[SustainableTompkins] Food justice article & question

Mon Feb 4 08:23:42 PST 2008

Thanks (again) Elan.

I was glad--as in very glad--to see that last paragraph too. Really gets down to brass tacks. Pretty much screwed is exactly it!

By education it probably meant that alot of the new/old food information, espcially the benefits of plant based eating, tend now to be "esoteric" in a junk food society where ads for crap are everywhere but good nutrition books and mags tend to be expensive ro otherwise out of reach especially to those like so many of our agency's clientas who barely get enough $$ and stamps even to buy cheap food and unfortunately many of whom can not read very well or even at all, or can't readily get to libraries, especially campus ones.   

Coop Externsion workshops, for example, are invaluable and I will try harder myself to get the info out to those who ned it.

Jeanne

-----Original Message-----
From: Margaret McCasland <mmccasla at twcny.rr.com>
To: Sustainable Tompkins County listserv <sustainabletompkins at lists.mutualaid.org>
Sent: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 7:42 pm
Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] Food justice article & question

I was glad to see the last paragraph.  While I'm 
ot sure what the authors mean by "education," a 
ot of traditional knowledge resulted in a much 
ealthier diet than today.
>So, how can low- and middle-income families
achieve a healthful diet?  “It takes three
things, explained Drewnowsky.  “Education, money,
and time.  If you have all three, you’re home
free.  If you have two out of three, you can
manage.  But if you only have one out of the
three, or zero out of the three, you are pretty
much screwed.  And a lot of low-income people
ave zero out of three
Simply cooking from scratch saves money, improves 
utrition, and cuts down on packaging and 
ransport.  But there are generations of people 
ho no longer know how to cook, and it does take 
ime.
Growing up in a rural area without much money, we 
te fruits and veggies year round.  But we ate 
resh only "in season."  And it took a lot of 
ime on the part of women who worked at home, 
putting food by."
A lot of it comes back to an economy where 
chools can no longer afford to teach basic life 
kills to middle schoolers (No Child left Behind 
idn't help either), and where parents need to 
ork such long hours no one has much time for 
ooking from scratch, even if they do know how.
Now I have to go cook some local turnips . . .

>Here's a  sobering article about how we  sustain
or don't sustain all members of our communities.
Question: How can we ensure that
relocalization/sustainability strategies
(policies, economics practices,  agriculture,
lifestyle, etc.) address this issue?

Healthy Diets Out of Reach for Many

Eating a healthy diet is getting so expensive
that many American families cannot afford it.
Not only are fruits and vegetables costly, but
food price inflation is reducing the ability of
low- and middle-income households to get the
nutrients they need.  Recent research confirms
these findings.

A University of Washington study, conducted over
a two-year period in the Seattle area, found that
good, healthy foods increased in price by almost
20 percent, four times the rate of overall food
inflation.  Meanwhile, less healthy, high calorie
foods held steady in price or actually dropped.

“We were shocked, said Adam Drewnowsky, director
of the University’s Center for Public Health
Nutrition and co-author of the study, The Rising
Cost of Low-Energy-Density Foods, published in
the December 2007 issue of the Journal of the
American Dietetic Association.  “The
nutrient-rich calories, the food we should be
eating are zooming out of sight, he stated.  “So
eating well is becoming unaffordable for many,
even in the middle class.

As healthy foods get more expansive, unhealthy
foods stay cheap.  “When it comes to empty
calories, it’s very difficult to compete with
sugar, noted Drewnowsky.  In Brazil, for example,
sugar made locally from sugar cane “is produced
at the cost of 30,000 calories for one dollar.
Nothing else comes close.

The academic findings were recently confirmed by
a federal study.  Are Lower Income Households
Willing and Able to Budget for Fruits and
Vegetables? is the title of a January 2008 report
issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA).  It is not surprising that households
with income near or under the poverty line spend
less money on food than higher income households.
But even when they experience a small increase in
income, such households will allocate more money
to only two of seven product categories – beef
and frozen prepared foods.  For low-income
households to prioritize fruits and vegetables, a
household’s income must increase more
substantially.

So, how can low- and middle-income families
achieve a healthful diet?  “It takes three
things, explained Drewnowsky.  “Education, money,
and time.  If you have all three, you’re home
free.  If you have two out of three, you can
manage.  But if you only have one out of the
three, or zero out of the three, you are pretty
much screwed.  And a lot of low-income people
have zero out of three

For additional information, see the USDA report
at: 
<http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR54/>
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR54/.  The
University of Washington study is on the web at: 
<http://www.mdconsult.com/das/article/body/86804079-2/jorg=journal&source=&sp=20186529&sid=0/N/619891/If07018007003.fig>http://www.mdconsult.com/das/article/body/86804079-2/jorg=journal&source=&sp=20186529&sid=0/N/619891/If07018007003.fig

--
Elan Shapiro
Sustainable Tompkins Community Partnership Coordinator
Sustainable Living Associates, Principal
Frog's Way B&B
211 Rachel Carson Way
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-275-0249    607-592-8402 Cell

"We must be the change we want to see in the world"
             Mohandas Gandhi
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