Earlier this month, Howard G. Buffet, son of billionaire Warren Buffet and United Nations Ambassador Against Hunger, wrote a piece for the Des Moines Register about hunger in the United States and proposed budget cuts threatening some of our federal nutrition programs. I wholeheartedly agree with his ultimate stance: reducing the deficit shouldn’t come at the cost of our nation’s poor.
But I think he’s left out a couple of really important points. I have a lot of things floating around in my head about this, but for now, I just want to put a couple of ideas on the table.
Buffet talks about living on some of the world’s richest farmland, with the highest corn and soybean yields in the country. But the corn and soybeans farmed in the Midwest aren’t for direct consumption by humans. Rather, we’re making feed for cows in feedlots, high fructose corn syrup and ethanol to drive our cars.
Buffet states that the U.S. feeds 20 percent of the world on 10 percent of the world’s arable land. But what are our top food exports? Wheat, feed grains, oilseeds and rice. Not exactly nutritional powerhouses.
With regard to our nation’s nutritional “safety nets,” I see a federal food program in action four days a week when I drop my daughter off at daycare, which is located at a homeless shelter. The kids in her class are, for the most part, eating federally approved and subsidized junk. I would even go so far as to argue that some of the items served aren’t actually even food. The fact that our nation’s poor (and their toddlers!) are provided with such unhealthy options (and is it really an option, if you can’t afford anything better?) at a time when so many food and lifestyle related diseases are skyrocketing is appalling.
I think we need to take a much closer look at the programs we want to defend and think about how we can improve them so they’re worth saving. Otherwise, we’re going to continue having fat, sick, hungry Americans. Until a bag of carrots costs less than a bag of chips at the grocery store, I’ll have a hard time believing our current agricultural model is the answer to our nation’s hunger problems.
What do you think?
I have worked on a number of food drives for our regional food-bank. I totally believe in their goals (eliminating hunger) but I think that "teaching someone to fish" is left out of the equation here far too much. Food made "from scratch," rather than heating up pre-made food (like ravioli from a can) is far cheaper and healthier. Even in URBAN areas, Cubans get as much of 50% of their food from kitchen gardens and small livestock (goats, chickens, and pigs) that they keep themselves. I love the convenience of the supermarket as much as the next person. But I know how to bake, I know how to grow a garden. I also know that mac & cheese in a box is NOT a healthy way to feed my family! We need to focus more and more on locally grown food… either by individuals, or CSAs, or local farms. We also need to shift our expectations: I live in Maine, yet I can get fresh bananas and oranges year round. That's unnatural! We need to eat local food in season, and local food preserved for the winter. 'Nuf said.
Well said! You are speaking my language, Anonymous (whoever you are…).
Look for a post from Annie Bergman on how we're working with communities in the U.S. to learn how "to fish," so to speak.
Something that really needs to happen in our country is a MAJOR education movement on proper nutrition. Parents and childcare providers need to know that Cheetos aren't appropriate for toddlers. The people who decide what schools can feed students need to know that catsup is NOT a vegetable. People need to know that what they're putting into their bodies is making them sick. You know these things; I know these things. But many Americans–especially the poor–don't seem to know.
There has to be an intersection of people knowing that whole foods are healthier and wanting to eat them with those foods being made more affordable and accessible to them.