Ontario

The G-Spot in Ottawa

Everyone knows healthy food — be it meat, dairy products, or fresh vegetables — is usually expensive food. For university students, rushing from classes to low-wage jobs with or without family support and grabbing food wherever they can, eating healthy may fall by the wayside, often for financial reasons. The Garden Spot, better known as the G-Spot, is based at Carleton University in Ottawa. It's one of several student-organized kitchens across Canada that has been founded in response to a rising student cost of living. "Rising tuition and rent in Ottawa meant that average food budget took a nosedive. Many students literally live on rice and ketchup for weeks at a time, their energy and concentration faltering, and increasingly must rely on coffee and other stimulants to stave off hunger and keep them going," wrote Kelly Fritsch, an early member of the G-Spot collective, nearly a decade ago. The collective has been serving pay-what-you-can, vegan home-cooked meals weekly since 2001. ^[1] Carleton Food Collective