"

Literally in the pantry?

Really hitting home. But yes, I happen to love her deeply.

That's great.

I love this new, evolving perspective in this community to how important and valuable qualitative research is. Like, I'm sensing a real shift in that mentality. Because for the longest time, it was quantitative. "I want numbers, I want hard data." And that qualitative aspect was kind of ignored. It's so valuable.

Yeah, totally. It's so valuable. And she really has helped show that. So her methodology is called Grounded Theory, for those who don't know, who was developed by Glaser and Strauss, in case you want to look that up. And it's this method of coding research where you're listening for keywords over and over again that come up and come up and key themes and key theories. It's not the only kind of qualitative research, but it's very powerful. And what's cool is she just talks about it like methodologies are normal. That's just a thing people do. And so it's kind of normalized. It I think where now more and more people understand a little bit about qualitative research and they're not so quick to criticize that it's fluff. Because in the nutrition world, yes, there's a ton of really excellent quantitative research. And can I say, honestly, done by nurses, really? Like, nurses are incredible researchers. And some of the best papers I've read have been by nurses, and they often use Grounded Theory. It is a qualitative industry that we're in because we're all biochemically individual. And part of the reason for that is because we are all different souls, different human beings that make different choices and have different histories and different backgrounds.

And yes, we all have essentially the same makeup and physiology. But there's so much that goes into how and why we nourish ourselves. And that's where qualitative research comes into play.

I love that sentence right there. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing your time, but we will let you get back to your day now. We value our time with you so much. So, we really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you, it was really fascinating.

Thank you. It's my pleasure. You want to nerd out anytime, just call me because this is great!

Be careful what you offer. :)

Thank you both so much.

All right. Thank you for joining us today on rEATsearch. Barbara, before we let you go, did you want to share where people can find you if they want to chat you up?

Oh, for sure. Thank you. Barbsheldon.com would be where I am online and then it's @barbsheldonculinarynutrition on social media.

Awesome. We'll link to that in the notes as well.

That is fantastic.

Thank you very much.

All right as always have a fantastic day. If you have any topics or anything you'd like to discuss with us, you can email us at reatsearchll [at] gmail.com. You can hit us up on Twitter @rEATsearch. Anything else?

If you want to subscribe or leave us a review that would be awesome. On whichever platform you're using. I think we're on five platforms now so that would be great. Thanks.

Alright. Take care.

See You.

That was fantastic. Barb. Thank you.