Welcome to The Food Truth Project

The Food Truth Project was created by Veronica Jaramillo (McGill Food Science 2024) and Priscilla Leftakis (McGill Food Science 2023) in 2023, in order to help the youth in their community be able to identify, debunk, and clarify misinformation online surrounding food and nutrition. 

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Throughout their Food Science degree, Veronica & Priscilla noticed that there was a swarm of misinformation relating to food and nutrition on social media, and saw in real time how this misinformation negatively impacted eating habits, created anxiety surrounding food & food choices, and overall damaged the relationship with food. Now more than ever, there is an unlimited amount of information on social media regarding food, health, & wellness. There is an ongoing trend of social media influencers and personnel claiming statements regarding certain food, food additives, diets, supplements, and much more, with no evidence to back it up. The popularity of this content has shaped the social media platforms to promoting misinformation regarding food and health, allowing full access to impressionable youth. The misinformation being spread on social media regarding food has severe impacts to youth, who are just now curating their relationship with food and their bodies. Some recent trends in the past couple years on social media that promote misinformation in the agriculture sector include: Consumption of Raw Milk Trend, the Keto Diet Trend, the Non-GMO Trend, the Anti-Artificial Food Additive Trend, the Anti-Processed Food Trend, and so many more. The trends that pop up on social media regarding food and health, are for the most part, never founded in evidence, and can be dangerous to not only youth, but everyone on social media.

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Being food scientists, they wanted to create educational workshops to the youth in their communities, giving them the tools to be able to critically think about food & nutrition information when traversing social media. Together with students, Veronica & Priscilla use their knowledge in food science, research, & industry to debunk misinformation. Among debunking misinformation, Veronica & Priscilla also teach food science & chemistry basics, the morality behind food, and tools to be able to spot misinformation and reliable information on social media. 

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Since their debut in 2023, Veronica & Priscilla have completed over 10 workshops in a total of 5 schools (St-Thomas High School, Vanier CEGEP, John Abbott CEGEP, Concordia University, & McGill University) as well as one non-governmental organization (CropLife Canada). They participated in Vanier Colleges Science Symposium & Women in Science Symposium, where they presented to over 200 students. They have had an overall outreach of over 500 students in and around Montreal, and over 2000 impressions on social media. Notably, Veronica & Priscilla are set to deliver 2 workshops at the Advancing Women in Agriculture Conference in March 2024 in Calgary, Alberta!