Issue 18 - Food

Salient

18 09.08.21

Magazine

IN THE SUPERMARKET 1

03

Editorial

04

Letters and Notices

06 - 11

News

12 - 15

Vic Books Illustrated

16 - 19

Cultures of Fermenting

20 - 21

Artist Profile / Centrefold

22 - 23

Indian Spices Started Kit

24 - 29

Columns

To Be Frank (24), Rice to Meet You (25), Manawa Ora (26), Disabled Students Association (27), VUWSA (27),

28 - 35

Culture

Stomach-Mind Conection (28), $10 Jug Guide (30), Music Review (32), Poem (33), Cheese Scone Recipe (34), Alt Milk Quiz (32)

36 - 38

Entertainment

About Us Salient is published by, but remains editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA). Salient is funded in part by VUWSA through the Student Services Levy. Salient is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA).

Complaints Complaints regarding the material published in Salient should first be brought to the Editors in writing (editor@salient.org.nz).

If not satisfied with the response, complaints should be directed to the Media Council (info@mediacouncil.org.nz).

The views expressed in Salient do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, VUWSA, or the University.

Sink your teeth into it!

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Editorial

Yup, we’ we’re lost in the supermarket.

I try to go to the supermarket every Sunday, when the labels blur into one and you get to the canned vegetable aisle and forget what you went there for.

I make a list for the week and try desperately to see into my appetite’s future. Will I want salt and vinegar or BBQ chips on Tuesday? I think the supermarket makes more money off me when I’m hungover because my guard is down. Nothing like dissociating by the orange juice.

In November 2020, the Government asked the Commerce Commission to look into “whether competition in the grocery sector is working well, and if not, what can be done to improve it.” Recently, the Commission released some preliminary findings in a harsh report. The report detailed the astronomically high profits of Woolworths (AUS) and Foodstuffs (NZ).

In this free-market fairytale, Woolworths and Foodstuffs are allegedly making over a 20% return on their investments. The expected rate of return, according to the Commision, was 6%. The report recommends that the Government intervene and break up the duopoly i.e make it easier for a new supermarket to take off here. The Commerce Minister David Clark has said they will “do whatever it takes to make sure New Zealanders get a fair deal at the checkout.”

Antoinette Laird, Foodstuffs’ head of corporate affairs, said in a statement that “some of the options outlined would have wide reaching implications”, and that they needed to take more time before submitting on the report. Woolworths’ Managing Director, Spencer Sonn, said something similar: “on face value some of the options would have significant implications and we’ll need time to work this through and understand the impact.”

Laird also reckons the Commission’s calculations are wrong, saying “In its draft report, the Commerce Commission acknowledges that understanding the profitability of the two cooperatives has been difficult.

Our view is that the Commission’s initial calculation of Foodstuffs’ profitability is not accurate.”

The supermarkets probably feel like they’re about to lose the dark blue and green properties and flip the monopoly board. Well, even if they’re making 15% returns, I’m fucking livid. Because we’ve also got some of the highest grocery prices in the OECD. And not only are supermarkets profiting from basic human necessity on the regular, they did well out of COVID; Countdown posted a $20 million increase in net profit in June of last year.

We need change. Supermarkets profit at the expense of suppliers, consumers, and ultimately, the planet.

This report felt like getting a bad news text you knew was coming. It was kind of validating to know that I’ve not been complaining about the price of broccoli for no reason. I’m hopeful that things can change, but am not hopeful that they actually will. This duopoly is man made and it better be unmade. We deserve to eat for a fair price and our food producers deserve a fair share of the profit. I hope this report is taken seriously and that even if the Commissions’ solutions don’t quite work, the Government does “whatever it takes”.

So yeah, we’re lost in the supermarket. Welcome to this week’s food issue, where you’ll find a love letter about sitting in a café, insight into the world of fermenting, and a starter kit if you’re looking to get into Indian cooking.

We wish you a happy mid-tri break,

Sally Ward (she/her) & Matthew Casey (he/him) Brought to you by Peoples Coffee

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NOTICES & LETTERS

Submit Letters and Notices for future issues

by Tuesdays 5pm to editor@salient.org.nz

Someday Film Challenge 2021 Registration is now open for Someday Film Challenge 2021!

Make a short film about sustainability.

For anyone up to 24.

Any genre, up to 5 minutes.

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Entry deadline is 10th September 2021.

Registration and entry are totally free of charge!

We have great prizes on offer, including a $500 cash prize for each age group, and more.

Get more info about prizes and the challenge at http://www.someday.co.nz/challenge/about/

H AT TA F A N S A R I

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5

News

VUWSA Election / Student Success Project /

Mātauranga Māori / Opinion / Recap

VUWSA election dates announced Niva Chittock (she/her)

Victoria University of Wellington’s Students’ Association—Te Rōpū Tauira o te Whare Wānanga o Te Upoko ō Te Ika a Māui (VUWSA) has announced the dates for their 2022 Executive Election.

Nominations for roles open at 9 a.m. on Monday, 30 August and close on Tuesday, 7 September at 4 p.m.

Voting opens at 9 a.m. on Monday, 20 September and closes on Thursday, 23 September at 12 p.m.

There are ten roles to be filled: president, academic vice president (VP), welfare VP engagement VP, treasurersecretary, education officer, sustainability officer, equity & wellbeing officer, clubs & activities officer, and campaigns officer.

The organisation seeks to follow nine core goals: education quality, student support, equity and access, services, activities, public issues, finance, accountability, and sustainability—their roles reflect this.

Each role has a different level of responsibility, hours, and representation attached to it. Hours vary week to week based on events, time of year and public interest issues. Below are brief descriptions, though more information is available on the VUWSA website: www. vuwsa.org.nz

VUWSA Trust. They record all minutes and maintain all Exec documents. Minimum of 10 hours per week.

Academic Vice-President: heads the Education Team and works closely with the education officer and staff at the University. Their biggest focus is student academic representation (such as class reps) and they are responsible for enabling educational equity. Minimum hours of work per week are 20, including during University holidays and breaks.

Welfare Vice-President: this role oversees and works closely with both the wellbeing and sustainability and equity officers. The primary focus is to ensure students receive and have access to any services they need, working closely with Student Services and welfarebased representative groups. Again, minimum hours of work per week are 20, including during University holidays and breaks.

Engagement Vice-President: heads the VUWSA Engagement Team and is responsible for ensuring students have a strong voice and clear communication.

They work closely with the clubs & activities officer and build the University’s community through events, campaigns, clubs, and discussions across all three campuses. They are the main point of contact for any new clubs. Again, minimum hours of work per week are 20, including during University holidays and breaks.

President: the highest position on the Exec, it is a fulltime role (minimum 40 hours per week). They chair the Exec and are responsible for ensuring VUWSA upholds its constitution. Also seen as the VUWSA figurehead, being the first port of call for statements, media releases, and invitations to various events and organisations on VUWSA’s behalf. Must be able to work during University holidays and breaks.

Education Officer: the education officer’s role is to provide support to the academic vice president. They take a more practical role than the VP; training Class Reps, seeking feedback from students, and maintaining a good working relationship with education-based representative groups. Minimum 10 hours work per week expected.

Treasurer-Secretary: this position is both VUWSA’s treasurer and Re: secretary.

Photo: Source: News They work with the president to develop the annual budget and are a member of the

Sustainability Officer: focused on the environment, this role supports the welfare vice president with sustainability-related issues. This includes free public

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transport, healthy student flats, and green initiatives within the wider university community. Also in charge of running Sustainability Week across all campuses.

Minimum 10 hours work per week expected.

Equity & Wellbeing Officer: this role has a focus on the mental, physical, and financial wellbeing of students.

This means regularly collaborating with specific representation groups like UniQ, Pasifika Students Association, Ngai Tauira, etc. The role ensures all students are represented and given access to resources needed to thrive. Minimum of 10 hours work per week expected.

Clubs & Activities Officer: works closely with Recreation Services and the education vice president to ensure all students have a great university experience beyond their academic studies. The position coordinates activities and events across all campuses with a wide range of groups. Minimum of 10 hours work per week expected.

Campaigns Officer: collates and heads up campaigns for VUWSA, keeps students informed and runs the promotion of events and initiatives. This role works closely with both the education and wellbeing and sustainability officers and helps to run VUWSA media.

Again, a minimum of 10 hours per week is expected.

Eight years and $22 million later, VUW’s Student Success Project up in the air Lily McElhone (she/her) In 2013, Victoria University launched the Student Success Project, a multi-million dollar IT initiative to “deliver positive and transformational benefits for students and for staff”. This year, the University rebranded the project as Tītoko—Centre for Student Success. Besides being a digital system designed to integrate different aspects of the University experience, the nature of the project remains unclear.

In regards to the project’s objectives, Salient were told Tītoko aims to “provide a seamless service that supports student success”.

The project was initially launched eight years ago as the Student Services Transformation Programme (SSTP), and was run by staff as well as external contractors (which was standard protocol at that time).

Over the next four years, the University established a medical centre system, course information system, timetable system and a whole-of-university customer relationship system (CRM). Work also commenced on an online enrolment system.

Then, in 2017, the project was brought entirely under University control, specifically under the Strategic Projects Office. It was then that development of the online enrolment system was brought to a halt, resulting in a write-off of $1.6m.

In 2018, the project underwent another reset due to a lack of consultation with Victoria’s student body.

Photo: Victoria University of Wellington

In 2019, multiple key figures in the SSTP team resigned.

A new senior programme manager was brought on board, and an assessment of the project to date was undertaken. This assessment brought to light a number of issues about the ability of the new CRM to provide a foundation for the proposed new student support processes.

The University then brought in KPMG to review the systems, and the concerns raised by the initial report were confirmed. As a result of the inadequate CRM, $3.4m of the project’s budget was put at risk of being written-off.

In January 2020, Pricewaterhouse Cooper (PwC) was commissioned as part of the internal audit programme to review the entire SSTP programme. Their report www.salient.org.nz

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stated that between 2018 and 2020, the project had failed to deliver anything “operationally tangible”.

PwC then gave recommendations for ten areas of improvements to be made on the project, which the University say have been acted on “in full”.

A further $6m was allocated to the project to cover the next two years of development of the project, which the University says entails “the establishment of Tītoko—Centre for Student Success, a new holistic advising model, a CRM system, separating admissions from enrolment which means future students can apply to the university year round, the development of a future students portal, and the development of a current students portal.”

The University says that Tītoko will be “cost neutral”.

This year, VUWSA produced a submission to Tītoko, raising concerns about privacy and accessibility.

disabled students had not been explicitly addressed so far in the development of the project.

The “integrated systems” aspect of the Tītoko project could, if not designed adequately, risk granting access to students’ confidential information to people who do not require it. Per VUWSA’s understanding, conversations are still taking place on categorising/ defining what accounts for “confidential information”.

VUWSA advocates for more clarity around confidentiality, and extensive training for advisors, support services, and academic staff on processes for interacting with confidential information.

The University maintains that confidential information will be protected, saying “records from Mauri Ora and Disability Services [will] remain confidential as they do today” and that the project will “provide systems and structures that put the student at the centre.”

The Disabled Students’ Association expressed “disappointment” upon seeing that issues facing

Overwhelming Support Expressed for Mātauranga Māori

Claims from seven UoA professors that mātauranga Māori does not belong in science curriculums have been debunked by numerous academics and scrutinised by the public Katrin O’Donnell, Ngāti Pūkeko (she/her) Seven professors from the University of Auckland are facing backlash after attacking proposed changes to NCEA that would incorporate mātauranga Māori into the science curriculum and teach students about the relationship between science and colonialism.

The statements appeared in a letter to the editor of The Listener, and was co-authored by Professors Garth Cooper, Michael Corballis, Robert Nola, Elizabeth Rata, Kendall Clements, and Douglas Elliffe. The authors argued that such changes would cultivate “mistrust of science” among young people and claimed that indigenous knowledge “falls far short of what we can define as science itself.”

The letter was quickly slammed on Twitter and other social media outlets by a number of Māori and nonMāori scientists and academics, who highlighted the

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depth and complexity of indigenous knowledge systems from around the world. A number of experts emphasised that intergenerational knowledge passed down through oral traditions and sustained, ongoing relationships with the environment reveal different truths than the scientific method which are no less valuable.

Meanwhile, commentators from within and outside of academia were quick to point out that none of the professors who authored the letter had any expertise in mātauranga Māori and that, ironically, they didn’t appear to have done much research on the subject before publishing their piece.

Several esteemed scientists, including Professor Shaun Hendy, Dr Siouxsie Wiles, and Dr Tara McAllister, published an open response to the controversy, in which they debunked each of the claims made by the

UoA professors. The open letter amassed hundreds of signatures from academics across Aotearoa and around the world in just a few days, and concluded by emphasising that “there can be no trust in science without robust self-reflection by the science community and an active commitment to change.”

cited a number of current research projects where scientists have found immense value in incorporating mātauranga Māori into their research, including Monica Gerth’s research on kauri dieback, Ocean Mercier and Phil Lester’s work with wasps, and Rewi Newnham and others’ work on the Lakes 360 project.

In an email sent to all staff, UoA Vice-Chancellor Dawn Freshwater asserted that while the professors were free to express their own views, the UoA’s official stance was that mātauranga Māori makes important contributions to science.

VUW’s Centre for Science in Society also released a statement rejecting the claims made by the UoA professors, and made a point to highlight “the considerable labour and stress that falls to Māori scholars, experts, and educators as a result of having to defend their mātauranga, noting that this is a sustained pattern and not a one-off event.”

Royal Society Te Apārangi, the NZ Association of Scientists, the NZ Ecological Society, and many individual academics have also released statements rejecting the premise of the letter.

Professor Louise Dixon, the dean of sciences at VUW, told Salient that the Faculty of Science “embraces mātauranga Māori as a valuable knowledge system that is complementary to Western empirical science.”

She stated that the faculty is committed to hiring more Māori staff and ensuring that science students have greater exposure to Māori knowledge. Professor Dixon

Professor Ocean Mercier, who specialises in Māori science and is the current head of school at VUW’s Te Kawa a Māui, told Salient that the letter was “yet another tactic to disenfranchise Māori and Pasifika from not only science and knowledge, but hika, our own science and knowledge!” She expressed relief that so many have rejected the claims made in the letter, stating, “at least now people recognise it for its laughability.”

Opinion: You don’t care about ‘protecting’ sport, you’re just a dick Jamie Clarke (he/him)

Last Monday night, I sat with knots in my stomach as I watched the Olympic final of the +87kg category of the women’s weightlifting. As New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard took to the stage—the first openly transgender woman to compete in the Games—my heart was in my throat.

Throughout all three of her attempts at the snatch lift, I was half-covering my eyes with one of my many stuffed toys. While it initially seemed like she succeeded in lifting 125kg in her second lift, in the end the judges ruled all three of her attempts as no-lifts, and she was therefore out of the competition.

While I was gutted for Hubbard, as she had been considered by many as a strong medal contender, I couldn’t help but feel a slight wave of relief wash over me too. Ever since it was announced that Hubbard would compete in the Olympic Games, the media has been awash with ‘news’ surrounding whether it is ‘fair’ that she was allowed to compete. With headlines like “Sports scientist questions the fairness of Laurel Hubbard at Olympic Games” being published the day before the final (thanks, NZ Herald), it was clear that if Hubbard had performed better she would have been met with a sea of speculation surrounding whether her

success had just been because she is a transgender athlete. And so, I am somewhat grateful of her defeat, and that the morning after her performance most of the news published about her was how she “made history” with her performance despite failing to successfully perform a lift. Of course, this doesn’t stop the Facebook comments preceding any articles about Hubbard from being filled with blatant, unfiltered transphobia; while I won’t share any of the disgusting things I’ve read while trawling through them, I will note the unsurprising yet horrific prevalence of slurs and misgendering that occurs there.

The fact that my initial reaction to an athlete I support losing was relief is in itself incredibly fucked up. Laurel Hubbard deserves to be supported by both the media and the public like any other athlete. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t acknowledge how amazing her achievements are as a trangender woman, but rather that the fact she is transgender should not be used as a point of debate or spectacle. It is interesting how many people have asked me, as a trans person, what I think about the ‘debate’ surrounding Hubbard and trans athletes. The people asking me are almost always those who I know www.salient.org.nz

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were not engaged with women’s sports in the slightest before the headlines surrounding Hubbard landed in their feeds. As a lanky, unfit, fried-potato-loving guy who can’t handle the Dixon Street steps, I probably won’t be at the Olympics any time soon; I’m not getting asked about these questions because of my sporting prowess.

Put simply, I am fucking tired of dealing with transphobic questions and comments masked as a concern for women and the fairness of sport by people who have never once given a shit about these issues until now. I am not saying that people shouldn’t be able to ask questions surrounding trans athletes, but rather than the way in which these questions are almost always posed are from an inherently transphobic and ignorant perspective.

NewsRecap:

Trans people competing in sport is not a new ‘issue’, Hubbard isn’t even the first trans athlete to compete in the Olympics (despite what so many media headlines may have you believe), that title goes to the non-binary Canadian midfielder, Quinn. Trans athletes have just had to fight much longer and harder to be allowed to compete. So, now we’re finally starting to see the very first steps of equality for trans athletes (and holy shit have we got a long way to go), all I’m asking is for people not to be dicks.

Nurses announce further industrial action, DHBs take legal action

Team NZ have scored gold in the women’s Rugby Sevens, as well as silver in the men’s. Lisa Carrington became the first New Zealander to secure three gold medals in the same event, and has become the country’s most decorated Olympian. The men’s eight rowing team secured a gold medal, while the women’s team took home silver. Valerie Adams and Jack Walsh both individually won bronze in shot put.

The Nurses’ Organisation, the union for nurses in Aotearoa, announced last week they will be striking again on Friday, 19 August. The strike, which comes after nurses declined the DHB’s offer due to a lack of guaranteed safe staffing levels, will involve around 30,000 nurses. It will not include MIQ nurses, and life-preserving staff will remain in all hospitals. The DHBs are taking nurses to the Employment Court after they allegedly did not do enough to maintain safe staffing levels during their last strike. NZNO describe this legal action as a “tactic” which “won’t help the relationship”.

Te Papa ‘suspicious package’ not suspicious

Wellington Free Ambulance staff announce strike

Olympic medal update

On July 29, hundreds were evacuated from the museum as a precaution after the discovery of a suspicious package, while the package was investigated. It was quickly discovered to be harmless.

Government formally apologise for 1970s Dawn Raids

On August 1, Jacinda Ardern formally apologised for the Dawn Raids on behalf of the Government during a threeand-a-half-hour long ceremony at Tāmaki Makaurau’s Town Hall. During the ceremony, Ardern performed the ifoga, a Sāmoan custom of asking for forgiveness for a crime or injustice. HRH Princess Mele Siu’ilikutapu Kalaniuvalu Fotofili of Tonga described the apology as a move in the right direction. Polynesian Panthers member Reverend Alex Toleafoa described a need for better knowledge about this area of Pasifika history.

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As of Friday, 13 August, paramedics will not be logging their arrivals to emergency situations. This comes after WorkSafe issued a ‘fix-it’ notice to the ambulance service over worker fatigue, suggesting changes to how rosters are organised. However, paramedics say rostering is not the issue at hand—exhaustion and emotional strain due to insufficient staffing levels is.

The Pōneke Collective for Public Transport Equity present to GWRC

On Thursday August 3rd, the Pōneke Collective for Public Transport Equity presented to the Greater Wellington Regional Council. The group is “a coalition of over 40 organisations led by the values of equity, accessibility and community.” including VUWSA, MAWSA and NZUSA. They have asked the GWRC to work with the Minister of Transport on doing a trial of free public transport for students and community service card holders.

Tweets of the Week

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Vic Books Illustrated

Words and illustrations by Ronia Ibrahim (she/her) There’s something about Vic Books that has led me to associate it with several things, including but not limited to: blossoming friendships, the sound of a coffee machine, and the ideal meet-cute location. The café opens bright and early at 7:45 a.m. and is immediately busy, with the sound of the coffee machine and baristas yelling out various names. It’s fast paced yet comforting, with the aura of literature, coffee beans, and chatter lingering in the air.

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Feature : The Proof is in the Potty

Personally I am not a coffee person, and the hot chocolates here are pretty abysmal, but I am always in awe (and slight disbelief) of the cabinet selection. There is an abundance of fancy foods, from bulging baguettes to stacked slices and adorable biscuits. What always wins my heart though, is the humble, muesli-bar esque “Anzac Slice”—a crumbly, oaty, spiced slice drizzled in dark chocolate that literally always makes me feel better when I’m having a stressful day.

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Sitting at Vic Books can potentially be a difficult ordeal. It’s always packed, and the high chairs are uncomfortably high so you’re constantly shuffling or dangling. People don’t usually stay for long, often dashing off with their coffee to-go, or only ducking in for a quick meeting. Occasionally, you can get a comfy seat at the round tables, which are right in the middle of the café. These give you the fullest experience of Vic Books, surrounded by books, the sound of coffee, and diverse chatter. Those who stay do so to study, have a DMC, or if you’re like me, people watch/sketch (while trying my hardest to appear aloof).

The snippets of conversation and people I record reflect the hub-like nature of Vic Books.

There are a diverse mix of customers ranging from that lecturer you’re trying to avoid, to sleepy science students. A couple of flatmates discuss what to cook for dinner. Two older women (who seemed suspicious of my not-so-subtle eavesdropping) are exchanging lecture notes, and I accidentally make eye contact with someone over their mug. You learn a lot about people and the way cafés provide some sort of natural climate for social interaction.

The serving sizes here are generous, and (apparently) the coffee is top notch, (although I have heard a controversial take from one of my coffee connoisseur friends that it tastes like dirt). The ordering and collecting system is admittedly a little stressful, having to be halfway invested in your conversation in order to listen out for your name, but the baristas are chill and everyone seems to get what’s theirs eventually. It’s flu season, so I decided to try the lemon honey ginger drink, which I think is about five bucks. It comes in a pretty big glass, artfully wrapped with a Vic Books napkin, containing a warm and comforting drink with almost half a ginger root swimming in the middle. It’s decent and lovely.

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Feature : The Proof is in the Potty

It is an excellent place to congregate for fuel, pick up a book, or just sit in the warm glow. Over the past three years of my tertiary life, I have come to cherish that in the unofficial mental guide to Being an Adult, if someone asks you to grab coffee, it also means “I want to be your friend”.

Wherever you like to create friendships over caffeinated drinks, I reckon Vic Books is an iconic place. Situated in a beautiful bookshop, this cafe never fails to bring me some sense of comfort.

I have many warm memories of sitting here to catch up with a friend or lecturer, bumping into lovely people, or wandering in to take time out for myself after a hard day. In this tumultuous world of studenthood, life is too short to not romanticise Vic Books.

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Cultures of Fermenting Shanti Mathias (she/her)

“At the moment I’m trying to grow mould in my flat […] unfortunately it’s white mould so it doesn’t grow as well as the black stuff we’ve got on our windowsills”, James Morgan tells me. James, a student at Otago in Ōtepoti, is an avid fermenter, which, he tells me ruefully, gives people “great roasting ammunition towards me”. This is his fourth batch of white mould, and he’s hopeful that this will be the one that works, because not all of his experiments do.

“There have been a few attempts that haven’t gone as well as the others”, he explains. “You’re working with these things that have their own agenda, trying to grow them in a way that you can benefit from it too.” This is fermentation. Experimentation. Flavour.

Mistakes. Reward.

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Feature : Cultures of Fermenting

Fermentation might seem like something new; certainly the commercial value of explicitly fermented products has increased drastically in the last decade.

Kombucha, a kind of fermented tea, is a valuable industry—New Zealanders bought $27.4 million dollars of it in the year to June 2021. A MBIE report from 2015 calls yoghurt (fermented milk) a “growth star” of the dairy export industry, predicting exports will grow 27% by 2025. More broadly, learning home fermentation is popular too: It’s Alive with Brad, a Bon Appetit (yes, that accused-of-racism Bon Appetit) series on YouTube that teaches people how to ferment has hundreds of thousands of views on each video.

But it’s not just ‘health food’ products like kombucha, yoghurt, and kefir that are fermented. All alcohol is made by a process of fermentation; fermented beverages are worth more than $700 billion USD worldwide. Cheese is fermented. Cacao beans are fermented. Soy sauce is fermented. Tofu, yoghurt, ginger beer, kimchi, sourdough: all fermented, processed by the metabolic action of microbes. Most days, you probably eat something that was at least partially made by microbes.

The contemporary trend of fermented products is marketed as Pākehā, even though many popular fermented products come from non-European cultures. Most companies selling kombucha do not acknowledge its Chinese origin; so too for kefir and Central Asia, sauerkraut and Germany, chocolate and Mesoamerica. The people making money from these long traditions of experimentation and expertise are largely not connected to the cultures that initially produced the food.

The recent commercial popularity of fermented products did not come out of nowhere. Fermentation is an ancient and global phenomenon; most cultures have traditional food that is fermented. Dr Amir Sayadabdi is a lecturer in Anthropology at Victoria University, with a specialisation in food cultures. He says that there is “a great deal of archaeological evidence from the Fertile Crescent, Babylon, Egypt, and Mesopotamia” proving that fermentation has been carried out for at least 8000 years. To consume a fermented product is to enter into an ancient relationship between people and microbes, carried across borders and generations.

When considering fermentation, it’s important to remember that the air is alive, and that that life can be tamed. Wild yeast—the kind that ferments sourdough or apple cider vinegar—can be captured and tamed with water and sugar or flour, an ideal environment for the microbes to live. Other fermentation is harder to begin at home, and requires a live culture shared from others. James, for instance, was given a cutting of a friend’s kombucha SCOBY, which stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.

As living things, fermentation cultures need to be taken care of. On TradeMe kefir grains are sold in both the “lifestyle” and, hilariously, the “pets” Fermentation has particular advantages for those categories—a pack will cost about $10. They are wanting to preserve food. It can make food last longer, a kind of pet, a living being that needs food and a make more nutrients available (as the live cultures do friendly environment, and will reward you with, if some of the work of digestion), and makes food taste not cuddles, at least something good to eat. The better. Sayadabdi says that it is Western appreciation microbes might be domesticated, trained to eat the of the health benefits of fermentation that is recent. milk or sugar that you give them, but they still have a “If one is willing (or able) to look closely enough at will of their own. non-English/non-Western sources [you will] find that people from different regions and different cultures “We rely on the yeast”, Mika Hervel tells me. A first were well aware of the health benefits of fermented year Law and Politics student (and my flatmate), foods well before the advent of nutrition science.”

Mika and his friend George Burgess started brewing their own beer when they moved to Wellington. The To the commercial outlets that sell fermented yeast they use to make beer is alive, and that means products, especially products which still have living that they don’t know how it will react. “In winter, it microbes in them, their nutritional benefits are one has taken us three times as long [to brew]”, George of the main parts of their appeal. As I researched this says. “It’s a little bit symbiotic […] we’re living with this article, I browsed websites selling kombucha, kefir, yeast.” Working with other living things to prepare yoghurt, and sourdough. Skinny white people with food makes results unpredictable. lustrous hair stretch in the sun as the website text explains the importance of bacteria to gut health, For Hwajin Sahng, my friend Jenny’s mother*, making suggesting that fermented food is easier and better kimchi, traditional Korean spicy fermented cabbage, to digest. The living things in fermented products are is a way of life. Kimchi making is not exact, but it integral to their marketing. Dr Sayadabdi sees the rise is taught—Hwajin learned how to ferment with her in the popularity of fermented products as linked to mother, who taught her the intuition necessary for a diet and health trends. “Products like kefir can often good end result. “My learning comes from the cooking contain twice as many bacterial strains as yogurts, so process, tasting as we go and asking my mother, who they’re considered ‘double healthy,’ and thus trendier”, is in her eighties, lots of questions.” She still calls her he says. mother who is in her eighties, for advice. www.salient.org.nz

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Because the culture of microbes has to be passed from person to person, fermenting necessitates interacting with others. Hwajin has previously taught kimchi workshops in Christchurch. She says there was “little awareness or knowledge” in the people she taught how to make kimchi. To beginners, the process of learning from taste is difficult, but it can accommodate the variety of results that the bacteria produce. “We make it by taste and feel. That’s why every household has a slightly different flavour or method.” In Korean, Hwajin says this is called “sonmat” (손맛), which literally translates to “taste of the hand”.

Hwajin attributes the increasing popularity of kimchi to health food trends and the hallyu (or Korean wave), where Korean pop culture has become known to devoted global fans. This has changed through her lifetime. “When we first moved to NZ it was hard to find ingredients to make kimchi [...] but now you can buy them ready-made.”

When microbes find a good home, they thrive. They grow and replicate, making more of themselves each time. This process of replication is echoed at a different scale by human enthusiasm about fermentation, the tendency of a culture to spread between friends and family. Mika, as a second generation German immigrant, has a great deal of beer appreciation in his family history, but he attributes his enjoyment of brewing to growing up in Nelson, where home and commercial brewing have become increasingly common.

Kimchi making was also social for Hwajin. “Kimchimaking (“kimjang”) in autumn is a family event.

Everyone arrives with their contribution of ingredients, and spends the day making a huge batch Mika and George were taught to brew by Bailey, their youth leader at church, who also gave them the of kimchi to last through the winter. It usually takes two days and by the end, everyone takes a share of equipment to get started. The learning is mutual; Mika and George still call Bailey when they’re brewing. the kimchi home.” “‘We tell him what we’re doing, he tells us what he’s For George and Mika, fermenting beer together has doing”, George says; the knowledge and expertise become part of their friendship. “It’s a great thing to spreads like bubbles on top of a barrel. do together, it has a great end product, and we just drink beer while we make it, so it’s a never ending Fermentation takes time, days or weeks or months, cycle”, George tells me. Once they’ve bottled the beer, and that time is social. Saydabdi remembers seeing it leads to more friendships: homebrew is shared with this as he grew up. “Every winter my grandmother would gather her friends in her house which had this others, leading to more conversations, and feedback huge yard, and in this yard they would make different for further experimentation. sorts of pickles together... During these collective preparations, bonds were strengthened, stories were As fermentation has become more popular, stereotypes of the home fermenter have developed. told, knowledge was transferred, struggles were The “lockdown sourdough” person, caring for yeast shared and solutions and help were offered.” in a jar in a dearth of friends. The “beer bro”, who will

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Feature : Cultures of Fermenting

Over the COVID-19 lockdowns last year, many people started making and talking about sourdough bread.

James was one of them. So was I. “You get attached to [the sourdough starter], you see it growing, it makes such nice bread, you have to part ways with it, and it’s like… oh no”, says James, whose starter died due to neglect.

What about fermentation makes it so easy to talk about? Hwajin compares it to baking: the measures are not exact, and the results in flavour can vary (deliciously). In the uncertainty of results, conversations with other people guide fermenting.

James loves to talk to people about fermenting, but finds that “people switch off a bit”. His flatmates have got used to the jars in cupboards and on benches, but it’s been a “negotiation” for fridge space, given that his flatmates will only eat fermented products if he hides it in their food.

To the uninitiated, the obsessive quality of fermenting is difficult to grasp, but once it’s part of your life, it’s hard to escape. Since a friend gave me a sourdough starter two years ago, I’ve been a person who regularly ferments yoghurt, sourdough, and kefir; worse, I have a list of “future fermentation projects” on my phone, and find myself being unironically interested in a friend’s dad’s sauerkraut evangelism.

talk your ear off about hoppiness and maltiness, as if you can taste anything but beer. The “fermented vegetables aunt”, known for terrorising airport security with her mystery pressurised jars (that last one might just be unique to me). “I guess there’s a stereotype of these mad people running around brewing beer and making sourdough and stuff”, James says.

Everything we ever eat depends on the bodies of other living beings, but that life can easily be concealed by industrial processes: plastic packets, Instagram marketing, the sheen of a SALE in a world that has become nothing by fluorescent-lit aisles.

Perhaps fermenters are annoying and obsessive because their craft reminds them that food can still be alive. *This interview was conducted in Korean and translated by Hwajin’s daughters

www.salient.org.nz

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Indian Spices Starter Kit

Garam masala

Coriander & cumin powder

Jyoti Gosavi (she/her) & Janhavi Gosavi (she/her)

So you want to get into authentic Indian cooking, but you have no idea where to start? Mum and I have got your back. We present to you our Indian spices starter kit. A breakdown of the pantry essentials you need to cook up a South Asian storm.

Investing in a wide array of spices may seem like a big commitment, but that’s exactly how Indian households function. We don’t buy small quantities of a certain spice for a specific dish. Instead, they are all available on hand as staples, and different combinations form the bases to most dishes.

Red chilli We hope that by demystifying the world of spices, you will feel equipped to take on all sorts of Indian recipes.

The following spices will form a strong and versatile foundation for Indian cooking. Once you get familiar with them, you can experiment with a wider variety to build your pantry around your personal taste.

Masala Dabba:

Translating to “spice container”, the masala dabba is found in every Indian home and holds the most frequently used spices. Here are your go-to essentials: Turmeric powder: colours your food with a beautiful yellow hue Red chilli powder: the only ‘spicy’ spice in the dabba, it gives your food that beloved heat Garam masala: translating to “warm spices”, it has a complex flavour because it is a mix of many different spices Coriander & cumin powder: a convenient combination of roasted coriander and cumin

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Feature : Indian Spice Starter Kit

powder

Turmeric powder

Asafoetida powder

Black mustard seeds: these pop in the pan to release their nutty flavour Cumin seeds: they have an earthy flavour when tempered in oil Asafoetida powder (optional): this has a sulfuric smell and can taste bitter. While it is often found in masala dabbas, it is an acquired taste so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for beginners For example, the spices you need temper in oil to make a basic daal are: Turmeric Chilli powder Mustard seeds Cumin seeds

Fresh Essentials:

Once you’ve assembled your basic dry masalas, it’s time to gather some fresh essentials. These add depth and elevate your dishes.

Ginger & garlic paste: found together in a jar, this is another convenient combination Cumin seeds

For example, you can use these fresh essentials to elevate your daal: Green chillies (use instead of the chilli powder) Ginger & garlic paste (add in the tempering stage) Curry leaves (add in the tempering stage) Canned tomatoes (to give your daal dimension once spices are tempered) Coriander (to garnish with before serving)

Curry leaves: often used in daals, they add a subtle citrus-y flavour Fresh coriander leaves: can be used to garnish dishes Fresh green chillies: another way to inject some heat into your food

Aromatics:

If you want your masala collection to smell as good as it tastes, branch out and get your hands on some aromatics.

- Bay leaves - Whole green cardamom pods (for sweet dishes) Wattie’s Indian Style tomato cans: these tomatoes - Whole black cardamom (for savoury dishes) come pre-chopped and are already infused with - Cloves Indian flavours. Trust me, this is a life hack my - Cinnamon sticks parents swear by.

Cooking meat: Mum needs you to understand There’s a misconception that all Indian families cook it is crucial to marinate meat before you cook it. everything from scratch, and that Indian food cannot Combine the spice mix with some yoghurt, coat your meat with it, and leave it covered. Even half an hour be convenient. Mum uses these ready-made spice makes a world of difference to the end result! mixes all the time because they’re quick, easy, and they taste authentic. I recommend these mixes for students because they are very cheap and will taste Mum’s favourite brands: for wet spice mixes, Mum Black mustard recommends Mother’s Recipe and Rasoi Magic. For infinitely better than any ready-made sauce from seeds dry mixes, she recommends Shaan. These brands Countdown. are readily available at most Indian spice stores, and their mixes are super affordable.

From meat dishes like chicken biryani and vindaloo, to vegetarian dishes like paneer kadai and pav bhaji, there’s a mix for everything. The instructions on the back are often in English and are super easy to follow, Where can I buy these spices?

Here are Mum’s top recommendations for spice but you can use these mixes however you see fit. stores in Wellington: Types of mixes: there are dry powders and wet pastes. Dry mixes can be used over a long period of Yogiji’s Food Mart (Petone) time as they won’t spoil easily, and are mostly used Manga The Foodstore (Newtown) The Spice Rack (Petone) for vegetable subzis. Wet mixes have a shorter life Narayan Spices N Foods (Lower Hutt and span once open and are mostly used for curries.

Newlands) If you’re a chai enthusiast, you can even find chai spice mixes to add to your tea when it’s boiling on There are new Indian spice stores cropping up the stove. all over the city, so look up your nearest one for Photo: Mother’s Recipe convenience. If you’re in a pinch, mainstream supermarkets also sell selected whole spices.

Ready-Made Spice Mixes:

Pro tips:

- Spices and mixes may have a heat level written on them: mild, medium, or hot. Buy spices that cater to your tolerance; e.g. instead of omitting chilli powder from a recipe completely, you can purchase a mild or medium chilli powder.

- When in doubt, ask for help! The staff at the store will be happy to lend a hand, as will the experienced shoppers around you. www.salient.org.nz

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Frankie Dale (she/her)

Sex and dating advice from Wellington’s rankest, pessimistic, anxious, and most dramatic woman.

Look out for ur sexual health Recklessly feigning my body to anyone who looks in my direction has its perks, like a lifetime of tragic stories, miscellaneous socks/boxers in the bottom of my drawers, and the knowledge that a lot of one night stands and/or sexual partners don’t give a fuck about your sexual health. It’s a weird feeling lying naked with someone and thinking, does this person I’m sleeping with actually care about my sexual health? Are they obliged to?

We hear horror stories about people waking up with herpes after sleeping with your friend’s cousin or your co-worker; people we know and trust. “Nah—we don’t need to use a condom, I’m clean” is a line I’ve heard hundreds of times, which I naively believe, every single time. Or, my favourite line ever: “I only sleep with hygienic people”. We can never forget the time a guy said to me he just simply “doesn’t believe” in condoms—an atheist of sorts?

If someone is pressuring you to not use protection, chances are, this isn’t the first time. Chances are they are yarning the same shit to other sexual partners, meaning they are having unprotected sex often, meaning they are higher risk. My ex begged me to have sex without a condom claiming he had boned five people in his lifetime, all with protection. Was an awesome day when I found out he had boned over 50 people, mostly without protection… really wish I knew that before we started doing butt stuff.

The thing is, I think a lot of people we are sleeping with don’t care about our sexual health, and I guess in a way, apart from just human decency—why would they be obliged to?

I am in no way pointing my finger at people who don’t use condoms or any of that—I am also speaking to myself here. Being safe isn’t exactly fun or exciting (especially when I am strictly attracted to misogynists).

So, what’s the catch here?

All I’m saying is, life is a lot more pleasant when I’m not having to google “what does orangey, greyish Whenever I have sex with someone new, there is this discharge mean” or being spread eagle over my five second period where everything flashes before flatmates full length mirror to look for any signs. There my eyes, and I question my identity completely. “Do is no stigma in catching an STI, and it’s not your fault we have to use a condom, it just feels so much better at any stretch. But, if we are having conversations with without one?” is typically how I am thwarted out of my our sexual partners that last more than 0.4 seconds identity. All throughout high school and into my adult about if they wear protection or not, they probably life I would always say “umm idk it’s up to you I don’t don’t deserve to kiss your gorgeous head. Speaking mind” when I really fucking do mind! Of course I want to from experience, it’s fucking hard to speak up in that use a condom; I don’t know where your slug penis has moment when things are getting heated up, but we been but 9 times out of 10, I will deny this to be true—is have to look out for our sexual health. it so I’ll be considered sexy? Careless and free; both words I would never use to describe my anxious ass.

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Column : To Be Frank / Rice to Meet You

Hi! We’re Anoushka and Laurelei and it’s Rice To Meet You. From dating, to pronouncing ethnic names, to racial imposter syndrome, we’re Salient’s resident Asian aunties giving completely unsolicited (but somewhat sage) advice.

Climate Change and Colonisation The world we reside in sucks butt. Climate change and racism are two of the biggest issues that ourselves and future generations are faced with fighting. But these aren’t really multiple different problems that have cropped up independently, they are interconnected.

What I often think about are some of the things that have exacerbated racism in our society. Even today, many people look back on colonisation as a positive thing.

They’re grateful for the progress that society has made, thanks to the white man taking control. After all, the civilisation we live in could have never been achieved if natives were left to their own devices, right? Colonists forced their way into the land of others with a saviour complex, skewing the perception of the kind of impact colonisation really had. There are still (too) many people who believe that colonisation brought civilisation, and scientific, social, and technological progress. But the way I see it is that this progress is only able to be enjoyed by some. Countries like India were leagues ahead of European countries, but post-colonisation left India completely destroyed. Colonisation created inter-religious tensions, riots, violence, and of course having been looted of $45 trillion, India was left with nothing to build itself up. So yeah. Colonialism did build societies around the world, but let’s not forget the ones that it destroyed.

How does this colonisation rant relate to climate change?

European countries made a lot of progress through the industrial revolution. This technological advancement was life-changing for human achievement. So now with coal in hand, Europeans were able to advance and improve living standards for everyone. But where did this leave countries like India? Absolutely broke, with no resources to improve their own living standards. In the meantime, European countries burned coal like there was no tomorrow, which brings us to the present day, where the end of the world looms if we don’t take climate action now.

But one argument that consistently pops up is that India needs to cut down on emissions, being one of the largest polluters in the world. There is no doubt that India has one of the highest rates of CO2 emissions in the world, but why is that? It’s because after being fucked over by the British for 400 years, the country needed to get back on its feet.

Production of goods is one of the biggest ways a country can do this.

So the way I see it is that Europeans think they have an inherent right to do whatever they want, and cause generational harm for the countries they colonise in the process. But faced with a climate issue that they created, it’s time to giddy up the high horse, because it’s “blame the countries we screwed over” o’clock.

I don’t think it’s fair to hold a country like India as primarily responsible for cutting down emissions. I think that after experiencing centuries of unspeakable damage, they deserve a chance to rebuild. I do think that European countries need to get their act together and rectify the damage they’ve caused. Their societal progress has come from burning fossil fuels for centuries, all the while looting other countries. Coloniser countries need to take responsibility and carry the burden of cutting down emissions before they point their finger at countries that they’ve run into the ground.

So before shaking your fist like a grumpy old man at a country like India, we need to think about how we got to this point. We can’t ignore the generational impacts that colonisation had on India, and we also can’t place the burden on them for saving the world. Awareness of these links is integral to creating change in a manner that is ^fair

Anoushka Divekar (she/her)

www.salient.org.nz

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Manawa Ora Student Wellbeing Janhavi Gosavi (she/her)

Te Whare Tapa Whā Te Whare Tapa Whā is a Māori health model which holistically assesses your wellbeing. It is made up of four aspects of health: physical, psychological, spiritual, and family. First developed in 1982 by Dr Mason Durie, these aspects can be conceptualised as the four walls that hold up your symbolic wharenui.

I had been aware of the model for many years, but I had no idea how to apply it to my own life in a way that would help me. That was until I was introduced to this resource

by Herewini Easton, who is a Kaiārahi Ako Learning Advisor Māori at Te Taiako Student Learning. Herewini explained that all students needed to do was sit down for a few minutes and highlight the boxes according to how they normally spent their week. This resource would then make it clear which aspects of their wellbeing were well supported, and which needed more attention. Personally, this resource helped me realise that while I spent a lot of time on my hinengaro, I needed to focus more on my tinana. Come grab a copy of this resource from The Bubble, and find out how you can better support your wellbeing!

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Column : :Manawa Ora / DSA / VUWSA Columns TBF / R2MY

Disabled Students Association

Find something that allows you to just be Alice Mander (she/her)

When you spend your days raging against systemic ableism and structural oppression, it’s rare that you get moments when you feel like you’ve actually accomplished something. With your hours spent in meetings, policy discussions, and responding to complaints from people who should be your allies, it is hard to recognise any of the small “wins” your work achieves on the daily. Mix that feeling with a bit of imposter syndrome—a sense that you’re never actually doing enough. Sprinkle on top of that your own disabilities and mental health challenges. Very quickly everything becomes overwhelming, pointless, and you want to run away and find a cottage in the middle of a forest and bake bread.

I got into cooking in my late teens, mainly out of necessity while preparing to go flatting. I wasn’t very good at it, having been banished from the kitchen by my mother as a child because I was annoying and clumsy.

However, I quickly fell in love. While cutting vegetables,

In the words of the great Macka B, “Health is Wealth”, and nothing quite impacts on our health like food. We just can’t live without it. It’s the one thing we all need.

It comes in all shapes and sizes. Fruit and veggies help keep our body and brain running smoothly. $2 mi goreng and Blue V push us through those late-night study grinds. Post-town kebabs sober us up, and morning toast keeps us on the go. All food, all delicious. But, most importantly, all costs money.

As a student, we’re constantly forced to make difficult sacrifices as to where we should put our leftover StudyLink (if any), post-rent. Sometimes, the sacrifice we have to make comes in the form of our breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We end up having to choose cheap, unhealthy food over some good nutritious meals, or not eating at all.

Luckily, if you ever find yourself in such a spot, VUWSA have you covered. Come through to our VUWSA offices,

the only thing I needed to think about was making sure my carrot sticks were all the same size. While kneading the dough, all I had to consider was how much pressure I applied. While stirring the pot, all I had to balance was the salt to pepper ratio instead of my own life.

Maybe it’s simply having a couple of hours spent indulging in yourself, and knowing that you and your loved ones are fed and warm. Maybe it’s making something with your hands, something university students rarely get to do. Or maybe there’s just something about sharing a meal that you’ve prepared with your whanau.

If there is one piece of ‘self-care’ advice I could give it would be this: it’s important to find something that takes you out of your usual schedule and habit for long term and monumental thinking. Whether it is cooking, coffee making, or something else entirely, find something that allows you to just be for an hour.

on Student Union Building Level 4, and pick up a food parcel from our Community Pantry. This service is available to any student in need of a little bit of food to last them through the week. It contains all sorts of nonperishables and has vegetarian options. The best part is, it’s absolutely free! So come on through and pick one up if you’re in need.

If you want some more free kai, every Friday kaibosh drops off unused food from major supermarkets and food businesses around Wellington outside of our VUWSA office. There are usually boxfuls of food, all free to take home for yourself and your very grateful flatmates.

Hopefully this helps to reduce the stress on you and your wallet, and keep you all fueled up to smash those studies.

Love, VUWSA www.salient.org.nz www.salient.org.nz

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The Stomach-Mind Connection: The Importance of Nutrition, Mindfulness and Exercise to Reduce Stress Brought to you by Nigel Sutcliffe, a counsellor based in the Wellington CBD. Please note: these are some tips about managing stress and related symptoms.

They are not a substitute for medical help or counselling.

Stomach health is often overlooked or not considered when it comes to our mental wellbeing—after all, your stomach is nowhere near your brain! But it may surprise you to learn that your stomach is accountable for more than just processing what we eat and drink daily.

Why is the stomach so important?

In recent resources in this field, it is said that the stomach is our “second brain”. This “second brain” is lined with 100 million nerve cells and produces 90 percent of the body’s chemical messengers responsible for modulating mood.

Your gut also has what is called a microbiome, a collection of trillions of microorganisms, each influencing functions that are crucial to your health and wellbeing.

So how does your belly talk to the mind?

It is the stomach’s direct connection to the brain that gives it the “second brain” nickname. The gut and the brain are in constant communication with each other, connecting via the vagus nerve, also known as the “gut-brain axis”.

As an example, unmanaged stress in the long-term can affect your gut health. It becomes a vicious cycle that can wear down your physical and mental wellbeing. But a few simple lifestyle changes can make a big difference.

Many people may not realise that serotonin, one of the main chemicals found in your brain that contributes to happiness and wellbeing, is primarily produced in your gut. Serotonin helps influence physical and psychological functions, including mood, social behaviour, appetite, digestion, sleep, memory, and sexual desire.

Studies have shown that altered gut microbes have a direct influence on the levels of serotonin produced. Not enough serotonin can adversely alter mood and behaviour.

Low levels of serotonin in the brain may cause depression, anxiety, and sleep trouble. The foundation of melatonin is serotonin, a neurotransmitter that originates from the amino acid tryptophan.

Within the pineal gland, serotonin is acetylated and then methylated to yield melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone largely emitted by the pineal gland at night, and has long been linked with control of the sleep-wake cycle.

This axis forms a two-way link between your central nervous system and your enteric nervous system. Along this pathway, messages are conveyed from the depths of your gastric tract up to the highest sections of your brain.

Since your gut and brain are constantly sending messages to each other via this pathway, if one is languishing, so will the other.

So, what can help? Nutrition, Mindfulness, and Exercise Nutrition: Nutrition plays a key role in helping your body to manage and reduce the effects of long-term stress. The right nutrition can support your physical health, which has a direct impact on your mental wellbeing. While it can be hard to care about your nutrient intake when you’re struggling, simply becoming more mindful of the food you’re eating can be a huge help to the way you think and feel.

So, what does that mean for my mental wellbeing?

Well, it means that with both systems working together closely, it’s impossible to separate your mental wellbeing from your physical wellbeing. Stress and anxiety can affect your gut, and vice versa, the health of your gut can affect your mind.

There are some common nutrient weaknesses that can appear during times of stress. To help alleviate these, it is important to keep up the right nutrients to refuel and support your body.

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Stomach-Mind Connection

Improves mood: mindfulness training may reduce depression and anxiety. One study found that it was as effective as antidepressant medications in preventing a depression relapse.

Reduces stress and its consequences: mindfulness can lead to less intense stress responses. This has many health benefits, such as lowering your blood pressure and strengthening your immune system.

Improves coping with pain: people with chronic pain who practice mindfulness meditation report less severe pain and pain-related distress. They are also more active in spite of their pain.

Vitamin C: add tomatoes, kiwi fruits, berries, citrus fruits, broccoli, cauliflower, and my least favourite—brussel sprouts, to your diet.

B Vitamins: seeds, nuts, leafy greens, legumes. B Vitamins are found mostly in animal products (eggs, dairy, and meat) but can be supplemented with Vitamin B tablets daily.

Magnesium: add more green leaf vegetables to your diet, such as spinach, as well as legumes, dark chocolate, some fruits such as avocado, and whole grains including quinoa.

Zinc: some foods that contain high levels of zinc include red meats, shellfish, legumes, seeds, nuts, whole grains, and eggs.

Omega-3: Seafood, anchovies, sardines, salmon, and most fish. Also, walnuts, hemp, and up to four to six fish oil [or vegan algal oil] capsules daily.

Mindfulness: Practicing mindfulness can help you lower your stress levels. As we have read above, the gut and brain communicate. So, when digestion is disturbed, the gut-brain communicates distress to the brain. Mindfulness has been studied for many years. According to recent research, it has several benefits for physical and mental health. Some of the strongest health benefits include:

Improves brain functions: practicing mindfulness helps build your ability to pay attention and focus. Over time, this training can sharpen memory and improve mental performance.

Exercise: Exercise in almost any form can act as a stress reliever. Being active can boost your feel-good endorphins and distract you from daily worries. Exercise increases your overall health and your sense of well-being, which puts more pep in your step every day. But exercise also has some direct stress-busting benefits: Physical activity may help bump up the production of your brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins.

Exercise can provide stress relief for your body while imitating effects of stress, such as the fight or flight response. This helps your body and its systems practice working together through those responses. This can also lead to positive effects in your body—including your cardiovascular, digestive, and immune systems—by helping protect your body from harmful effects of stress.

Regular exercise can increase self-confidence, improve your mood, help you relax, and lower symptoms of mild depression and anxiety. Exercise can also improve your sleep, which is often disrupted by stress, depression, and anxiety.

BUY ONE GET ONE FREE @

VINTAGE CLOTHING IMPORTERS

164 CUBA STREET www.salient.org.nz 29

Ultimate guide to $10 jugs in Wellington.

This week we’re tucking into the grand finale $10 Jug review. It’s been a great journey, it’s been a trip. We here at $10 jugs support the idea of responsible drinking, with friends at a pub—supporting local businesses, especially those who still provide $10 jugs. We travelled far and wide.

Here, we present our findings, with an auspicious presentation.

Note: these are the $10 jugs we have reviewed in Wellington’s CBD in the column $10 Jugs

The Hunter Lounge

SaMick

Our local, the old trustee, the student bar of Victoria University. With great music, a great location, and a great beer on tap. This is the perfect place to have your post-lecture beer. On a Friday, when the working week is done, they’ve got 2 for 1 margarita pizzas which are pretty bloody good. There are endless events happening here and they offer pool and chess.

You can even get married here. One of us wonders why they don’t go here more often, and very sensibly answers that it’s because they drives to uni.

Upon our return here, we discovered that the beer in their $10 jug can change. First time, it was a Hazy Pale Ale, and on our second trip it was another Boundary Road brew—The Chosen One Golden Lager. Weighing in at 5%, this is one of the best golden lagers that we’ve ever wrapped our lips around. With very, very tasty wedges, good music, and good vibes, this is the perfect location to go before crossing the road to Eyegum at San Fran on a Wednesday night.

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$10 jug guide

Blend Bar

The Grand

Underrated for sure. Before setting out on a $10 Jug expedition we had never heard of this place. Blend is often lacking the bustling atmosphere of other pubs thanks to it being relatively unheard of, but that doesn’t take away from its great beer offers. With a $10 Mac’s Gold jug during their 5-7 p.m. happy hour, and a jug of “Blends Own Strange Brew” at any time of the day or night, this is a valuable beer connoisseur’s dream. Tunes are varied between sadboi hours and classic bangers, but the nostalgia of all of their music is undeniable—the accompanying music videos that are always playing are great for conversation.

With tall chairs, a nice brick walled interior, and Tui or Export Gold for $10, this is hard to pass. It’s right next to a bus stop on Courtney Place, which means you can pop in for a quick one when you have a mate visiting for lunch. With stone grills on offer for cooking your meat, it makes you feel like you’ve transported to getting lunch with Grandma in West Auckland, which us at $10 jugs can attest to being one of the best feelings ever.

JJ Murphy’s A Wellington classic. The reviews of here from our mates have been very mixed, but it’s impossible to deny the classic pub feel that this place gives off. It was the first location we reviewed; we liked it, we just go there a lot less now. We’d recommend Export Gold (with a dash of raspberry syrup if you’re feeling adventurous), but there’s also Tui if that’s more your thing.

Salient Lager D4 on Allen Wooah woooah, evacuate the D4. It’s a decent $10 jug of Wild Buck. One of us has been on a date here and believes the chips are pretty decent too. Nice modern Irishy type of vibe. The jug is available Wednesday to Saturday according to their website, but we’ve sent peer reviewers down who have said it’s also been shut on a Wednesday night as well.

Salient’s $10 Jug In the build up to the Salient pizza being available at the Hunter Lounge this week, we were given an early taste of the Salient Lager. We’ll be firm and frank and quite honestly earnest with you, our fellow $10 jug consumer, this one tastes an awful lot like Castlepoint lager. It’s really really nice, and our favourite $10 jug of the year #AD #SPONSORED

We’ve imparted beer knowledge, but before we go there are a few facts we want to make sure you know: The first woman to own a brewery in New Zealand was Mary Jane Innes at the Innes Family Waikato Brewery (original brewers of Waikato Draught) James Speight of Speights was a salesman and not a brewer Lion Brown was established as Wellington’s regional beer. Despite us being anti-crate day, this may be a helpful fact for those trying to do ‘crate of origin’ this year The reason there is green and red on the Warriors rugby league jersey is because their original jersey sponsor was DB Bitter beer. The reason for the white and blue is because they are Auckland based.

Liquorland is owned by Foodstuffs (New World/PAK’nSAVE/Four Square) 293 million litres of beer were available for domestic consumption in New Zealand in 2020, according to Stats NZ

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Review

Music

Clap Clap Riot: “It’s Alright” Oliver Cheyne (he/him)

In their first release since 2017’s Dull Life, Tāmaki Makaurau’s Clap Clap Riot (CCR) have returned with a bang. “It’s Alright” marks the first drop from the five piece in what is shaping up to be a cracking few months for fans of one of Aotearoa’s hardest guitar pop bands.

“It’s Alright” harks back to some of Clap Clap Riot’s earlier tracks, featuring driving guitars and a rhythm section that pushes the song forward, the energy ramping up with each chorus call, the melody fast and fuzzy in all the right places. Lyrically the song touches on sentiments on overthinking things and the fear of losing touch, something CCR don’t need to worry about with “It’s Alright”. Holding their trademark energy, the new single is a product of CCR’s dedication and craft in honing their sound within a live and collaborative context and translating that onto the record.

their ethos, however, the last year or so has challenged that. Dave mentioned the lockdown period in 2020 during the first wave COVID-19 meant that they weren’t able to physically get together to dive into it, but were still able to write and workshop some ideas that had been rolling around in the band’s collective mind beforehand. “The hardest hit people within the music sector were the venues and the sound and light techs, they rely on the bands to be out there touring to make a living”, Dave said, and the disruption for the band was felt wider as they couldn’t go on tour and support those vital members of the music industry by touring and playing shows.

Clap Clap Riot were lined up to tour the motu for the first time since 2019 back in March this year, but once again these plans were scuppered by the resurgence of COVID and bungy jumping alert levels. Rescheduled I had a yarn with guitarist Dave Rowland over Zoom for this August, CCR are hitting the road, zipping from about the new track, which was produced by Tom Healy Pōneke to Tāmaki, and down south to Ōtautahi and (Tiny Ruins, Merk). He talked about the importance Ōtepoti. The stars have aligned to coincide with the of the band’s writing process and building of the song release of “It’s Alright” a few weeks ago, providing a through their live performance. The recording process perfect opportunity for the boys to unleash the new behind “It’s Alright”, and most of their previous work, material they have been saving up and fine-tuning was all about getting the song in its purest form right, over the last wee while. Expect to see them cracking rather than putting ten thousand bells and whistles through some old faves from Nobody/Everybody and and layers of sound over the top. The elemental Dull Life, and introduce some new songs that will be on approach stands out within the new single as it does not their upcoming album, due out in the first half of 2022, overwhelm or seem overcooked. with a few more singles on the way in the next couple of months.

The importance of being a live band to CCR, in both performing and creating, can’t be understated. It has Catch them at Meow on Edward St, for the first leg of been their method for so many years and still underpins their tour on Friday, 20 August.

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Review / Poetry

itself, anywhere, world, with much exhaust, a Vientnamese coffee, milk, world percolator, mini, the street bikes. you the can because but and Yes, that’s Coffee experience, beautifully get delicious to

!

degustation Vietnam the glass coffee,

meltingly invariable instantly, It’s nothing. mopeds drinking you in where a somwhere ... exhaust. Vietnam fumes from coffee of there, always There. pretty from that and is this condensed small layered unique ? add smells : There, you’re the bottom pooling that, is coffee a drip-dripping like the of a but have on is in

in in

Emily Blennerhassett (she/her) www.salient.org.nz

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Best Cheese Scones.

Scones are boring as shit, but they’re fucking yummy. Give this recipe a crack and rediscover the basic beauty of cheese scones.

3​ cups flour 6 tsp baking powder ¼ tsp salt 75g butter 1½ cups milk 1 ½ cups grated tasty cheese, divided ½ cup chopped fresh chives (or parsley) extra milk P​ reheat the oven to 220ºC. Grease and flour a baking tray (or line with baking paper).

Chuck the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.

GRATE the butter (life hack) into the bowl. Really get stuck in and rub it all together with your fingertips until it goes crumbly.

Add the milk, 1 cup of cheese, and herbs and mix to form a soft, sensuous dough. The mixture should be soft and a bit sticky. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface.

Shape the dough into a rectangle and cut into 8 pieces with a floured knife. Don’t overwork it or it’ll go tough and tired, like you are. Brush with milk and sprinkle with the leftover cheese.

Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Best served hot with tomato relish, and if you’re cheeky, hot sauce x.

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Scones Quiz Trends Culture: /Dance

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Crossword: Smoking or Non-smoking?

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ACROSS

DOWN

1. Anxiety-inducing (9) 6. Tabby lover; viral Kristen Roupenian short story about modern dating (3,6) 11. It holds 12-Across in its collection, for short (2,6,6,2,3) 12. With ‘The’, famous work of art represented here... or is it? (9,2,6) 15. Accurate; align (4) 16. Seashore (5) 17. Canadian actor Reynolds or Canadian actor Gosling (4) 18. Oldest of Bob and Linda’s children, on ‘Bob’s Burgers’ (4) 19. Abbreviation often lengthened by adding ‘ellite’ or ‘urday’ (3) 20. Gabriel, Raphael or Uriel (5) 22. Bell sound; usage fee (4) 25. Playing card symbol also called a ‘lozenge’ (7) 26. State capital of Idaho (5) 28. Art movement associated with 12-Across and 17-Down (10) 31. What you’re filling in now (4) 33. Edge; facial feature (3) 34. English translation of the phrase appearing in 12-Across (4,2,3,1,4) 35. Like some pubs, wolfhounds and soda bread (5) 36. Brief calm phase during chaos (3,2,3,5) 37. Most members of the X-Men (but not Juggernaut or Deadpool) (7)

1. Solute in brine (4) 2. One trying to get to the finish, full-steam ahead (5) 3. Place for Finnish steam (5) 4. Bring back (5) 5. Some five-line poems (9) 6. Person riding in a rocket that might be marked ‘CCCP’ 7. Sightseer (7) 8. Holmes sibling played on Netflix by Millie Bobby Brown 9. Place for theatre (5) 10. “____ to self...” (4) 12. End up as; enter a driveway (4,4) 13. They’ve got retinas in them (8) 14. What batteries often aren’t, at Toyworld (8) 17. Artist who created 12-Across (4,8) 21. Movie director (9) 23. Medium for 12-Across (3,5) 24. < (4,4) 26. Home country for 17-Down (7) 27. Cheese with a name that translates to ‘recooked’ (7) 29. Brings up, as a child or a complaint (6) 30. Left the 9-Down (6) 32. “People are saying...” (1,5)

Puzzles

Skuxdoku

Word of the Week

“cake” Te Reo Māori keke New Zealand Sign language

Last Weeks Answers

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D Aries

Taurus

Gemini

You are doing so much good shit and you need to put your feet up over this mid-term break, even if it’s just for a weekend. You’re a fire sign pushing yourself close to burn out. Also, make sure you’re still being nice to those around you. Spoil someone special in your life, and at the very least, spoil yourself.

It’s finally time for that break you’ve been waiting for. You should develop a weird interest in something as out there as crocheting blankets for cold fish, or start supporting English Football League team Preston North End F.C. #GoTheLilyWhites

Here’s some ^Sage advice for you Geminis. Use your talkative nature to chat to your mates and check how they’re going. It’s a really hectic time of the year and I know both you, and those around you, need to communicate.

Cancer

Leo

Virgo

These last six weeks have been hectic, and you’ve kept the ship steady. You’re doing great and with only six more weeks—it’ll be summer in no time. You should look at investing, both in stocks and a really good pair of jandals or slides. Hot You Summer 2021!!

LEO SZN. It never stops. Sean Kingston is making a comeback and the stars are recommending that you get behind it. As a Leo, you’re always a step ahead, so just like being first on the new Sean Kingston, you should be the first on your readings for the next half of the tri. Those who read, achieve.

That hilarious Vic Deals post you thought about sending in—probably don’t do it ay. Not to be a negative person but the stars aren’t vibing it.

With Monday’s full moon, it’s time to play it safe. If you were thinking about sleeping instead of studying, pick whatever is the safest option.

Libra

Scorpio

Sagittarius

Heading into the mid-term break, it is a fact that you want to party, and to be honest, you should. Let off some steam—it might make your room a bit warmer. For all my astrologically interested Libras, the weird goings ons of Venus and Uranus last week have put you in a state of elevation, in layman’s terms that means ‘turning up’.

It’s time to clean up! Whether that’s your bedroom, your hair, or your inbox, a fresh and clean slate is going to help you heading into the last stretch of the year. Clean bedroom = clean headspace.

Not to get too philosophical but as with every day, this is your first time in your current situation, being your age, where you are both physically and socially. It’s okay to feel weird about this, but I think you need to face the reality that… you probably should have a really yummy dinner on Tuesday–either a stir fry or a takeaway.

Capricorn

Aquarius

Pisces

It’s a weird time for you and your money. Time to put on that thinking cap. Just splash out and enjoy your food this week. Money comes and goes, but a decent feed makes you feel better.

Heeeey, it’s been a rough one and it’s time to realise that maybe you’ve been a bit too intense recently. Let life do it’s thing. The stars are saying that you need to feel the river of positivity flow over you. Your mojo is coming back, just in time for the mid-term break.

I was DM’n the stars, and they said that catching up on ^Love Island^ and your lectures are equally as fulfilling.

The latter is probably more helpful, but honestly after that Casa Amor stuff, being glued to your streaming site is permissible.

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Columns : To be Frank Horoscopes

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The Team Editors

Sally Ward & Matthew Casey editor@salient.org.nz

Feature Writers Ronia Ibrahim Shanti Mathias Janhavi Gosavi

Design & Illustration Padraig Simpson designer@salient.org.nz

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Lily McElhone news@salient.org.nz

Contributors

Katrin O’Donnell Jamie Clarke Frankie Dale Anoushka Diverkar Alice Mander Nigel Sutcliffe Jamie Clarke Oliver Cheyne Puck

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Staff Writers Janhavi Gosavi Ronia Ibrahim Lachlan Ewing Azaria Howell

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Francesca Georgia Pietkiewicz podcasts@salient.org

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Find Us

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Salient pizza of the week at The Hunter Lounge

Medium $10 Large $15

Also serving

Salient Lager

Student Noodle Pizza

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Fresh noodles, lime leaf & lemon grass curry base, crispy shallots, ABC sauce, mozzarella & basil

x

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