[SustainableTompkins] Food justice article & question

Mon Feb 4 10:59:12 PST 2008

Coop extension is an excellent way to get info out to those who are
interested and able to participate. While Ann R.'s suggestion about chef
training is good, I'm more interested in seeing these educational programs
get into schools and agencies where people who eat (!) learn enough about
food and options for good nutrition, including cooking methods, that it is
not as specialized as career training programs. The Chefs' Collaborative
developed an eight week Sustainable Cuisine program for schools which I used
in my son's school, Montessori School of Ithaca, that was terrific and
covered everything from eating locally and in season(whereever possible) to
foods from different regions & ethnicities to make it exciting. Water
issues, marketing of farmers products & how climate affects the kinds of
foods eaten (cous cous in the Middle East) And they ate what they made which
for middle schoolers, was a big bonus.
buon'appetito,
Tony

On Feb 4, 2008 11:23 AM, <senecajean at aol.com> wrote:

>
> 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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-- 
The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just
sort of a tired feeling.
 - Paula Poundstone