food policy – Hank Kalet

On food drives and poverty

Matthew Yglesias at Slate makes a compelling argument against the traditional food drive — but it’s one that, in the end, I can’t support. The argument — that donated money makes more sense — has some validity in larger communities, but in areas with smaller food banks, money can create a strain.

Organizations like Rise in Hightstown and the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton rely on both food and money, with money going a lot farther toward meeting the needs of local communities because they can buy in bulk. But smaller organizations like the South Brunswick Food Pantry (which also has a trust fund that collects monetary donations for other services) and Skeet’s Pantry in Cranbury do not have the manpower or economies of scale to be able to take advantage of bulk buying power.

The greater issue is our societal reliance on food banks and soup kitchens to plug holes in the safety net. Poverty is a social issue and is created by larger cultural trends with impacts that reach out beyond the immediate families into local neighborhoods and beyond into the larger community.

Relying on private organizations to address larger societal problems is destined to leave us chasing our tales on the poverty issue, always a step behind, the solution just a step out of reach.

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Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
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The shame of the nation: More people are going hungry

Another bit of bad news that demonstrates that the economy may be in recovery, but it is not getting better.

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans who lived in households that lacked consistent access to adequate food soared last year, to 49 million, the highest since the government began tracking what it calls “food insecurity” 14 years ago, the Department of Agriculture reported Monday.

The increase, of 13 million Americans, was much larger than even the most pessimistic observers of hunger trends had expected and cast an alarming light on the daily hardships caused by the recession’s punishing effect on jobs and wages.

About a third of these struggling households had what the researchers called “very low food security,” meaning lack of money forced members to skip meals, cut portions or otherwise forgo food at some point in the year.

The other two-thirds typically had enough to eat, but only by eating cheaper or less varied foods, relying on government aid like food stamps, or visiting food pantries and soup kitchens.

“These numbers are a wake-up call for the country,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

I wish it was a wakeup call, but with so many facing economic uncertainty the methods we’ve relied on for far too long (private and faith-based food pantries and soup kitchens) just won’t cut it now (they do not have the means).

A federal response is necessary, but unlikely — very much to our shame as a nation. In the meantime, maybe we should take Swift’s sarcastic advice and just eat the poor.

Contrary viewpoints — Part 2: More on Whole Foods

Michael Pollan, the great food writer, publicly stated his opposition to the boycott of Whole Foods. Not that he agrees with the company’s CEO, John Mackey on healthcare, he just believes that the good the company does in improving Americans’ diets is too important to jeopardize:

John Mackey’s views on health care, much as I disagree with them, will not prevent me from shopping at Whole Foods. I can understand why people would want to boycott, but it’s important to play out the hypothetical consequences of a successful boycott. Whole Foods is not perfect, however if they were to disappear, the cause of improving Americans’ health by building an alternative food system, based on more fresh food, pastured and humanely raised meats and sustainable agriculture, would suffer. I happen to believe health care reform has the potential to drive big changes in the food system, and to enlist the health care industry in the fight to reform agriculture. How? Because if health insurers can no longer pick and choose their clients, and throw sick people out, they will develop a much stronger interest in prevention, which is to say, in changing the way America feeds itself. When health insurers realize they will make thousands more in profits for every case of type II diabetes they can prevent, they will develop a strong interest in things like corn subsidies, local food systems, farmer’s markets, school lunch, public health campaigns about soda, etc. So Mackey is wrong on health care, but Whole Foods is often right about food, and their support for the farmers matters more to me than the political views of their founder. I haven’t examined the political views of all the retailers who feed me, but I can imagine having a lot of eating problems if I make them a litmus test.

There is something to this, I guess, though I think he’s missing the potential use of the Whole Foods question as an organizing focal point. But I respect his reasoning, given the difficulty of balancing his two beliefs.

Will Obama set a new table?

The nation’s agricultural and food policies are stuck in the past — the 19th century, to be exact — and food activists are hoping the new president will change the way the nation eats and farms, bringing the United States into the 21st century.

It remains an open question, however, whether he will.

Although Mr. Obama has proposed changes in the nation’s farm and rural policies and emphasizes the connection between diet and health, there is nothing to indicate he has a special interest in a radical makeover of the way food is grown and sold.

Still, the dream endures. To advocates who have watched scattered calls for changes in food policy gather political and popular momentum, Mr. Obama looks like their kind of president.

Not only does he seem to possess a more-sophisticated palate than some of his recent predecessors, but he will also take office in an age when organic food is mainstream, cooking competitions are among the top-rated TV shows and books calling for an overhaul in the American food system are best sellers.

“People are so interested in a massive change in food and agriculture that they are dining out on hope now. That is like the main ingredient,” said Eddie Gehman Kohan, a blogger from Los Angeles who started Obamafoodorama.com to document just about any conceivable link between Mr. Obama and food, whether it is a debate on agriculture policy or an image of Mr. Obama rendered in tiny cupcakes.

“He is the first president who might actually have eaten organic food, or at least eats out at great restaurants,” Ms. Gehman Kohan said.

Still, no one is sure just how serious Mr. Obama really is about the politics of food. So like mystery buffs studying the book jacket of “The Da Vinci Code,” interested eaters dissect every aspect of his life as it relates to the plate.

The reality, as with everything else surrounding the president-elect, is that progressives may be projecting their own desires onto him, leaving far more room for disappointment than there should be.

The LGBT movement is (rightly) angry over the choice of the Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration. Economic populists — like me — are none too pleased with the economic team he’s assembled, peace activists are angry over his retention of Robert Gates as defense secretary (not to mention their puzzlement over the choice of Hillary Clinton for secretary of state), and so on.

None of this should have been a surprise — as I’ve written and so many on the left have said, Barack Obama is a cautious political centrist, albeit one with progressive instincts that have been lacking among most Democrats in recent years.

I remain hopeful that Obama will move the nation in a more humane and reformist direction, even if he does not take us as far toward social democracy as I would like.