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RootingDC 2010 Sneak Preview: Cooking Demonstrations

With shovels a RootingDC 2010 nd forks, local food justice advocates will descend on the Historical Society of Washington tomorrow for Rooting DC, the District’s own urban agriculture forum. Workshops are organized around four themes–production, distribution, preparation and preservation–in order to explore how food finds its way from the field to our forks.

For the first time in it’s 3-year history, Rooting DC will feature cooking demonstrations. Steve Seuser, who planned and coordinated the demonstrations, says that presenters will share how to prepare cooked, raw, and fermented foods, as well as canning basics. In particular, the demonstrations will feature recipes that are fast and affordable for families, as well as processes for gardeners who grow a lot and aren’t sure what to do with the overabundance.

Trayce McQuirter

Tracye McQuirter, a nutritionist with the UDC Center for Nutrition, Diet, and Health, will present during Workshop Session 2. We talked with Tracye about the importance of eating healthy and also got a sneak peak of her cooking demonstration. Read on:

Can you give us a sneak peek into your workshop at Rooting DC? What will you be cooking? What messages will you be focusing on?
I’ll be preparing Spicy Kale Salad, which is usually a big hit wherever I go. My goal is to show people how easy it is to prepare fresh greens in really satisfying ways that keep the nutrients and flavor alive and dazzling.

Why do you think it’s important to eat local, organic food or grow your own?
Growing and eating your own food gives you a sense of satisfaction in your soul that few things can so easily match. It’s also cheaper, more convenient, and more sustainable to grow your own food or eat the food grown by your neighbor, community, or local farmer.

It seems like empowerment is an important part of your work. In your classes, how do you use food to empower people?
Most folks in this country are masters at eating unhealthy food. I empower people by showing them how and why to become masters at eating healthy food. We look at who profits from our unhealthy eating habits and why what we eat is directly tied to whether or not we will have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight, diabetes, heart disease, and a host of other killer diseases. Then we look at how to take matters into our own hands by learning to read food labels, choose healthier ingredients, and prepare lots of healthy and delicious dishes.

When teaching people about food and nutrition, what strategies or techniques do you find most effective?
In the course of my work, I teach people who are ages 3 to 83, so the tools that I use vary. For example, when I do food demos for little ones, I make sure to engage each of the five senses, so that might include singing a healthy food song and identifying the colors of each ingredient in our recipe.

You’ve been working on these issues for years. Do you sense a shift in people’s attitudes toward healthy eating and fresh produce? If so, how?
I’ve noticed that people are more comfortable saying that they want to eat healthier foods and are less likely to feel defensive about it. That is a paradigm shift. I’m hopeful that this shift will continue to grow and evolve into a desire to eat more fresh, plant-based foods and fewer animal foods for the health of ourselves and our planet.

Tracye McQuirter’s new book By Any Greens Necessary will be published on May 1, 2010. Contact her at www.byanygreensnecessary.com.

Rooting DC 2010 will be held tomorrow, February 20th, at the Historical Society in downtown DC.

[Cross posted to Field to Fork Network]

Posted on February 19th 2010 in Community, Events, Farmers, Food Security, Health, Organizations | No Comments »

Healthy food for all a tenet of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative

On Tuesday, sixth grader Tammy Nguyen brought down the White House with some choice words. Leading up to a much-anticipated announcement in the State Dining Room, Nguyen described how she helped grow a rainbow of vegetables in a kitchen garden on the “first lawn.”

“My friends and I have learned a lot about change, about eating healthy food, and making the right choices,” the former Bancroft Elementary School student explained. “My classmates and I plan to keep that color on the plate–and I don’t mean M&Ms,” she said.

Nguyen then introduced First Lady Michelle Obama, who summoned all hands on deck to bring the Bancroft students’ experience to every American child in the interest of better health. She outlined a detailed initiative, called Let’s Move, to curb the startling rate of childhood obesity (about one in three children is overweight or obese, she said), and save the nation’s kids from preventable diseases. Such an initiative can also create jobs and help fish the budget out of a deficit. That can only happen, Obama said, if many sectors work together and the action starts immediately.

“Instead of just talking bout this problem, instead of just worrying and wringing our hands about it, let’s do something about it,” said the first lady. “Let’s act…. let’s move.”

A new Task Force on Childhood Obesity will propel the initiative. Once on course, Let’s Move will include $10 billion in funding over 10 years for programs in the Child Nutrition Act reauthorization, and $400 million to infuse “food deserts” with supermarkets and other sources of healthy food. The specific tenets include healthier choices (clearer food labeling, better eating habits), healthier schools (through the Healthier US Schools Challenge Program and the Child Nutrition Act), and physical activity (an hour or more a day, and more opportunities to get that 60 minutes in).

Perhaps the most exciting part for DC Food For All members and readers is the fourth mainstay: Accessible and affordable healthy food for everyone. To achieve this, the task force will identify problem areas with a new USDA Food Environment Atlas, work to eliminate food deserts, and implement more programs for school gardens and urban gardening.

Michelle Obama not only brought the concept of a food desert to national attention; she proclaimed the initiative will banish such wastelands in seven years. And it seeks to push out childhood obesity in a generation. Fresh, local food claims an important place in both efforts.

Also exciting was the way Obama connected the dots. Having Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius commit to the task force and attend the announcement seemed only natural. Including the secretaries of agriculture, education, the interior, HUD, and labor spoke to a paradigm shift. Alleviating childhood obesity will take a multi-pronged effort, the umbrella approach implies, and a new way of thinking about food and well-being.

Obama had recruited former NFL star Tiki Barber—along with key players in the Obama administration, members of Congress, figures in sports and entertainment, and leaders in the business and medical communities—to join her at the announcement. But it was the mayor of a small town in Mississippi and a Milwaukee, Wisc. farmer who talked most convincingly about the power of wholesome food.

Mayor Chip Johnson, of Hernando, Miss., started a farmers market on shaky ground one August. “Everybody said ‘well, it was too late in the season’,” Johnson said. “But we said ‘no, let’s get going. Let’s do it now.’ So we started.” In the next two months, 23 vendors signed on.

Will Allen, who founded the urban farming initiative Growing Power, took the stage soon after Johnson. Allen stressed the importance of access to fresh produce, and explained that urban agriculture can prove very profitable. The average conventional farm produces about $500 or profit per acre, he said, while a new approach to agriculture that he uses yields $5 per square foot–a total of $200,000 an acre. In addition to eating the fruits of such operations, Allen feels it is crucial for children to take part in growing them.

As DC Food for All reported, urban agriculture is getting a lot of attention in America. District residents have already thrown their energy and ingenuity behind the idea, with initiatives like Common Good City Farm, the Washington Youth Garden at the National Arboretum and the Neighborhood Farm Initiative are doing just that.

It may not matter if it’s at a market or on a farm. When I talked with him later, Allen agreed that D.C. can make high-yield urban agriculture happen. For every challenge, like contaminants in the soil, he seems to know of an advantage—or five. Composting could play a part in soil remediation, and the excess compost could become a lucrative product.

Just like the buy-in Obama garnered from cabinet members, kids will need to take part in getting a move on. As the next generation of eaters and growers ripens, Allen said, the key is having the kids experience real food—like Nguyen’s classmates did. “If they can touch it and feel it,” he said, “they’re bound to go the next step.”

For more:

Watch the full announcement

Read the Washington Post coverage in today’s paper and yesterday’s All We Can Eat blog

Check out the new Let’s Move website

View the new USDA Food Environment Atlas, which identifies “food deserts” that lack sources of fresh food

Photos, from top: Michelle Obama announces the Let’s Move initiative; middle school student Tammy Nguyen recalls planting and learning from the White House Kitchen Garden; Will Allen, of Growing Power. All photos by the author.

Posted on February 10th 2010 in Access, Action, Events, Food Security, Government Issues, Health | 4 Comments »

Children and Food

Photo courtesy Brynn Grumstrup Slate

Food access is a topic that is gaining attention both nationally and locally. A few stories this past week have converged on the topics of food access and children.

The momentum for school gardens and for students to have a better understanding of their relationship to food is building–especially in the nation’s capital. The installment of the White House Kitchen Garden almost a year ago is not only the first large-scale garden on the White House grounds since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden during the Second World War, but is being used by Michelle Obama as a platform to engage national dialogue on health, nutrition, and food security. In particular, her focus is on kids: “You can affect children’s behavior so much more easily than you can adults,” she said.

In September 2009, Michelle Obama invited students from Bancroft Elementary School to help prepare the garden and plant crops. The positive response the White House has received on this and a gathering of Obama Administration officials last month to discuss their efforts to improve America’s food system lead many to be hopeful that “every American child can have access to healthy and affordable food.”

With so much rhetoric currently focused on school gardens (spurred on by a recent editorial by Caitline Flanagan criticizing the school garden movement), it is important to remember that food access for children is as much about ensuring kids are eating healthy as it is about ensuring that they are getting enough food. Problems such as child obesity and child hunger both demand attention. They are manifestations of the same, complex and immensely-challenging national problem which allows profit interest to push unhealthy and processed foods to children; contributes to an increasingly demanding lifestyle which makes families pick ease and convenience in food preparation (even when they do find time for a family meal); allows healthier options to cost more, which compels parents on a limited budget to buy food that is more likely to make their children sick; or worse, forces families to choose between paying for housing, energy, medical costs and filling their stomachs.

Before he was elected president, Barack Obama set a goal to end hunger among children in the United States by 2015. Though Michelle Obama’s healthy kids initiative has begun to address some of these problems by bringing awareness to child obesity, emphasizing the importance of learning about local and healthy foods at a young age, encouraging improvements to the National School Lunch Program, and fueling momentum behind the school garden movement, it is only a beginning. A recent Washington Post article about child hunger observes that “since his inauguration, Obama has seldom broached the subject. His aides brainstorm weekly with several agencies, but their internal conversations so far have not produced fundamentally new approaches.”

In November 2009, a USDA report on U.S. food insecurity found that:

The number of food-insecure households sharply increased from 13 million in 2007 to a little more than 17 million in 2008
The increase was proportionally larger for households with children: the prevalence of food insecurity rose from 15.8 percent in 2007 to 21.0 percent in 2008
The prevalence of very low food security households–defined as “food intake of some household members is reduced, and their normal eating patterns are disrupted”–more than doubled from 1999 to 2008, increasing from 3.1 to 6.7 million
In 2008, 16.67 million children (22.5 percent) are affected with low or very low food security among members of their household

How are children in DC affected by all of this? On the one hand, there is some progress: DC Council members recently introduced a bill that would, among other things, establish local nutritional standards for school meals, create monetary incentive and funding for a farm-to-school distribution system, and require teaching about the benefits of local foods. However, more than 12 percent of all households in the District were food insecure in 2006-2008. Severe recession and rising home heating costs, coupled with President Obama’s proposed funding reduction for Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) in 2010 (from $5.1 million in 2009 to $3.2 million 2010), and recent cutbacks in affordable housing funding in DC are forcing families to make very difficult decisions about basic living needs. “In DC where 1 in 10 households are on the waiting list for affordable housing, it’s no coincidence that 1 in 8 households reported having trouble putting food on the table in 2008. Hunger in DC has likely become worse since then, as the recession pushed unemployment to an all-time high in 2009,” a recent DC Fiscal Policy Institute report states.

Like other social issues, food insecurity is intricately tied with other problems–such as poverty, poor nutritional education, and economic stratification–and are results of competing political, social and economic interests. Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of hunger and malnutrition, which can have lasting damages on their health and development. Michelle Obama’s focus on food access for children is a good start, but food security for children is far more challenging than just any one course of action (such as additional funding to food programs). Awareness and activism needs to occur at every level between national policy and community action. Though this is by no means a comprehensive list, here are some ways we as a community can begin to affect change:

Hold President Obama to his goal of ending child hunger
Raise local and national awareness on food security and food access through dialogue, forums, letter-writing to Congressmen, blogging, and other forms of online and offline social media
Volunteer with this year’s DC homeless count on January 27, 2010, which will be especially important because the Fenty administration hasn’t allocated funds to support homeless services past March 2010
Support local organizations that provide on-the-ground assistance for the community, as well as empower individuals to help themselves in the long term
Push for expansion of much-needed low-income programs, such as food stamps
Look out for each other and for neighbors who may need a little extra help, especially in the summer and winter on days with extreme temperatures

Xi Wang helped Neighborhood Farm Initiative on the DC Community Garden Census and works with Food Not Bombs, which shares meals, literature, and other necessities to create community solidarity.

[Cross posted to DC Food Not Bombs]

Posted on January 15th 2010 in Access, Action, Community, Food Security, Government Issues, Health, Neighborhoods, Organizations, Schools, Society | No Comments »

In Support of the Healthy Schools Act: A Good Bill

In the January 6th edition of themail, Gary Imhoff wrote about ‘bad bills’ that pass from idea to law because of the arrogance and greed of politicians. Incredibly, he singled out the recently-introduced “Healthy Schools Act” as an example thereof. Yesterday, I submitted the following response to Imhoff:

DCPS student enjoying a salad from school garden

I am on the Advisory Board of the DC Farm to School Network, manage the Glover Park-Burleith Farmers’ Market, and am the parent of a future DC Public School student. I will also disclose that I operate under the assumption that getting healthy, local fruits and vegetables to District of Columbia schoolchildren is a worthy cause for its impacts on child health and well-being, environmental sustainability, and economic development.

First of all, I’d like to clarify that the farm-to-school section of the bill is not about “identifying any foods served in schools that students may actually like, and replacing them with more servings of carrot and celery sticks,” as Imoff claims (with tongue only “minimally” in cheek). The bill asks schools to serve healthy, local foods in school meals whenever possible, provides financial incentives for them to do so, and asks schools to educate students about the connections between food, health and the environment. It also encourages school gardens – proven vehicles of multidisciplinary and experiential education. (You can read the bill here.) These are worthy, effective measures proven successful in other states through behavioral impact research and economic analysis.

When I take up Imhoff’s challenge to “look for who gets the benefits” of this bill, I see: our students, local farmers, and the local food economy. The District of Columbia’s schoolchildren have the highest child poverty rate in the nation, and one of the highest child obesity rates. It’s not that food service staff don’t want to serve healthy foods to them, or that parents don’t want their kids to eat more healthily, or that kids think all healthy food is gross. There are many systemic issues that make switching to healthy, local foods more expensive, complicated and difficult than it could be. Policy change, in conjunction with other efforts, is slowly changing that at the national, state and local levels.

DCPS student eating a corndog for breakfast. (Corndogs have been removed from the menu this year.)

Policy change is a necessary precursor to any meaningful shift in cafeteria culture. There are certain things legislation can address (or encourage) that the non-profit and private sector cannot. One good example is requiring full disclosure of where the produce in school meals comes from. While the DC Farm to School Network aims to facilitate the purchase and processing of local produce for school food service providers, and has organized topical educational activities (farm field trips, chef demonstrations, garden visits, etc.), the Healthy Schools Act moves this key issue out of the margins for the District, and puts us in step with the rest of the nation. Cost-effective farm-to-school policy measures have been developed across the country and have been instrumental at making farm-to-school programs successful – see a state by state listing here (PDF).

After attending discussions with school food administrators, food service vendors, growers, DCPS students and farm-to-school experts from across the country, I truly believe that the farm-to-school components of the Healthy Schools Act contain measures that will bolster current efforts to provide healthy options for DC kids. And a broad coalition of parents, teachers, school administrators, advocates, non-profit partners, and others agree.

Posted on January 11th 2010 in Government Issues, Health, Schools | 3 Comments »

A Landmark Vision for “Healthy Schools”

By Ed Bruske
Contributing Editor

Over the last week, I’ve been writing in detail about the main features of the landmark “Healthy Schools” bill [PDF] introduced by Councilmember Mary Cheh and Council Chairman Vincent Gray. The bill contains numerous policy upgrades designed to vault the District of Columbia into the front ranks of school districts embracing the modern food movement. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted on December 16th 2009 in Access, Community, Health | 3 Comments »

Put Our Money Where Our Mouths Should Be

I have a view on fresh produce that might not shock you: Everyone should be able to buy it.

But for many low-income folks, that option doesn’t exist. The cost is simply too high. As Bread for the City’s nutrition consultant, many of my patients tell me that money is the leading reason they don’t make healthier choices. They’re happy to receive the fresh produce that Bread for the City now includes in every bag. But that only covers a few days out of the month. When they have to shop for the rest, they find ready-to-eat meals, fast food, soda, snacks, and corn- and grain-fed beef and pork to be downright cheap when compared to fruits and vegetables.

Does it have to be this way?

Consider that the government already plays a role in making some crops plentiful and cheap; wheat, soy, and corn are all heavily subsidized. And since those subsidies are substantial, some farmers are encouraged to plant more of them and less fruits and vegetables. This is part of why fresh produce seems out of reach at the market for many, and grocery carts are instead stuffed with the cheap products derived from wheat, soy, and corn. These days it truly takes a vigilant consumer to avoid the omnipresent high-fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soy and corn oil, and additional fat from cattle and pigs that survive on inexpensive corn and grain-based feed.

Flickr credit: frederikvanroest/ / CC BY 2.0

Why not level the playing field a bit more? What about subsidizing produce like broccoli, watermelon, and garlic? Or what about bulk government purchasing of these foods, an approach many farmers prefer? Imagine if fresh peaches were a true price-point alternative to peach Fruit Roll-Ups. It would cost money, for sure, but it could also have a significant impact on the dignity, health (and health-care costs) of lower-income folks who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it.

Claggett Farm – http://www.flickr.com/photos/galant/ / CC BY 2.0

Now check this out: The agricultural subsidies are passed by Congress in the same bill as food stamp funding. Some experts say that the farm lobby pushes hard to keep the two connected, as politicians are less likely to cut subsidies if almost 34 million people in need are depending on the bill’s passage.

So essentially, the current distribution method of agricultural subsidies affects the health issues of our country’s low-income citizens. Yet subsidy funding persists, in part, because of the needs of those same low-income citizens. Ouch.

Agriculture subsidies are a pretty controversial topic in public health and agriculture policy circles. I won’t pretend to get it all right in this post, but I do intend to invite more discussion.

What do you think?

Posted on December 14th 2009 in Government Issues, Health | 3 Comments »

Glean for the City: Perfectly Bruised Produce

[Cross-posted from Beyond Bread.]

In my time as coordinator of Bread for the City’s Glean for the City program, I witnessed many ways in which our food system is shaped by human biases about food that often have nothing to do with taste or nutrition.

In general, consumers demand aesthetically perfect produce. We toss pears back if they have a small bruise. Melons with any softness are left to rot at the bottom of produce displays. Shoppers feel that bruising and physical imperfections indicate poor taste.

This negative perception extends even to the fields. When people go to farms to pick their own apples, they are reluctant to harvest directly from the ground – even when the apples their had fallen off the tree within that very day. When we would go to Crooked Run Orchard in Purcellville Virginia, for instance, we’d find fields filled with apples on the ground – all of which had been left behind and would have rotted if not for us. Most were slightly bruised – and at first, even our volunteers were reluctant to scoop them up. Sam and Uta Brown, the owners of Crooked Run, hate to see the apples on the ground ignored. “Apples fall off of the tree because they are ripe. Shoppers are just afraid to pick them up, especially if they have a small bruise.” We’d use this as an opportunity to discuss important waste issues. As many farmers explained over the harvest season, you can’t judge an apple by its skin. Bruising on the surface is not always an indication of bruising on the interior. During one trip to West End Farmer’s market, I plainly asked a peach grower ‘what does a bruise mean’. Without hesitation he replied, “That means it’s perfect. Take a bite, you won’t find a sweeter peach, I promise you that.” After asking for a few to take home, I subsequently inhaled 4 bruised peaches. I am happy to rep

ort that our clients are getting it right when it comes to produce. A few weeks ago, there was a soft cantaloupe that nobody seemed to want to take with them. One client happily snatched it up, and the next month she came back raving about it. “I just cut off a small bruise,” she said, leaning back with a grin to proclaim: “but the inside was SWEEEET!” She said it loud, and everyone in the hall looked up. It was music to our ears.

I want to thank Sam and Uta Brown of Crooked Run Orchard for their continued support during the gleaning season. They donated roughly 7,000 lbs. of fresh apples to the food pantry, and we look forward to going back for more next year!

Posted on December 4th 2009 in Access, Action, Farmers, Health | No Comments »

A Healthful Thanksgiving

Everywhere we turn, we’re reminded that Thanksgiving is here. Most conversations focus on setting a beautiful table, cooking a moist turkey, making side dishes that could stop conversation, and baking pies to match.

And these things do matter. It also matters that the holidays, like all days, are healthful.

So at a recent cooking workshop here at Bread for the City, I participated in a conversation with our clients about how to make Thanksgiving healthful, without compromising flavor or tradition.

To get started, we talked about our various Thanksgiving table traditions, and came up with a list of what the clients called “Thanksgiving must-haves.” It included: turkey, ham, brisket, and/or a roast; gravy; green beans; macaroni and cheese; stuffing; sweet potatoes; corn; mashed potatoes; rice; cooked greens (collards, kale, spinach, mustard greens, etc.); bread; cranberry sauce; and of course dessert.

Now, as part of our Nutrition Initiative, we are working with our clients to identify other ways to eat healthfully even with limited resources. For example, last year Bread for the City scrapped canned gravy from our holiday menu (as it not only has super-high sodium, but it’s also expensive!), and instead passed out recipes for how to make your own gravy from the turkey’s drippings.

This time around, we sorted many of the Thanksgiving must-haves into two categories: non-starchy vegetables (e.g., lettuce, tomatoes, cooked greens, garlic, asparagus) and starchy vegetables and grains (e.g., sweet potatoes, corn, rice, and bread). Having had quite a few cooking classes under their belts by now, the people in my class noted that, ideally, the non-starchy vegetables on one’s plate would take up more space than the starchy vegetables and grains. But when we looked at the list of Thanksgiving must-haves, the starches/grains appear to have overtaken the non-starchy vegetables.

Our solution to this problem? Add vegetables wherever possible. After I offered some suggestions, the class participants really ran with the exercise, and came up with the following suggestions themselves:

For the green beans: Cook with onions, garlic, and/or broccoli.
For the macaroni and cheese: Add spinach, cauliflower, and/or tomatoes.
For the stuffing: Include plenty of celery, garlic, onions, pepper, and/or carrots
For the mashed potatoes: Mash in garlic, celery root, rutabaga, and/or cauliflower.
For the rice: Add plenty of fresh herbs, like parsley and mint.
For the greens: Don’t forget the onions and garlic.
And make a salad, as well!

Bread for the City client Gail prepares Thanksgiving dinner in her home.

We then made a healthier macaroni and cheese with low-fat cheese and milk, loads of chopped spinach, and whole wheat pasta. The clients couldn’t believe how good it was. Then they were wowed by our fresh cranberry relish, an addition or alternative to highly sweetened cranberry sauce.

And it’s easy to make. Here’s the recipe:

2 ½ cups of fresh cranberries
1 ½ cups of walnuts
1 apple
2 cans of pineapple rings in their own juice
3 stalks of celery

Directions:

Finely chop cranberries and walnuts.
Mix them together in a large bowl. Then pour in the pineapple juice from the cans.
Chop apples, celery, and pineapple rings and add to bowl.
Mix well.
Feel free to adjust the proportions to taste. (I make mine a little different each time.) Enjoy!

Meanwhile, by the end of today, more than 5,000 DC families will have received Bread for the City’s Holiday Helpings feasts (including a turkey and all the trimmings; low-sodium stuffing; pasta; and fresh produce from our Glean for the City program). Few, if any, of these families could otherwise have afforded such a feast. For readers who would like to support our Holiday Helpings campaign — just $28 for a family of four — please visit www.breadforthecity.org/holidayhelpings

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sharon Gruber is Bread for the City’s nutritionist, and founder of the Glean for the City program.

Posted on November 24th 2009 in Community, Health, Organizations | No Comments »

A Very Hungry Country

The USDA announced on Monday that 49.1 million Americans, “lived in food-insecure households.” This is an enormous jump from the 36.2 million people it reported in 2007, and is by far the highest level of food insecurity reported since it started being measured in 1995. The report also told us that from 2006-2008, 12.4% or about 1 in 8 households in DC alone had difficulty getting enough food on the table. (See here for our post about what “food insecurity” looks like.)

It was news in 2007 when we saw an increase from 2006 of under 1 million hungry people in the United States—so a report that says 13 million more were hungry in 2008 is just plain scary. And because the number is averaged over the last 3 years, we can assume that the economic impact of the recession is not fully realized in those figures.

So here’s what we can add to the picture: demand for emergency food is up at least 30% in our region. Phone calls to the Capital Area Food Bank’s Hunger Lifeline, an emergency food referral service, were up by 91% in June of this year, and in the last few weeks the number of calls has skyrocketed — our operator is on the phone for a full 8 hours each day these days. (We even have others helping out to field her calls.) Emergency food providers and government assistance workers alike can attest to the experience of serving more and more middle class families through their programs.

It’s also important to remember that this kind of hunger has physical, social, mental, and spiritual implications well beyond the physical sensation most of us get at lunch time.

President Obama has pledged to end childhood hunger in the United States by the year 2015. With these new numbers, it’s clear we have a very daunting task ahead of us, and we’ll need everyone’s help to get there.

Posted on November 19th 2009 in Community, Food Security, Government Issues, Health | 1 Comment »

Empty Calories: Obesity in DC

This video was part of a project about undernutrition.

The first part of the project looked at community gardening in Rwanda involving people with HIV, who were unable to take their antiretroviral medicine because of nutrient deficiencies. That part of the project demonstrated a traditional idea of what undernourishment looks like: underweight Africans.

This video, Empty Calories, examines undernutrition in the developed world. Instead of underweight, undernutrition in America often amounts to obesity. We look at weight as something individuals control, but in reality it can be the result of social determinants of health, such as environment, access, availability and affordability.

Posted on November 18th 2009 in Access, Government Issues, Health, Organizations | No Comments »