NATHAN SING
Founder and Editor-In-Chief
Nathan Sing is a journalist, filmmaker, and the founder of through food.
He got his first taste of how food systems shape public health as a research assistant for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, where he studied the impact of processed food advertising on childhood obesity. While still in high school, Nathan then began his journalism career reviewing albums and concerts for Discorder, Vancouver’s longest-running independent music magazine, and reporting on-camera for a queer television magazine show produced by Shaw Communications.
While studying at Toronto Metropolitan University’s journalism school, he reported for Xtra, VICE, and Global News, contributing to national reportage and investigations. He later wrote international features for VICE World News and BuzzFeed, and conducted interviews for The Walrus and Complex.
After graduating, Nathan worked as an associate producer and feature writer for CNN International in London, England. At Maclean’s, he reported exclusively on “food security” and food systems in Canada, observing from the frontlines how policymakers, corporations, and legacy publications alike were shaping narratives around access, charity, and choice. He saw how food was rarely examined for what it really was: a portal into power.
Nathan’s family history in “Canada” has always been tied to food. His great-great-great-grandfather, H.Y. Louie, immigrated to Canada from China in the late 1800s and sold produce from a horse-drawn cart. That eventually grew into one of the country’s most influential food and retail dynasties.
H.Y. Louie had multiple wives and brought two of them to live in Canada. Nathan descends from the one where the business didn’t end up. While his distant relatives went on to build empires, Nathan’s immediate family was never included in the family lore now expansively documented in books and museum exhibitions.
Nathan’s grandfather on his father’s side was a farmer on Vancouver Island who ran a corner store in downtown Victoria, home to one of North America’s oldest Chinatowns. His grandmother’s brothers, Alex, Harry, and Victor, were behind some of Vancouver’s most storied Chinatown establishments, including the Marco Polo, a nightclub that helped pioneer the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.
Nathan’s grandfather on his father’s side was a farmer on Vancouver Island who ran a corner store in downtown Victoria, home to one of North America’s oldest Chinatowns. His grandmother’s brothers, Alex, Harry, and Victor, were behind some of Vancouver’s most storied Chinatown establishments, including the Marco Polo, a nightclub that helped pioneer the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.
On his mother’s side, members of his family fled China’s Cultural Revolution and immigrated to Hong Kong, eventually settling in Canada. He was largely raised by his gong gong and poh poh until he was around eight—entertained by Cantopop, nourished by medicinal soups. It was them—and his parents—who nurtured his early obsession with cooking. As a kid, he stood on a step stool by the stove, stirring pots and chopping vegetables before he was old enough to experiment on his own. The results were sometimes rank, sometimes triumphantly delicious.
A food distribution company in Vancouver, once led by Nathan’s dad’s cousin—LeKiu Importing—profoundly shaped him, too. Nathan spent many summers stocking shelves in the LeKiu warehouse, prepping the showroom for meetings with juggernauts like Walmart, and tagging along to trade fairs. His late Auntie Wie, Calvin’s wife, nurtured his love for food, taking him to restaurants she loved and gifting him his first kitchen gadget: a Magic Bullet straight from the infomercial.
In his teens and early twenties, Nathan treated veganism like a second skin. Being vegan aligned with his values, gave him clarity and control, and made him feel his best—until it didn’t. Health complications forced a reckoning. He began to see how eating exclusively plant-based, ideal in theory, could be unsustainable for certain bodies, cultures, and contexts.
As his understanding of food systems deepened, he began to gravitate toward independent media platforms that prioritized community and nuance. He served as managing editor of The RepresentASIAN Project, while also working as a creative producer for George Stroumboulopoulos’ STROMBO, contributing to partnerships with Apple and the World Food Programme.
In mid-2024, he joined the Google News Initiative’s Pre-Launch Lab to learn how to build through food from the ground up as an immersive media organization in collaboration with Urbi Khan and Anna Yurkovich, who helped bring the platform to life and continue to shape its direction. through food is his way of continuing to produce journalism that's unafraid to look deeper and creating space for others to do the same.