BY SIMONE J. SMITH

The cost of higher education is a common concern, and for university students in Ontario, the road to academic success is paved with challenges—one of the biggest being the high cost of textbooks.

As tuition fees continue to rise, many students find themselves battling yet another financial burden—the soaring prices of required course materials. “I spent nearly $800 on textbooks this semester alone, and that’s just for four courses. It’s insane. I have to choose between paying for books or groceries some weeks,” shared a student with me last week.

Her story isn’t unique. A recent study showed that nearly two-thirds of university students in Ontario struggle to afford their required books, but today’s students have options for saving money without compromising the quality of their post-secondary experience. Education should be about learning, not about how much money you can spend on books.

With most published course materials now delivered in digital formats, “textbooks” for university and college courses cost students much less than the heavy hardcover books of the past. Beyond that, innovative programs like Inclusive Access are designed specifically to reduce cost barriers that many students face when acquiring course materials.  These programs deliver course materials to students on, or before the first day of class at reduced prices.

“Inclusive Access programs are already in place on many campuses across Canada and students benefit and appreciate the measures their institutions are taking to help them secure the right course materials, right from the beginning of the semester at the best price,” says Leigh-Anne Graham, Senior Advisor with the Canadian Publishers’ Council.  “There is a growing body of evidence to support the efficacy and benefits for students and instructors participating in Inclusive Access programs, including: increased transparency about costs, increased access to valuable learning materials and better learning outcomes.”

The Canadian Publishers’ Council, as Canada’s main English-language book publishing trade association, represents the interests of publishing companies that publish books and other media for: elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, professional and reference markets, the retail and library sectors. Founded in 1910, its members employ more than 2,800 Canadians and collectively account for nearly three-quarters of all domestic sales of English-language books.

Materials in an Inclusive Access model are typically delivered through a learning management system (LMS) and students always have the choice to opt in or out.

Inclusive Access has saved students over $15 million over the last 10 years at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Their Digital Textbook Access program offers students 40-55% discount relative to the legacy price of printed textbooks and discounted rates for equivalent digital access.  Course materials are conveniently available on the first day of class and students can access their resources anytime, anywhere.

However, this model was largely ignored by the Ontario provincial government in a recent directive issued on the costs of educational materials under the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act. The directive aims to ensure students and families can easily access information on costs of materials beyond tuition.

While the directive includes a requirement that information about additional features and benefits of digital textbooks also be provided, it falls short in ignoring programs like Inclusive Access that provide value for students and quality content and accessories that will enhance their education.

It’s time for a more comprehensive look at how student affordability is supported.

“In its directive, the government surfaced Open Educational Resources as the only way institutions can support affordability, and that simply is not the case,” says Ms. Graham. “It’s in the students’ best interests that the government not only provide information on programs like Inclusive Access, but also note that all course materials selected by instructors play an important role in supporting student success.”

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

“The oils, found in almost all processed foods, are heavily subsidized because agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the oils, are funded by the industries that produce them.”

The above quote is from RFK (aka Robert F Kennedy Jr., Chairman and Founder of CHD, aka the Children’s Health Defense) while speaking about the family’s health in today’s profit-driven world.

The type of oils in question here is known as seed oils, which are produced using a very high volume of heat and are less beneficial to the body in comparison to oils that are cold pressed like: avocado oil and olive oil, which provide several health benefits.

Another hazard to our health is the coloring in the foods we consume. Do you know that food colors like red no 40, yellow no. 5, and yellow no. 6 are petroleum-derived? These substances are banned in places like Europe but are approved for use by the North American consumer, and what is more troubling is that they are linked to psychiatric and autoimmune problems.

There is scientific evidence that shows how diets high in ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, are associated with an increased risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia, as well as cognitive wasting and mild cognitive impairment. These foods are often high in unhealthy fats, salt, added sugar, or artificial sweeteners, like sucralose and aspartame.

Avoiding the pitfalls of ill health due to faulty diets is no walk in the park. This is especially true with today’s hefty grocery bills, but one must remember that the body is an investment, and you cannot withdraw what you did not deposit.

That said, a lifestyle rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats has been associated with a reduced risk of dementia.

In 2022 a prospective cohort study was published in Neurology and included the data of more than 700,000 people in the United Kingdom. After examining ultra-processed food consumption and various forms of dementia, the researchers found: “In the fully adjusted model, consumption of UPF was associated with higher risk of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and vascular dementia, respectively.”

“In addition, replacing 10% of UPF weight in diet with an equivalent proportion of unprocessed, or minimally processed foods was estimated to be associated with a 19% lower risk of dementia.”

The same researchers concluded, “Our findings highlight the contributory role of UPF consumption to the development of dementia and that coordinated global and national public health policies, and clinical guidelines are needed to displace consumption of UPFs with fresh, minimally processed, easily affordable food, to tackle the societal burden of dementia.”

So, the big question here is how we as consumers prevent all this dementia and other degenerative illnesses from taking us to the undertaker sooner rather than later.

In the opening of this article, we looked at the main culprits, namely the Food and Drug Administrations, and the industries that produced the food in every country that you the readers live in.

These are entities that need to be held accountable for giving the green light on importing and exporting such toxic goods, and the industries too should not be allowed to produce such fake foods.

Another major contributing factor to ill health universally is the pesticide that the industry is allowed to use on most of the fresh fruits and vegetables. If consumers do their homework and reject these heavily sprayed foods, this will send the folks behind this deadly game a financial message. “You spray and we keep away.”

“Despite the abundance of science linking exposure to pesticides with serious health issues, a potentially toxic cocktail of concerning chemicals continues to taint many of the non-organic fruits and vegetables eaten by consumers,” said Alexis Temkin, Ph.D., EWG toxicologist.

With this information in mind, there has never been a better time for us the people (aka consumers) to try and watch what we eat, know where our food is coming from, eat only organic food if you can, and apply pressure on the people in the food industry to do better.

BY ADRIAN REECE

COVID-19 shook the world for years—quarantining countries and stripping people of their individual freedoms. Conspiracy theories were rampant during the lockdowns claiming that it restricted the rights and freedoms of most of the world. Misinformation and conflicting “truths” caused people to split over all information that came out during the course of the seemingly deadly virus.

Social media has for a while now been a source of information that is constantly updated and readily available. Many prominent and trustworthy news sources leverage social media to get information out to the public. Professionals of every discipline use social channels to provide information and updates on content relevant to their field to the general public in a less formal manner, while still maintaining 100% of the authority they hold in their professions. This content is subject to peer review. The content is public and a widely accepted practice that is almost encouraged to make correct information that much more accessible.

However, COVID-19 saw information disappear from social channels. Experts across every platform were silenced, banned, or their posts removed, hidden behind the guise of “giving out real information.” Doctors with years of experience, nurses who have been working in the healthcare field had their posts either shadow banned (the process of not letting others see their content), or outright deleted. Meta (the company that hosts Facebook and Instagram) was encouraged to censor information pertaining to the COVID-19 virus and vaccine.

Even experts who freely shared information on these platforms previously were being censored. Subject matter experts, with the intellectual authority to say what they want pertaining to a topic, had posts that were taken down, and professional reputations were in danger of being ruined due to the Covid information being spread.

The government seemed to want to push a particular narrative, and anything that didn’t align with that kind of information wasn’t accepted in the pipeline of allowable information. Measures like social distancing and masking were unnecessary. It made no sense as to why such measures were put in place when it can travel the same distance and space as the common cold. Also, the mortality rates of COVID-19 were widely unknown, many sources were relaying different information.

Healthcare professionals were talking about their experiences in hospitals with some doctors talking about how deadly it was while others were saying that the death rate was heavily exaggerated. We may never know the truth about what those rates really were, and what deaths were Covid related, or had other causes. Information about these sorts of things tends to come out generations later when people are no longer affected or interested.

Companies creating vaccines were not beyond reproach either, information related to the Covid vaccine was, and still is widely unknown to the general public. Companies wanted to release information regarding the contents of the vaccine in 75 years, or at the very least 10 pages at a time over a long duration.

One would think that transparency would be mandatory when it had to do with people’s health, but so much information was and still is hidden from the public eye that as more time goes by the truth will get more and more distorted until it is impossible to know what COVID-19 was really about and why we were forced to quarantine and take vaccinations for a brand new virus.