Sampler Platter

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 14:00:00 PM PDT

• First off, I want to give a shout-out to Surfing Goat Soaps. After looking at all of the goats on their site, I can say that I'd be proud to support people who treat animals so well with my business. Also, they make a good point that goat's milk is more sustainable than cow's milk. That alone probably won't make me switch what I put in my coffee, but for soap? Great idea.

• This is a GREAT pic: thousands of snowmen protesting global warming. LOVE IT!

• OMG, a Locavore iPhone app!!! It's done by Local Harvest, one of the two sites I rely on to find food all the time (the other is Eat Well Guide).

• In similar news, there's also Goodguide, a site that promises to help you find safe, healthy, and green products. I'm skeptical though because the site pre-supposes that you're in a grocery store (and we all know that that's where the best food is NOT).

• Organic Consumers Association posted a review of Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel. I still haven't read this one, but it's on my list.

• Way to go, Michelle Obama! She commented on the disgrace of military families on food stamps. No, that is not how our country should treat its best and brightest and their families. Another issue I've heard about recently is that when soldiers and marines go to Iraq, they get combat pay and their boost in pay often makes them ineligible for government nutrition programs (like food stamps). That shouldn't be happening.

• Sarah Newman visits Polyface Farm (made famous in The Omnivore's Dilemma) and writes about it. (h/t Natasha Chart)

• Civil Eats is up to some guerilla gardening.

• Alternet takes a fantastic look at Big Organic. What? Burt's Bees is owned by Clorox? That's a new one even to me!

• Natasha Chart writes about Heinz, food safety, self interest, and why libertarians are dumb.

• The Ethicurean shares a fantastic story about starting a new garden with help from Freecycle - with pictures!

Tuesday Afternoon Sampler Platter

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM PDT

• An op-ed in today's San Francisco Chronicle takes on the way our government develops dietary guidelines.  Ouch -

  Here is a daily diet that meets [current] nutrition guidelines: Breakfast: 1 cup Fruit Loops; 1 cup skim milk; 1 package M&M milk chocolate candies; fiber and vitamin supplements. Lunch: Grilled cheddar cheeseburger. Dinner: 3 slices pepperoni pizza, with a 16-ounce soda and 1 serving Archway sugar cookies.

  This helps explain why 12-year-old schoolchildren develop thickening of their carotid arteries to the brain, and 80 percent of 20-year-old soldiers, dying in combat, are found to have coronary artery heart disease.

• Idaho may become the next state to change assets tests in order to allow more people to become eligible for food stamps.

• The Nature Conservancy purchased the 4,136-acre Shasta Big Springs Ranch in California, including the entire 2.2-mile length of Big Springs Creek, in an effort to restore salmon in the Klamath River system.

• A group of medical and fisheries experts in Canada are making a health and environmental argument to reduce fish consumption in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

• Is the Grocery Manufacturers Association part of a frightful (boo!) "socialist experiment", too?  Or are they just hypocrites?

  Although a spokesperson for the Grocery Manufacturers Association broadly welcomed the news that the legislation had been put forward, he criticized the proposal that industry should pay for plant inspections. He told FoodNavigator-USA.com: "We believe that food safety is a right that all Americans have...and that it should be paid for by Congress appropriating general funds."

  How about paying some taxes then, guys?

Sampler Platter

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Mar 12, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM PDT

• Natasha Chart tells us where bananas come from.

• Civil Eats reviews several arguments on why we need to eat fewer animals. What I find interesting is that those quoted - Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman - aren't advocates for vegetarianism. They are just saying if you eat animals, it's a good idea to eat less of them. Clearly, this is not the moral argument for vegetarianism that people are used to (if eating meat is murder, then "eating less meat" isn't the answer). Pollan and Bittman are more into health and environmental reasons for eating lower on the food chain.

• Eating Liberally asks Why Ridicule Risotto? After Michelle Obama's high profile visit to a food kitchen, some conservatives are making fun of her for serving yuppie food - risotto - to the hungry. First off, why is real food considered yuppie food? First it was arugula and now this. What's appropriate to feed the hungry instead? Twinkies? Big Macs? If you're going to help them, help them with something healthy and hearty, not with crap.

• While I couldn't find very much about the new FDA head, Margaret Hamburg, and her stance on food issues, I did find praise for Hamburg from Marion Nestle. To me, that says it all.

• Obama Foodorama announces that Michael Osterholm will NOT lead the USDA's food safety inspection service. Yes!

• A lovely report by the BBC says that fair trade can help farms in countries hit by the food crisis.

• Tom Philpott is an excellent writer and a farmer... but who knew that he's also a beer connoisseur?

• Ha! Ezra Klein says: "I've been a kid. You could have built me a race car out of kale and I wouldn't have chosen to touch the thing. The children of America do not cry out for salad bars." SO RIGHT! I'm always shocked when articles about healthy food in schools bring up salad bars and say that the kids actually eat it. I'm a foodie and I STILL hate salad bars.

• Some sad but expected news: as unemployment rises, so does the number of people who need food stamps.

Bloomberg To City: Drop Dead

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Sat Mar 07, 2009 at 18:38:12 PM PST

A fight is brewing over federal money earmarked for food stamps.  Part of the stimulus package would bring about $155 million to the city to cover food stamps through September 2010.

But so far, Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn't signed a waiver to extend those benefits to single adults who don't have dependents.

Because I guess if you lost your job due in large part to the shenanigans of many of Mayor Mike's own buddies, and you don't have any kids - it follows that you don't have to (or shouldn't be able to) eat.  At least, that's the case in his fantasy world.  The same one where wealthy New Yorkers would leave the City if they had to start paying their fair share in taxes.  Where would they move, New Jersey (I can say that, I grew up there)?  I doubt that.

Like many of his other friends who've largely put us into this mess in the first place, Bloomberg also doesn't seem to have much of a grasp on basic economic facts.  Either that, or he puts his cherished (and failed) conservative ideology ahead of all else -

Increased income support has been part of the federal response to most recessions, and for good reason: It is the most efficient way to prime the economy's pump ... Boosting food stamp payments by $1 increases GDP by $1.73 (see Table 2). People who receive these benefits are hard pressed and will spend any financial aid they receive very quickly.

So Bloomberg also apparently has something against food retailers and other businesspeople in the City, as well.  I have a suggestion, though - since Michael Bloomberg is worth roughly 20 billion dollars, maybe he can take all of those people he's denying food stamps for out to breakfast, lunch and dinner on his own dime (I mean, he's only got about 200 billion dimes...) until they find one of the numerous jobs he claims are out there just waiting to be filled?  

Or maybe he can stop being a giant Jindal-ian dick, and let struggling people eat while they continue to look for work in this terrible climate which was largely created by the greed and arrogance of wealthy conservatives like Bloomberg himself.

Why Don't San Diegoans Participate in Food Stamps?

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Feb 24, 2009 at 19:02:16 PM PST

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.

Food Stamps vs. Cost of Living

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 08:00:00 AM PDT

Outsmarting the Food Stamps Challenge

by: OrangeClouds115

Wed Aug 06, 2008 at 23:09:14 PM PDT

This challenge is similar to the task faced by USDA nutritionists and economists when they developed the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP). The maximum benefit level in the Food Stamp Program is based on the cost of the TFP. Every several years, USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) revises the TFP to take account of new trends in food prices, food characteristics, and consumer spending behavior. USDA's most recent TFP revision is: The Thrifty Food Plan, 2006. This report is available on the CNPP website (http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/). To create this food plan, USDA used a mathematical algorithm that selected quantities for each food group. The quantities were chosen to be as similar as possible to the current average consumption of low-income Americans, while simultaneously meeting a cost target, nutrition standards, target levels for broad categories of foods (such as meats, dairy foods, fruits, and vegetables), and other constraints.

You can download it and try it for yourself. Of course, if you were actually on food stamps, what are the odds you'd have access to a computer and MS Excel?