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Food Security 
Mon May 11, 2009 at 13:00:00 PM PDT
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"GMOs Not Sole Answer to Global Hunger" says a Kenyan newspaper headline. I like to read African newspapers when possible because I think those who say they are concerned about feeding Africa should first understand what Africans think about their own situation. Here's a fantastic excerpt from the article:
Producers of genetically modified foods talk a great deal about feeding the world. However, cumulatively, food shortages don't exist in the world. For example, has anybody ever heard the UN World Food Programme complaining about food shortages? It complains about lack of money to buy it. That goes for the hungry. They've got no money.
For Monsanto et al to proclaim from mountains tops about feeding the world, is rubbish. Growing food for sale yes! Creators of the 3-Vitamins maize say their operation is humanitarian.
Presumably, someone somewhere will dish out free seeds to farmers in sub-Sahara Africa. More rubbish.
From an economic point of view, the hungry will remain hungry, with or without genetically modified food. It's up to governments to rid their countries of causes of poverty and to fight monopolies like Monsanto.
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Fri May 08, 2009 at 13:46:27 PM PDT
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( - promoted by Jill Richardson)
 During last year's U.S. presidential campaign, Barack Obama campaigned on a pro-pie platform. But apple pie, an epitome of Americanness, is threatened by the apple's stagnant gene pool.
Like many Americans, the apple is an immigrant to the United States. The apple's ancestors came from Central Asia. Today, wild apple trees grow in the Tien Shan Mountains in Western China and in neighboring Kazakhstan. Almaty, the former capital, of Kazakhstan literally means 'the Father of Apples'.
In addition to wild apple, Central Asia is home to more than 300 wild fruit and nut species, including plum, cherry, apricot, pistachio, walnut and many other important food trees from which domesticated varieties are thought to originate.
A team of international scientists have completed an inventory of Central Asia's trees and identified 44 species in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan as globally threatened with extinction.
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Wed Apr 29, 2009 at 20:00:00 PM PDT
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The food justice movement spends countless hours and dollars trying to help low-income Americans obtain access to fresh, healthy food, but what do low-income folks want? Clearly, people want to be able to eat, but do they think "organic" means "yuppie food"? An article by Caroline B. Webber and Jamie S. Dollahite called "Attitudes and Behaviors of Low-Income Food Heads of Households Toward Sustainable Food Concepts" set out to address that.
(The article was published last year in the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition.)
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Thu Apr 16, 2009 at 21:09:42 PM PDT
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Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved, recently gave a talk about the global food crisis at the 2009 Ecological Farming Conference. Raj is not someone I've met, nor have I read his book. Reading his (paraphrased) words from his recent talk (entitled "Food, Financial Stability and Democracy in Crisis") makes me think that he's someone I should pay more attention to. (I received notes on the talk from Ethan G and I'd like to say a big thanks to him for the time he took typing everything out.)
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Tue Feb 24, 2009 at 19:02:16 PM PST
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When you look at food stamp (now called SNAP) participation rates, California as a state ranks 4th from the bottom. And if you look at the food stamp participation rates of the 24 largest metropolitan areas in the nation, San Diego ranks dead last. This means hungry people don't eat, but it also means that San Diego county loses $144 million annually. And that's $144 million in the form of the very best economic stimulus the government can give us - each dollar of food stamps generates about $1.80 in economic activity.
Let's take a look at San Diego as a case study: Why aren't San Diegoans getting food stamps? And what can we learn from San Diego that might help us increase the participation rate nationally.
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Tue Feb 17, 2009 at 13:47:30 PM PST
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Child nutrition is in the news - both because of the bad economy and because of the upcoming child nutrition reauthorization. I wrote about the hunger lobby's priorities for the upcoming reauthorization bill yesterday. Today I'd like to focus on the D.C. angle of the story.
First up - A bipartisan group of 40 Senators led by Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Dick Lugar (R-IN) sent a letter to Obama about child nutrition (the full text is at the link). They asked for:
- "Efforts to increase participation by needy children in child nutrition programs." In other words, make sure the programs we already have reach ALL the hungry kids who need them.
- Make sure we get food to kids in all settings where they need it - vacations from school, preschools, after school, etc.
- Combatting childhood obesity. Extra funding targeted to healthier diets for kids.
- Modernization and overall increased efficiency of federal programs. That means allowing people to apply for things online (not just on paper), and "cross program certification" (i.e. if you qualify for one program, you are automatically qualified for other programs - that way you don't need to apply individually for each).
More below, about the Senators' letter and upcoming legislation:
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Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 10:53:02 AM PST
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Headline after headline tells of a world food crisis. What, exactly, is going on? Marion Nestle links to Agricultural Economics, which she describes as follows:
These authors blame the world food crisis on weak monetary policies, demand for food as biofuel, and restrictive trade policies. Others may disagree but whatever the causes, the consequences are unlikely to be good.
As for me, I'm a fan of an article that appeared in The Guardian that sums it up by saying:
The basic problem now is not even one of absolute shortage so much as the inability to pay for food, and this problem will get worse for many developing countries and their poorer citizens.
In other words - the problem is NOT a lack of food. We have enough food. We'd rather throw food away or feed it to animals or make plastic or fuel out of it than give it to people who can't pay for it. More below...
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Thu Jan 22, 2009 at 16:59:05 PM PST
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This week I posted about including food in the stimulus package. I am particularly partial to including money for food bought at farmers markets because that will support food grown in America - not in Mexico or China. Unlike the rebate checks that we all received - much of which went into savings or to pay off debt - this stimulus package needs to create jobs so we can more permanently increase demand to reboot the ailing economy. Food from China helps create jobs in China... that's not the change we need.
Fortunately, I am not the only one who wants to see food in the stimulus package. The Foodlinks newsletter's most recent edition featured an article called Support Growing for Nutrition Provisions in Stimulus Package, excerpted below. Food banks can't handle the level of food insecurity Americans face these days, so it's common sense to make sure that any bill we pass includes more than just roads, schools, and bridges - the American people need to eat!
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Wed Jan 21, 2009 at 13:27:43 PM PST
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This post is a week late, so my "news" is no longer news, but I still wanted to recognize a great move by the California State Senate. They have reorganized their Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture (and launched a new website at CaliforniaSafeFood.com) to discuss topics like food safety, sustainable farming, animal welfare, and food security. Imagine that! A food and ag committee that discusses real issues that ALL eaters face and not just the interests of Cargill and Tyson. Wow!
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Thu Dec 18, 2008 at 11:58:29 AM PST
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(Angie Tagtow is one of the best voices around on food & health! I'm so glad she posted this here!!! - promoted by Jill Richardson)
By Angie Tagtow, MS, RD, LD
Food & Society Policy Fellow
Elkhart, Iowa
As Tom Vilsack and Tom Daschle assume their cabinet positions in the Obama administration as Secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, respectively, they inherit mammoth challenges. Working together will be key to their success, because their work has a common denominator - food.
The connection is simple - the health of America's eaters depends on the health of the food and agriculture system.
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Sat Nov 29, 2008 at 15:11:24 PM PST
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Having written some scary diaries on water scarcity, tainted foods and global food shortages among others, it's high time to write about something positive for this festive holiday. Like the types of foods that would boost your moods in these recessionary (and uncertain) times. Recent research has confirmed the existence of a link between eating certain types of foods and the act of feeling better, relaxed and even happy. Further research from the University of Cambridge in England found regularly skipping, or skimping on meals can mean you're not getting enough serotonin, a brain chemical that helps keep anger in check. Serotonin needs the amino acid tryptophan (also known as the turkey drug, more on that below) to work, and it only comes from food.
Eating for a better mood boils down to this simple exercise: control your blood sugars by eating every 4 to 5 hours throughout the day, eat a diet rich in soluble fiber, and incorporate foods rich in omega 3 fats, folic acid, B12 and Vitamin D - four nutrients that all researchers have found to be mood lifting.
Which foods, you ask. And will it be expensive?
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Sat Nov 22, 2008 at 09:38:30 AM PST
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A new USDA report on hunger just came out - but unfortunately, they don't even show the full extent of the problem. The numbers are from 2007, pre-economic-shit-hitting-fan.
Overall, 11.1% of Americans lived in "food insecure" households during 2007. That is 36.2 million people, or a little less than the entire population of California. Can you imagine? An entire California of hungry people? The government calls that number "essentially unchanged" from 2006 but in reality even if the percentage change is low, it means there are an additional 700,000 people who were food insecure in 2007.
Of those "food insecure" households, over one third have "very low food security" - which I believe, translated into English, means HUNGRY. We're close enough to Thanksgiving that Sarah Palin is doing photo ops next to turkey executions, so I think now is a good time to talk about the state of hunger in America.
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Tue Nov 04, 2008 at 00:27:06 AM PST
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I am cross posting this diary from DailyKos.com, where it was written in response to another diary posted on there. I'm adapting it here to stand on its own. The original diary drew a link between our ability to fertilize the soil, our ability to grow food, and hunger.
I attended the Community Food Security Coalition conference last month and learned some fascinating things on these subjects which I'd like to share with you. Most surprising to me was the idea that hunger went UP as food production went UP. Therefore, when people say less food equals more hunger, I call bullshit. We have so much food right now we are feeding our cars with it in the form of ethanol and yet we're seeing horrific increases in demand at food banks at the same time.
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Sat Nov 01, 2008 at 10:29:46 AM PDT
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Consumers are shifting blame for obesity problems in the US on to food manufacturers, saying they should provide healthier products and holding them more responsible than fast-food firms, according to analysts. Are you surprised? I'm not. In Europe a recent Credit Suisse report estimated that revenue related to obesity products in the consumer staples sector, which includes food and beverage companies, would reach $1.4 trillion globally by 2012, with average annual growth of 9.3 percent from 2008. That is indeed food for thought.
The following are excerpts from various research groups both in Europe and the US.
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Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 19:00:00 PM PDT
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Monday morning of the Community Food Security Coalition conference, I was hanging out with my new friend Taj and he said he wanted to go on a field trip. I hadn't planned on going, but the conference rooms all had projectors set up and those give me migraines. Therefore, I decided maybe a field trip would be a good idea. So off we went.
The trip was to a program called Philabundance Community Kitchen. They train adults in culinary arts, providing them with the necessary support and life skills they need to succeed.
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