Food Politics

If it were grade in school 89% might be quite acceptable to a parent or student, but having, or not having enough food, seems unlikely to be fixed by the person studying just a little more.

My guess is we would all prefer it be 100%, and are equally frustrated with there being more food produced that we can actually eat — where does it all go?

Industrial food prices ought to be closely tied to oil prices, (albeit with a fair lag). Oil is now 10 times its 1999 cost, 5 times its 2002 cost and twice its 2004 cost. Food prices in the US are going to get worse, and food insecurity is going to go up.

When I click the link, it takes me to an article on diabetes drugs. Could you check the link, please?
Thank you.

Mark D. asks where all the surplus food goes (I, too, am bothered that 11% goes without enough food when more than enough is produced). One place is the dumpster behind the average supermarket. And I’m not talking about spoiled food, but perfectly edible, surplus food that is discarded to make way for the new food that was just loaded off the truck.

While I’m not a “freegan”, I’ve been running across a lot of freegan info lately. Freegans make claims about the huge amount of perfectly edible fresh food is discarded every single day. From what I have seen, it is probably true.

“Despite our society’s sterotypes about garbage, the goods recovered by freegans are safe, useable, clean, and in perfect or near-perfect condition, a symptom of a throwaway culture that encourages us to constantly replace our older goods with newer ones, and where retailers plan high-volume product disposal as part of their economic model. ” Source: http://freegan.info/

Some communities have organizations which collect such food items and distribute them to suitable recipients. But a bigger question is why every community doesn’t have such a system. Our local CRC cannot handle fresh foods because they don’t have the proper facilities to store them, which is only one of the issues. So most of the foods they distribute are packaged foods.

This is off-topic somewhat, but it has been on my mind as holiday food drives gear up this month. My son’s Cub Scout pack has periodic food drives to fill the local Community Resources Center’s truck with food for their pantry. The boys ask shoppers entering the store to consider purchasing non-perishables donations (food, household goods/cleaners, baby supplies, etc.) to add to the drive on their way out of the store. Every drive I have attended, the single most commonly donated item is a can of corn! Why corn? I know it is cheap, but starchy corn, instead of tomatoes or green beans, or even pinto beans?

The other thing I have noticed is that can of corn is usually donated by a person with a huge cart full of food bags, while the larger ticket donations, like diapers, household cleaning supplies, toilet paper, tuna, peanut butter, cans of stew, etc., are more often donated by the person who bought just a few items for themselves (the donations are often much more than their pursonal purchases). I’m not trying to make a judgment (ok, with the canned corn, I am) but I’m interested in the donation patterns.

BTW, my donations are usually protein foods (they seem to get an excess proportion of starch foods donations at these drives, but limited protein foods: tuna & salmon pouches, canned meats, nut butters, stews, etc. Our CRC particularly likes single serve items for their transient clients. Some seniors prefer these items, too.

No, 11% food insecure is not acceptable. I would like more information about why the other half of this group is not receiving assistance. It sounds like they could qualify for Food Stamps, but I have not seen the specific numbers/reasons why these people are not getting assistance. Perhaps there are societal or access obstacles we could resolve?
I would also like more information about how communities are addressing the problem successfully. Perhaps they have some ideas the rest of us could implement.

this is for anna about the canned corn. i myself have donated canned corn. my reason? i wasn ‘t thinking heath as much as which vegetable is probably liked the most and particularly by children. i really was not thinking about the starch content in it. did this help you?