#10 Cohesion with a Side of Connection: Navigating Food Systems with Dheepa Jeyapalan

We've hit the 10-episode mark! To celebrate, we're unpacking food systems with the help of Dheepa Jeyapalan, Food Systems Lead Convenor at Regen Melbourne.

In this episode of The Systems Sandbox, Dheepa shares her journey from studying dietetics through to working with mothers and babies in the UK to her current role at Regen Melbourne. Dheepa, Tenille, and Matt delve into the complexities of what it's like to work in food systems, and some of the nuances that come with making progress from the current state of things to an optimistic future. The conversation covers the professional side - but also the role that personal connections to food can play in navigating complexity. 

This episode has something for everyone - and even some recipe ideas for baked fish!

Links and resources:

• Dheepa's Substack 'Cornucopia' - read and signup for regular reading on food systems
• The Regen Melbourne website and the City Portrait
• Kate Raworth's TedTalk on Doughnut Economics
• An article on the Three Horizons Framework hosted on The Systems Thinker website

For more about us and what we do check out our LinkedIn page.

Transcript

Tenille: Hi, Dheepa. Welcome to our podcast. How are you going today? 

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Good. It's so nice to be here with you today.

Tenille: Yeah, thanks so much for joining us. And you are in Melbourne as well, aren't you?

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Yes, I am in Melbourne. I don't think probably very far away from you, but I'm near Queen Market today, which is very nice. Since we're gonna be talking about food.

Tenille: Yeah, that market is very good, isn't it? I think I've only been there a handful of times 'cause my local market is actually Preston Market out in the north, which I also love. but let's, let's talk about you. That's what we're here for today. So why don't you introduce yourself and tell us all a bit about, um, your background, your role, what you're up to these days.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: . I'm Dheepa Jeyapalan, and I am a dietician by clinical background. , I studied dietetics and nutrition at university in Sydney because I basically love food and that's the reason why I wanted to work and study food. in the process of studying nutrition and dietetics, there were a few things that kind of stood out to me The, the real lack of accessibility to good food for many people was a major issue, but also the real kind of connection that people have with food, whether it's an emotional or cultural connection, was really strong. so following that, I went on to study public health because I had all these questions of what are some of the barriers that people face to actually enjoying good food.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I was really lucky to grow up. In a Sri Lankan and Singaporean household. , and also grew up in Singapore where food was really central and food just brought me so much joy and that realization that not everyone gets to have, that was a big moment for me that not everyone gets this like really positive relationship around food. so I went on to study public health because I wanted to understand what are , some of the systemic barriers that people experience in, enjoying food. following that, I went on to work in. The UK at a local council, , in Camden where I worked closely with moms and babies and it had the best job of teaching mothers how to feed their babies when they first start solids.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: It was a very, very fun

Tenille: Mm-hmm.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Um, and then moved back to Sydney, uh, and then into Melbourne where I worked firstly at Save the Children, ,

Dheepa Jeyapalan: on a national program. I spent some time in the Pacific as well. and then went on to Vic Health where I was managing the food systems team There. I worked really closely with food hubs and community food organizations. I was really proud of the work that we got to do there, and now I'm at Regen Melbourne. I can tell you more about our work that we are doing there, but I think the main thing that everyone needs to know is that I love food and that's why I do the work that I do.

Tenille: It sounds like you absolutely do and it's nice, , that you've found something that aligns with your values so much as well that you can do in your professional career. , , the question we have to ask is, what is your favorite food at the moment?

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I'm really into like baked fish and different forms of it is that's baked with a bunch of spices. So I have a recipe that I often use, which is fish just like marinade in a yogurt with a bunch of spices that goes in the oven for, for about 10, 15 minutes and it just so good and or doing it with different like curry paste and things like that.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I think maybe 'cause of the heat as well, like it's fresh and then you can just have a salad or anything that you have in your fridge, but. I'm very obsessed at the moment with fish. I think I've had it for the last, like four nights in a row.

Tenille: I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what I make for dinner tonight. Now that sounds delicious.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I can send you my recipe.

Matt Healey: We're running the risk of this turning into a cooking podcast, aren't we? we'll just start sharing recipes. so , it's interesting just to think about your journey before we get into Regen Melbourne. I. , and , just thinking about that journey that you mentioned there around being with people who are, learning about food or what nutrition, means for, kids who are developing and, and things like that.  

Matt Healey: was there a kind of a moment where you decided that you wanted to switch from? , not so much like calling it from the front lines to like the policy side of things or like at that, at that high level, but, was there, you know, what was your sort of thinking around that progression from being on the ground with mothers and babies through to say organizations like V Health or, or Regen Melbourne.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I think you're always, whenever you work or every job that you have, often in these spaces, you are opening your eyes to more and more. Of the things that are kind of holding the system in place. And I think every job that I had, even starting at university, when we did our clinical placement, we were at the hospitals talking to someone who had, you know, had just had some sort of surgery and you're trying to talk to them about changing their diet.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I. That is really, really hard to do when all the things are working against that person, whether it's how much money they have in their household budget, where they live, what their cultural background is, and then realizing that there was all these barriers there, and then moving from, you know, the individual focus to the community focus you, it's. felt more aligned, but then still us finding these bigger and bigger systemic barriers that I was just kind of frustrated by. so I feel like at every point I've moved into different ways of addressing those systemic barriers. 

Dheepa Jeyapalan: And it's, and I think the work that people do, whether it's kind of client focus with in a clinical setting or community setting, is so incredibly, important. But I'm really interested in how do we kind of create that alignment, that coherence between the people who are working at that systemic level and the people that are working on the ground clinically as well. There has to be a better flow of information between those, those actors.

Matt Healey: Because, I mean, it's not so much the, it's not so much about saying that people that are client facing. Aren't doing an important role. It's actually about recognizing that you need both things, which is you need people that can be providing that support, that care, that advice in a, in a very person centered way.

Matt Healey: Um, but also that, the structures that are influencing that person's life. But also , that staff member's practice as well. Like there are obviously things that people who work in organizations that do the client facing work, like there are. Things that influence their work that can make it difficult or make it harder.

Matt Healey: You know, changing funding environments and those sorts of things, or changing policy priorities that make it very stressful as well from, from that side. , I mean, that's then thinking about that policy side of things. I've seen Regen Melbourne around and. Seen the name, seen the brand, and all of those sorts of things.

Matt Healey: But could you maybe start with giving us a bit of an overview of what Regen Melbourne is, what it's about, and then in particular, what your role is there in that, in that context.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Yeah, of course. Um, so Regen Melbourne is a relatively new. Organization and a very small organization as well. So it was born out of the dual crisis that we had with the black summer Bush fires in 2019, and then the Covid Pandemic and going into those really long lockdowns that we had as a city. And there was this. Kind of rethinking or interrogation of what Melbourne was as a city. 

Dheepa Jeyapalan: We had all these ideas of ourselves, what we stood for, what was important to us, and all of that was kind of disrupted with the, you know, our city being flooded with smoke during the black summer bush fires, but then also going into the pandemic and a group of people basically got together and started thinking about what is it that we need to prioritize, think about.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: And, and vision for our city so that we are able to hold a level of resilience. Um, so one of the principles that, uh, Regen Melbourne is based on is around doughnut economics. That was a principle that was designed by, uh, Kate Raworth in the uk. it is the idea that need to be able to provide equitably all the social foundations that people need, whether it's housing, energy, food, but we need to be doing that within the planetary boundaries. 

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I. So we have a city portrait, and you can find that on our website where we mapped out how, how are we actually performing and providing the social foundations that people need in our city, and how are we doing that within the planetary boundaries? And you can, it's kind of a bit of a scary image, to be honest, to look at, to realize that we aren't, there's so much more for us to go. But if we are able to find that sweet spot, which is what we call the safe and just place. We need to be moving to that, towards that. And we need to be designing programs and ways of working that allow for that. So the first major project that, um, Regen Melbourne Design and is currently delivering is around making the Yara River Swimmable again.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: So it's Swimmable Bureau. And while that is like a wildly ambitious project, and people would look at the river and go, oh, they're so far away from this. It is a really important one because it is our major water source of our city. It is incredibly unhealthy. they, we want to kind of create a ecosystem of actors.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: There's many people that are already working in the river working, you know, various water agencies and government agencies. But we need to be orienting them towards a collective mission. So basically setting that mission of Swimmable Mirror means that you are moving all these organizations to go, okay, there's something common that we're gonna work towards here we can, while we may differ in the way that we operate, the things that we, our values, there's like this common. and a coherent action that we're about to take. that's the major project. That was the old, like the more established project that we've been working on. So I'm working on food, which is, um, another area of work where that's quite new. It only started in July of last year, I was brought in to look at. as being this crucial thing of what we need to provide for our city, but it's also having massive impacts on planetary boundaries and the way that we produce food and the way we transport, the way that we eat. So what is it that we need to do for our city so that we are able to, to provide for people within that safe and just space that I referenced earlier up.

Tenille: I just wanted to comment that, just off the back of what you've shared, that I read a stat in one of the Regen, , reports around food systems. That was, and it said something like. of the city's food, is met by nearby areas. So majority is not met by nearby areas.

Tenille: And I was really interested in that and sort of that made sense to me in terms of the work you guys are doing with food systems. So I guess for our listeners, could you kind of describe what food systems are and why they're important?

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Yeah, so that stat is actually quite an old one, and it's the ability of our city to be fed from the boundaries that our, the food bowl as we referenced. And that actually is probably a lot worse now because that was, I

Tenille: Mm.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: quite a, a few years ago. So there has, has been further sprawl out into those areas from housing and those sorts of things.

Tenille: Yeah.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: the food system is. A complex, complex beast, and you, it's kind of a hard one to fully map. And we've, we did this at Big Health, I'm doing this currently where you actually start and end from. So you, you essentially, your, your food system could start from, it would start from production. So from soil, essentially it starts from water, soil, what you're putting into the land to grow your food. It then will move into the way that you are harvesting, the way you're processing food. The way that you're distributing it, how it's moving across the country, moving into place people's homes and to markets. and then it's how people are buying that food, whether it's in supermarkets, public markets, how people are consuming it, um, how they're cooking it, how they're sharing it with each other, and then how it goes back into the system.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: So how it gets composted and what happens with the waste. it's this. Incredibly huge, complex system can be really hard to get people to think about. Also, because you could look at. Your plate of food in front of you and go, how, how does that, that plate of food get in front of me? And that can be a really interesting thought, pro exercise to do. often you may not know what the inputs are into that system because it's so huge. and you also, it, yeah, it can be a kind of, just a hard thing to get your head around, but an important thing to understand.

Tenille: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I look at my plate of food and I would be overwhelmed trying to think about where all these things have come from, but certainly I don't think anything would've come from the Yara. Not yet Anyway,

Matt Healey: I mean, it's, it's an interesting, like you mentioned about the, the sort of complexity of the food system and there were a few key words that you mentioned in your, overview that stood out to me. , but one of them was that you mentioned things like transport and like production and soil and things like that.

Matt Healey: And the, the thing that came to mind for me was actually, , you could look at this and actually talk about the food system from the perspective of like transport and actually reframe. The things that you're focusing on as like the transport system effectively. 

Matt Healey: So how does food get from farm to plate? And, not to say that you could isolate, say the transport components of this, but to my mind, and perhaps this is the, the sort of work that you've been thinking about at Regen Melbourne, like there is a bit of a, , whose role is it within each of the parts of that process?

Matt Healey: Because, you know, at FPC, we've done a lot of work in the past around. Um, like the primary industry, so like soil health is like a huge thing in agriculture and for a lot of organizations like the catchment management authorities who work with farmers and, and landholders around soil health and things like that, like that's a whole area of work.

Matt Healey: but actually for their perspective, that is like the system that they're focusing on. Um, but it's actually only one part of a bigger, more complex system as well. I mean, how do you, how do you grapple with that question of. Like you mentioned, it's hard to kind of know where it starts and ends, but I guess from, from Regen Melbourne's perspective, what are kind of the boundaries that you've set?

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I would that the system in terms of, and I think that's a correct, interesting reflection that. Different people see themselves based on where they operate in the system as the center of the system. I think from a public health perspective, coming from my background, consumption part has been seen as the full system, the way that people are eating food, the way they're cooking it. And that emphasis has meant that the conversations, the silos that have been created have meant that we've kind of ignored in a sense. transport people. Who are the people? What about all the big trucking companies that are moving food? How are they locked into contracts with supermarkets? What are the farmers having to pay to get their food onto a truck so they could get it into Melbourne?

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I. We haven't at Regen Melbourne, we haven't set a boundary around where we're going to work.

Matt Healey: Mm-hmm.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: that we're setting is around the greater Melbourne area, and that's largely due to the fact that quarters of Victoria's eaters are in Melbourne. Our cultural identity as a food city, we are quite annoying about it.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I would say, like we say that we are this food capital of Australia and I think we're really proud of that. When we actually interrogate that, who actually holds the burden and the responsibility for us being a food capital, it's people who live in the regions, it's the producers actually outside of Melbourne. for us, because we are focusing on greater Melbourne, not to say that we are the most important, but how do we actually change the way that greater Melbourne is operating within the food system so it can have impacts and more positive impacts less. Stress and um, on the farmers and the producers who are bringing the food into the city.

Matt Healey: Yeah, and that was actually gonna be my sort of follow up question around boundaries and like boundary setting is kind of a, an important thing in the context of systems, systems based work. And you know, it's kind of in the title like Regen Melbourne. So the sort of implicit thought is it's Melbourne boundaries, but I'm wondering , you know, boundaries aren't kind of hard, solid lines.

Matt Healey: And you mentioned like the greater Melbourne area. , but to me there's probably still a bit of a, like a blurriness at the edges of that. Like, you know, there's not a sort of like magical line around Melbourne that you can see on the ground as you're walking towards that boundary and say, oh, that's, you know, I'm in Melbourne and now I'm not in Melbourne.

Matt Healey: Um, there's like a bit of a blurriness there and I'm, I guess that's why we call them peri-urban areas. But, um, around that kind of negotiation of. Where does the line exactly kind of sit, which, um, you know, I guess is a perennial conversation that you have to have around, you know, is this player, is this actor kind of in Melbourne or are they not in Melbourne?

Matt Healey: And that kind of is a constant, a constant conversation.

Tenille: Yeah, so I guess off the back of those food systems, discussions, interesting question for us Dheepa is your journey, , into systems thinking and how that came about. and then I guess maybe any recommendations you have for people that are working in food systems, , and also are looking to, you know, either build, , capabilities in systems thinking or just. , in general, get into it.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Yeah, I, I mean, funnily enough, I think the very first proper systems thinking training I had was with Matt. Um, so that's kind of funny. We've come full circle, always lovely. Um. Um, but I think for me, when we initially started talking about systems at Vic Health, made sense to me like there was something that I had been trying to articulate in my head in terms of moving away from linear processes or seeing, you know, focusing on one part of the food system and being able to see that full view just made so much sense to me. The the concepts and the ideas that we often use at Regen Melbourne are around the three horizons thinking, 

Dheepa Jeyapalan: the idea, three Horizons systems thinking is that you've got, a current system, a current. Way of being. And I think in our food system of people often use this term that the food system is broken. And I kind of challenge that, that the food system is inherent. Food system is doing what it was meant to do, which was to make certain people, very rich, while extracting from environment and also the detriment to the health of most, most people around the world. So that's the current system. So that's what we call Horizon One. It's business as usual. You've got horizon three, which is where you want the system to be. So for many of us that work in food systems, we would say we want a food system that is nourishing both people and planet. It supports local businesses.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: It's, um, it's joyful. It allows for everyone to enjoy healthy, culturally appropriate food. That's horizon three. then you've got horizon two, which is the in-between of, well, how do you transition from what you're doing from BAU of horizon one into horizon three? And that is allowing certain parts of. Horizon one to die off, that need to die off. There might be good things that you want to keep. then you are trying to find these, what we, we call transition pathways through. And that's long-term thinking. It is bringing a whole lot of people along on the journey and often it's reorienting the purpose of the system.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: So moving the food systems current purpose from profit to one of nourishment. 

Dheepa Jeyapalan: That is the thinking that I think is really, really important. And I think sometimes we try to jump to horizon three without thinking of all the steps that need to get us there.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: so that is a recommendation that I give for people to kind of look into in as they design their work as well. I. There's incredible food systems thinkers out there especially, some of the work that's come up from the Food Foundation in the UK as well, that I really like to follow. I also will give a plug for a, a substack that I write called the Cornicopia, which is where I've. I recognize as well that a lot of, people that work in the food system often say that they're so busy in their work, that having the view slightly above them of being able to see what's happening at a global or regional view, , doesn't happen for them in their day-to-day work. And that can impede the way that they think about the full system.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: So I write this fortnightly monthly substack, which is like a bunch of links and resources so that people can keep that, that eye on what's happening above them as well while they do the really important work on the ground.

Tenille: I really like the, three Horizons concepts in terms of reaching a horizon and then sort of that fades out and then there's the next one, rather than the horizon, just getting further away, it feels like there's a lot more achievement, and recognition of the work along the way before you get to the third horizon.

Tenille: Dheepa. Your substack work sounds really interesting to me because my knowledge of food systems, is somewhat limited. But what I do know is that it's done really well in the UK and in parts of Europe. And I guess I was just interested in knowing if there's, um, a country in particular that. We are taking learnings from or trying to follow in their footsteps. and why that area?

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Yeah, I would say the uk, Europe, but also big parts of South America as well are leading the way in much of the food systems work. And that's more probably from like more regulation perspective, think in terms of why it's sometimes hard to do food systems work, is that. all come from very different parts of the food system.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: So if I care about nutrition and someone else cares about waste, we often don't talk to each other. And the countries that have done that work really well have been able to form a level of coherence between those actors so that they can actually come to the table and sit there and have those conversations.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I, a couple of years ago, I was in, in London for, and there was a food policy conference going on. There was a bunch of food system stakeholders and actors and at that morning the mayor of,, London, Sadiq Kahn, had announced that all kids in London will get free universal school meals, which was this huge achievement for the sector.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: And I just saw the way that everyone kind of collectively celebrated this thing. Not one organization took full, responsibility for getting that across because it was a collective mission that they had worked towards. And it was amazing. It was amazing to see that. And I. What we like to see and what I love to see at Regen Melbourne the similar way that we've been able to galvanize action around Swimmable Birrarung for people to kind of collectively work towards something. I'm at the stage or we are at the stage of talking to a bunch of actors to go, what is that collective thing that we go, yeah, we're all gonna work to towards this. So that when there is that moment where we get a win, we can collectively celebrate it, but we're all learning from each other. 'cause I think that that is a missing part currently.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: All kind of working in silos, I would say.

Tenille: Hmm. Yeah, that's a really nice story and a really nice way to picture it, um, coming together, that story from the uk.

Matt Healey: The, the thing that's interesting about that is, so going back to what I, what was kind of alluding to before about different interpretations of systems is, and this ties into what you were just saying there, Dheepa about, the Three Horizons model is I guess this idea of like what we mean by what a system is.

Matt Healey: And I mean, we're talk about like the food system in terms of the journey, . An item from pre, pre-existence in the soil through to, you know, the disposal, end of things, whether that's composting or consumption or whatever, whatever it is. but the other way to think about the food system is actually like, through that actor lens.

Matt Healey: Like who are the different players and how are the players connected to each other? And I think the thing that's quite interesting to then think about is. what are those different attitudes or opinions that each of them hold about the issues or the questions or what they see as the, the issue, is quite interesting to consider.

Matt Healey: So what are, what are the issues that transport companies have, will be potentially quite different to farmers and things like that. There'll be some that are common, but some that are quite different. and the thing that's really. I think important to consider there is how do you transition those cares or concerns from being quite divergent into more common, and what are those transition points that you can use to do that?

Matt Healey: So whether it's a framework like the, the Three Horizons, approach of kind of trying to identify like a common future state and how can we transition everyone to that? , but the other thing that comes to mind is like the view that, you know, we don't need everyone to care about everything. and you actually mentioned this at the start when you're talking about Swimmable Birrarung, which is,, we can kind of have a common thing that we do care about, but actually we can usually care about multiple things at once.

Matt Healey: , and so it's like, well, yes, we can agree on this. we do want this thing, but we also want other things. But if we all can agree on this one thing that we do care about, then that means we can actually still see that as a priority. It's just one priority amongst, amongst many, and I. Tend to see this view that people say, oh, we're not aligned on that issue.

Matt Healey: And I think maybe a part of the challenge is to say, well, maybe we need to reframe this as just one issue that we can align on, but we don't have to align on every issue. and that can be that point of transition to say, you know, hypothetically, Dheepa, you and I can disagree on some things, but we can agree on this.

Matt Healey: And that's okay. we don't have to agree on everything and that sort of view that we need to all point in the same direction at all times can actually be the sticking point rather than, you know, can anyone realistically disagree that they want kids and families to be happy and healthy? Like, does anyone not want that?

Matt Healey: Um, the reality is that it's more about either how to get there or the stuff that wraps around that. Like how do we do that? We can disagree on, but if we can agree on that vision, then that's actually like a really useful starting point.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Yeah, I, yeah, I, I agree with that, Matt. I think so at Regen Melbourne, we often talk about. How do we get coherence instead of consensus? I think often work in systems with a bunch of stakeholders who are diverse and have their values, we try and force consensus, and that can be really hard. And it can also mean that you're trying to force people into a way of seeing the world they don't agree with, but you're trying to like. force them or mold them into this. And that's not what we want. We want everyone to be able to have the skills and the expertise and the power to advocate for the things that they need. And I think consensus in a kind of a colonial kind of system as well can be really problematic because then we're forcing everyone to move into the dominant way of thinking. So for us it's about, yeah, how do we form a level of coherence where there's two, three things that we agree on, and then. We know that we're backing each other up on those things, and then everyone else can still do the things that really mean to their work.

Matt Healey: Mm, totally. And. The, the thing that comes to mind, and not to plug a previous episode, but, uh, back in episode five, we spoke to Dominique Hess, , we were talking about quite a few different things, but there's a phrase that she used, um, that I think is really important when you're thinking about this sort of question, which is, and her context was talking about, you know, almost more like a form of leadership.

Matt Healey: but was the importance of like holding plans loosely. And to me this is kind of a similar idea, which is to say holding your priorities loosely, which isn't to say like they're not priorities, but actually like it's not the only thing. So like that, that rigidity that you have around like this is the thing we all need to like work on.

Matt Healey: And your inability to kind of like, I. Hold onto it. But you know, like there are other things, and I think this is kind of that idea and I think that coherence rather than consensus is a, is another really beautiful way of kind of framing that view of we can agree on some of this stuff and actually maybe we should agree that that's what's important.

Matt Healey: Like, we're agreeing on some things that's a good thing rather than the things we're not agreeing up on. Like what, what's more important here?

Dheepa Jeyapalan: I think also food is inherently more complicated when it comes to that. And no, I think like when we think about the wicked problems and things that we need to transition, if we compare something like energy, This might seem mean to the energy people, but I don't think I'm being mean to them.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: But I don't think that people have as much of an emotional connection to energy in the way that to food. So people will have their professional views around food, but they also know, you know, what feels, what makes them feel good when they eat it. What. Their grandparents, their mothers have told them, their fathers have told them about food.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: They have a cultural connection. So when we have these conversations around food, it's much more complicated because sometimes you're actually challenging who people are as in terms of their values and how they see the world. that can be a real tension. And I think that's where that. Instead of forcing consensus, that's really important. have been in many situations where I've been facilitating conversations about food and it gets, can get really like heightened and move into a conflict frame because people just can't see each others' viewpoint on food, one person might say that health is the most important thing.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: The other person might say, the environmental sustainability of the food is the most important thing. the thing I'm interested in is how do we go? That's okay. We prioritize different things. Food is inherently emotional. We have professional and personal views, and that's okay, but we can still find a way to move towards something that is better than what we currently have.

Matt Healey: Mm. The the word that came to mind, and I mean, who doesn't love alliteration? but there's like a connection that people have to food, and so. I'm sure some, some extremely visual person can come up with some representation of there's the, not consensus but cohesion and then there's like something about connection kind of in there.

Matt Healey: And like, I think there's that connectedness to food that people have that is very emotional because it ties into so much more than just, um, you know, it's important to have localized food production, which can feel very impersonal. It's like, yes, there are lots of good reasons why having localized food production is good.

Matt Healey: but that doesn't necessarily satisfy that feeling that like, you know, almost inner childlike connection that you have to certain types of foods or like the memories that it can bring up for you. and I think this is where maybe the, the process of perhaps working in food systems needs to be not made more professional, but actually more, personal a little bit.

Matt Healey: And maybe it is a partly about like trying to make sure that in those processes, um. Not that I'm suggesting to tell you how to facilitate those things, but for others that are listening and maybe thinking about how do I work in food systems, it's actually like, how can you foster people's understanding of each other's connection to food?

Matt Healey: and whether it's like, you know, kind of like what we did at the start of this, this episode. you know, what is your background? And you mentioned, like your Sri Lankan and Singaporean heritage, and the first thing that came to mind when you said that. Is, oh, well, my partner's, grandparents, are, Sri Lankan.

Matt Healey: And when we first met and I went to their place and I was like, oh, here's a hopper. And I'm like, what on earth is a hopper? Like, I do not understand. And they're like, oh, you know, they're these like. Rice bowl shaped pancakey things. I'm like, this is the strangest thing that I like.

Matt Healey: I've not seen this or come across this before because I come from Country Victoria. , and you know, the Sri Lankan population in my hometown would be next to none, if any. And like, so it's just not a thing. And so you just don't have that exposure. But like thinking about then that sort of ability for us to connect over my experiences.

Matt Healey: Being introduced to Sri Lankan cuisine, which you had grown up with, like provides an almost instant point of connection between us on a personal level, which, you know, we were very aligned I think in our views, typically on food systems. But if we weren't, I. Arguably that does provide something for us to fall back on to say like, you know, would you be, would you be amazed to know that during the pandemic, I actually specifically bought hopper pans so that I could make my partner Hoppers, because a hopper pan is a unique type of pan.

Matt Healey: Uh, go Google it if no one knows what they look like. But you'd be like, what? What on earth is that for? It's use case is to make hoppers, and that is it. That is it. But like it's that connection to food that we can have with each other.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: A hundred percent and hop hoppers are my favorite food, so I'm very excited about this. And I think, you know, your, your comment about the professional nature of food, it's interesting that, you know, before people who worked in food all had to have this nutrition background and just don't think that. That that's the case. I think you could, like how great would it be to have someone who understood transport and logistics in your team that's working at a local government level who understood land use and planning and those sorts of things. Like we have to be much more cross-sectoral in the way that we are building the capacity of food system actors. Because having one view of the system is just gonna get you kind of working in a spiral into that one view and then ignoring all the other things that are happening.

Matt Healey: Mm. And especially if you have those conversational contexts where, like you'll say, working with actors who do come from transport, and if you've got a, a team of people that do not have a, an understanding of logistics and you know what it takes to move food, I. from one part of Victoria to another, you're gonna potentially put people offside because they're not gonna feel seen or understood, and it's gonna feel very us and them.

Matt Healey: , it's not to say you have to go learn about it explicitly, but at least having an openness that maybe their view of the system is still correct from that perspective. that there's no sort of inherent wrongness because as you said, it's doing what it was designed to do, by.

Matt Healey: People at a certain level, but then we are all designing things to fulfill certain functions to make sure that we can deliver on the things that have been kind of. You know, set up, for us as well. And so, you know, we all have to eat and that requires us to earn an income like the, this is all a part of the food system.

Matt Healey: Like we need to earn an income to buy food because, you know, we need to eat to survive. And this is why oftentimes I do see, people talk about like food insecurity as like an income or an employment issue because it's like, actually it's not that people are food insecure, it's that they don't have the stable income or employment to, to purchase fresh food because it's too expensive.

Tenille: Just both of you talk just now. Um. About your individual, value and connection to food. And I just realized that for a lot of people like myself, maybe someone's never asked the question or created the space for you to think about it. I don't think I've ever really thoughtfully, sat here and considered what my connection and value is to food.

Tenille: But whilst due to we were talking, I was identifying, oh, you know, I grew up on a farm and the way I view meat is probably really different to the way other people view meat. I just thought understanding your own kind of inherent, um, values is really important and just created the space. So I hope other people that are are listening might have had those thoughts as well, whilst hearing Matt and Dheepa talk.

Matt Healey: The thing around values, I think is maybe like the unspoken part of food systems. Maybe like I say unspoken, we've been speaking about it. But I guess going back to this view of treating food systems as like a professional area of work rather than a personal one. And I mean maybe a part of this is for those who are.

Matt Healey: You know, even at like very, like I said at the local government level, like dealing with food systems as an area of work and things like that, like what people value in a food system is a really important question. But it's really interesting that you say that to me. 'cause I also grew up on a farm.

Matt Healey: , my parents live in Western Victoria. My dad's a, a beef farmer, , he raised cattle and then, you know, so we had a lot of red meat in our family but it's interesting then to think about people's views on what that industry looks like, because from my perspective where I grew up, saw how my family like looked after the animals and things like that.

Matt Healey: And so it's interesting to think about people's views on that side of things as opposed to maybe what a stereotypical view of the, beef industry might be. But as an anecdote, and uh, if my brother is listening, then you know, too bad, uh, 'cause I'm gonna share this, but he, like, he's a vegetarian, but there was a period of transition talking about transition states in his life where he was vegetarian except for the meat that came from our farm because it was about knowing where it came from, um, if that's a different interpretation to what he thinks he can get in touch and I'll correct it later.

Matt Healey: but there was this stage of life where I distinctly remember him. Not eating meat unless it came from our farm, because it was about where it came from and that was kind of like the value attachment, for him. And so I think, what is people's attachment to food? And you know, it doesn't always have to be, um, sort of an explicit, you know, my family from overseas has a very strong connection to particular types of cuisine.

Matt Healey: It can actually be tied into your upbringing and your connection to different parts of, the, the places in Australia that you're from as well. I think I'm settled on this idea of connection. Connection to food I think is a really key thing that I think I'm landing on by the end of this.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: And I think it's interest. So I think there's two types of value when we talk about food. So there's the personal value, but the value that can be added into society by investing in food. And so last year when I was doing my sense making around Greater Melbourne's food system with Regen Melbourne, to map out like if you invested in food, what are the things that.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Have this flow on effects. And that was from discussions with people who work in food system organizations were often funded to do maybe food security work or health work. But if you think about an investment, let's say, in a market, in a local community has an impact of social connection, of belonging, of jobs, of greater community connection to the, the place, to, if you're prioritizing First Nations businesses, that has positive impact.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: So I think we're also. Siloed or narrowing the full value that food system can bring because of sometimes the way that we're funded, but also the conversations we're having around food. So, you know, if there is a economic development grant going, like a food system organization may not think of themselves in that way or a local government. , economic development plan often doesn't have food there, but food should be central to that, so I think it's how do we support people who are working in the food system sector to see themselves beyond what they've been told that they are essentially.

Matt Healey: The, I think that's a really powerful way for people to be thinking about what food systems work actually is. Because a lot of the stuff that we talk about when we talk about like doing systems thinking and what it can look like, you know, people will talk about doing systems maps and like all of these other things, but actually there's a really important reframing aspect to what systems thinking can provide, which is.

Matt Healey: and we alluded to this before when we talked about, you know, is food insecurity actually a food issue or is it an employment issue? and I think the same principle applies to organizations doing food systems work, which is to say, you get told that you are a food security or a food insecurity, food relief organization.

Matt Healey: That's what you do. and whilst that might be like on, on the tin of what it says that you are, but actually like how you do that work. Could come from many different perspectives, including, , as Dheepa were just saying there like, you know, economic development, for instance. And like being able to understand the interconnections of how different types of work can actually still lead to that ultimate end state that we're, that we were talking about before, that that view that we're all,.

Matt Healey: have a degree of consensus around like, we want a thriving, healthy, happy food system that makes everyone, be healthy in their lives. If we can agree on that, how we get there can vary based on who you are as an actor in the system and the different parts that you can play.

Matt Healey: Because, you know, it's not about everyone being Dheepa in Regen Melbourne. It's about everyone playing a role at different levels. . And I mean, you mentioned the point around like, people coming to food from a particular disciplinary background, like my background's environmental science. Um, so the sort of like production end of things makes a lot of sense to me as well as the disposal end and thinking about food waste.

Matt Healey: so like there's so many different aspects to this system and everyone's got a role to play in it as well.

Matt Healey: Thanks Deepa for, for all of your time today. Um, is there anything that you wanna, flag for our listeners? anything that Regen Melbourne's up to, uh, coming up this year or anything, that they might wanna sort of keep an eye out for? 

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Yeah. I recommend kind of keeping an eye out on our website and also the substack that I mentioned earlier, the Cornicopia. we are also hosting a conversation which is kind of selling out quite fast in partnership with Sweltering Cities and Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation. And that's a conversation around the impact of extreme heat waves on our food system because we're recognizing that those conversations aren't really happening 

Dheepa Jeyapalan: it's on the 10th of April. We bringing together actors and experts, people who are on the frontline farmers as well, to talk about the impact that heatwaves are having on our cities food systems. And we will be. planning on releasing some sort of mission Earth shot, you know, direction for our food system for me, greater Melbourne in the coming months as well.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: So please keep an eye out. This is something that we are hoping to get. lot of people enlisted in, in the same way that we have with Swimmable Birrarungthat allows this collective view, this coherence that we've talked about, so that everyone feels that they're part of something together, and we can have the celebratory moments that I talked about that we'd love to see for our sector as well.

Matt Healey: Yeah. Great. so for people listening, check out the, the show notes, where we'll have links to some of the things that Deepa's mentioned, including her Substack, which you can sign up for, to keep hearing all the great things that she's been, sharing today. well, thanks. Deeper, . Can I just double check?

Matt Healey: Are you gonna have fish again tonight for dinner or are you gonna switch to something else?

Dheepa Jeyapalan: Um, I think it might be fish again.

Matt Healey: Uh, fish again. All right,

Tenille: You know, Dipa a real fennel moment, so I feel like fish and fennel would be a good one.

Dheepa Jeyapalan: combination.

Matt Healey: Great. Good. See we've bookended our podcast episode 

Matt Healey: Back to Recipes.