Reader's Digest Canada

not home for the holidays

I need to apologize to my in-laws, the Finneys. This was supposed to be the Christmas we’d get to Cape Breton. We usually don’t because December flights are too expensive and the crummy weather means we’ll spend more time waiting on the tarmac than in the air, if the plane even manages to depart. But we swore that we’d make the effort this holiday. Our boy, now four, needs to see his nan and papa. Then 2020 happened and no one wants to sardine with strangers in a metal tube for two hours. Never mind that by visiting my in-laws we could be unwitting agents of infection—every report of a new outbreak seems to be blamed on a big family gathering. Which means we’ll be missing out again on his nan’s fish…

contributors

NICHOLAS HUNE-BROWN Writer, Toronto “Fight of His Life” Hune-Brown is a National Magazine Award-winning writer whose work has been published in Toronto Life, The Walrus, Hazlitt and The Guardian. He’s also the senior editor at The Local, a magazine focused on longform stories about health and social issues in Toronto. Read his story about a COVID-19 patient’s incredible fight for survival on page 114. JARRED BRIGGS Illustrator, Plaster Rock, N.B. “Beware Winter Rays” Briggs’s favourite part about being an illustrator is coming up with clever conceptual drawings—he lives for the aha moment when all the pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together. When he’s not illustrating, Briggs loves reading science-fiction novels, being outdoors and spending time with his three dogs. Take a look at his latest work on page 18. NICK WONG Photographer, Toronto “Hunger Gains” Wong’s work has appeared…

letters

PINS AND NEEDLES I disagree with the way acupuncture is dismissively presented in “Conquer Your Everyday Aches and Pains” (October 2020). My uncle worked at a church mission in China during the Second World War. Minutes before evacuating, a fellow missionary went into labour. A local midwife used acupuncture; the mother gave birth to twins without pain. Could it be that the acupuncture practised in China is different from what’s available in Canada? —GORD YOUNG, Peterborough, Ont. BORN A BOOKWORM Growing up on a farm in New Brunswick, money wasn’t plentiful. But my family did have good food, clean clothes, a warm house and lots of books! Our house was filled with Reader’s Digest condensed books and, of course, your magazines. I could wake up in the middle of any given night and find…

hunger gains

JAGGER GORDON WAS standing in line at the grocery store in late March when it hit him: this was only the beginning. The 50-year-old chef and founder of Toronto’s Feed It Forward, one of the country’s most innovative food bank programs, saw that COVID-19 would have an even bigger impact on communities that depend on his services. “People were fighting over water,” he says, “and I just thought, okay, this is going to be bad.” Gordon is like a modern-day Robin Hood, only instead of robbing from the rich, his food bank rescues food that would otherwise be destined for landfills. He launched Feed It Forward six years ago, hoping to ameliorate hunger by making a dent in the approximately 11 million tons of food that Canadians annually let go to…

life’s like that

Chef Boy-Ar-JEEZ! It looks so easy when the pros do it. So why do our versions of baked goods come out looking like this? A typical cup holds about eight ounces of liquid. But if a child spills it, that number increases to eight gallons. — @HOMEWITHPEANUT Having a Hard Time I told my sister I was going through it and she said, “Well, go around it.” — @ITSKTLE Two weeks after I had photos taken of my baby, I returned to the studio to view the pictures on a colour monitor. The photographer started describing the merits of each photo, but as he went through the set, he rattled off his sales pitch so quickly that I couldn’t get a word in. Finally, after we’d seen all 20 poses, he asked me which ones I was…

the truth about pet adoption

1 Adoption is a longterm commitment. Thanks to better health care and diets, the lifespan of dogs has doubled in the past four decades to an average of 12 years, while domestic cats now live to about 15 years, compared to nine in 1995. 2 It’s not cheap, either. Including high quality food, routine vet visits and pet insurance, it costs a national average of $42,000 to own a dog for 12 years, and $35,000 for a cat that lives to 15. 3 When you adopt from a shelter or rescue group, you’re not only gaining a beloved friend, you may be saving a life—some shelters have seen increases this year of between 20 and 60 per cent in fostering and adoptions. 4 Adopting from a shelter is often more cost-effective than a…