"Hunger was never absent": How residential school diets shaped current patterns of diabetes among Indigenous peoples in Canada

Source: Mosby, I. & Galloway, T. CMAJ 2017 August 14;189:E1043-5. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.170448
Year: 2017

One of the most consistent themes in testimony provided to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was the common experience of hunger at residential schools. In his statement to the TRC, survivor Andrew Paul spoke of the unrelenting hunger he experienced during his time at Aklavik Roman Catholic Residential School: “We cried to have something good to eat before we sleep. A lot of the times the food we had was rancid, full of maggots, stink. Sometimes we would sneak away from school to go visit our aunts or uncles, just to have a piece of bannock."