An Alberta man making waves in food security was recently honoured with a prestigious award for his work advancing the field both domestically and internationally.
Randy Worobo, a U of A graduate who grew up on a farm near Consort in eastern Alberta, won the International Food Security Award from the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). In an interview with Postmedia, the Cornell University professor breaks down his research in the field, what led him to pursue food security and where he’s headed next.
The interview has been edited for clarity and accuracy.
What got you into this field?
As an undergraduate I had intentions of pre-med. I found microbiology because it’s one of the prerequisites for pre-med and I absolutely fell in love with microbiology. Once I got in, because I’m a foodie and I took a food microbiology class, that’s what really hooked me.
I switched from microbiology to food science, completed my undergraduate and then I did my post-doctoral degree right after in food microbiology.
I attribute a lot of my interest in science and biology to my high school teacher, she was phenomenal. She actually taught my dad and then she taught me and she also taught my brother and just by chance, my brother is also a food microbiologist.
What is the nature of your work?
I was asked to do a small project in Egypt back in 2001. It was a company and they produced a lot of dehydrated vegetables and spices, and they were having issues with certain micro-organisms, bacteria, potential food-borne pathogens in their product.
I was asked to go over and help try and find out what the source was, because those microbiological results were restricting their sales. Countries like North America and Europe wouldn’t accept them.
They didn’t have any of the really basic food safety training and I actually found the source of the contamination in the first hour I was there. I started training them and it just made such a large difference in such a short period of time.
I did another project that really pulled on my heart heartstrings when I got asked to do a special project for a group of women in Malawi in the middle of the country — so not populated. I was there for two weeks and what the women wanted to do was preserve fruit from their yards and sell it at one of the two, what they call five-star hotels in Malawi.
They needed it to be stable long enough so that it didn’t spoil and that they could actually sell it.
I went in and thank God for a translator because I don’t speak their language. I showed them what to do. (For example) I brought a thermometer — they didn’t have a thermometer, they didn’t understand what temperature they needed. They said that they were boiling it and they were only getting it to 37 degrees. They saw steam and they thought that was boiling.
On the first batch, we got to produce shelf-stable juice and they put it up on the shelf because they didn’t believe that it wasn’t gonna spoil. By the time I left, they were selling to the two hotels and it was actually a source of income for those women.
That was very impactful because in Malawi, women don’t have the same rights as males. So it empowered them.
The amount of time that you spend is so productive, and the returns that it yields for the people that you’re teaching and training is huge.
Why do you do the work you do?
When I came back from Malawi, on the day I was leaving, I came down with malaria, which was quite dangerous. I was on antimalarials and then I also got schistosomiasis (a parasitic illness) from washing my clothes in Lake Malawi because I didn’t have access to a laundromat.
You have to go out with the women and they showed me how to wash clothes and they laughed because they said I was going to destroy my clothes. They had nothing in terms of property or anything like that. They were farmers, but they were the most kind, generous people.
When you can’t communicate unless you’ve got the translator, there is communication through body language and it was it was endearing to see some of the women when I left cry.
Those are the things that for me right now … that was really impactful for me and knowing that I’ve helped them and it empowered them. It was very rewarding for me making small changes in a few people’s lives.
What are misconceptions people might have about food security?
In terms of food security, so think about it, you have to have availability, people need access and it has to be nutritious. Now if you have all three, everybody thinks it’s fine. But if you have any food safety risks associated with that food, it’s now no longer available. It can’t enter the system because it’s a vicious cycle.
People that are malnourished, they actually are immunocompromised and more susceptible to food-borne pathogens. Even if they’re not, if they ingest it, they’re gonna get sick and then because of diarrhea and vomiting, it affects their overall health and so they become more malnourished, and then it just goes around and around.
Having safe food in that chain ensures that it’s doing what food is supposed to do, which is providing nutrition that doesn’t make them sick, and improving their overall health.