As we sit down to eat our dinner, millions of Americans are affected by hunger. Food banks such as Harry Chapin Food Bank make it possible for low-come families to be able to be nourished and survive through these tough economic times. Through Harry Chapin Food Bank’s partnership with Walmart, Publix, and Win Dixie and the engagement of volunteers; they create sustainability and the ability to fight together as one against hunger, is possible. Harry Chapin Food Bank is located in Fort Myers and distributes food throughout Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties. The food bank is placed in a giant food warehouse that looks almost like a Costco. The volunteers at the food bank sort out produce, frozen meats, canned goods, and bread by making sure that even after the expiration date, it qualifies as fresh. I learned that many and almost all food companies put an expiration date on their products only because it benefits their business. Every time we throw out a product due to its expiration date, the more we go back to the store to buy products. These food companies have feed us false information by making us throw away good food while there are people starving. Unaware, there is a lot of wasted …show more content…
If a carrot does not look like the other carrots we typically see with one root, it is not considered “edible” and is given to the food bank. If the carrot has a little bit of green on it due to the sun, it is also donated. Each carrot has to be all the same color and size in order to be sold at grocery stores. Even though the quality of the food is good, due to it’s appearance it is considered “bad.” Unfortunately, companies waste so much food based on appearance. “In the United States (US) today: up to 50% of food produced for consumption is wasted in some stage of production, distribution, or preparation”
With regulations being set and laws enacted, the United States has seen a change for the better within the food industry and for the consumers overall. As a result, as much as a company is willing to cut on cost, without the consumers, every business in any industry will become bankrupt. The power is in the consumer and as long as consumers are educated properly and willing to speak up, there is a bright future ahead. However, because not everything can be seen, it is important to have books such as The Jungle and authors like Upton Sinclair to let people know what is going on and what not everyone is able to see. In doing so, this will raise awareness, create transparency and demand that companies practice ethically for the betterment of the
Today, in common culture, people expect their food right when they want it. Food takes time. It takes time to grow, in a paper by Steve Sexton called “The Inefficiency of Local Food” he claims that Idaho produces 30 percent of the countries potatoes. These potatoes take time to grow. They cannot just be magically grown. They need water, sunlight, and rich soil. People tend to forget this when thinking about their favorite foods. All they can think of is devouring these delectable foods. These foods also
A major issue that is occurring in America is a phenomena known as “food deserts”, most are located in urban areas and it's difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food. Whereas in the past, food deserts were thought to be solved with just placing a grocery store in the area, but with times it has become an issue that people are not picking the best nutritional option. This issue is not only making grocery store in food deserts are practically useless and not really eliminating the issue of food deserts because even when they are given a better nutritional option, and people are not taking it. In my perspective, it takes more than a grocery store to eliminate ‘food deserts’. It's more about demonstrating the good of picking the nutritional option and how it can help them and their families. For example, “Those who live in these areas are often subject to poor diets as a result and are at a greater risk of becoming obese or developing chronic diseases.”(Corapi, 2014).
According to the “Hunger and Poverty Fact Sheet” on Feeding America’s website, in 2014 there were over 48 million Americans living in food insecure households, which included 32 million adults and 15 million children. For over 35 years, Feeding America continues to be in the forefront in solving this crisis by providing food to people in need through a nationwide network of food banks. In the late 1960s, Van Hengel established the nation’s first food bank and years later established the first national organization of food banks, Second Harvest. Second Harvest was later called America’s Second Harvest the Nation’s Food Bank Network and in 2008, the national organization changed its name to Feeding America.
In Janet Poppendieck's “Want Amid Plenty: From Hunger To Inequality” she argues that America puts excessive focus upon hunger issues among the poor when there are many other important issues that go unnoticed. Poppendieck believes that it is time to find a way to shift the discourse from undernutrition to unfairness, from hunger to inequality. In today's society, there are many food banks, food drives, soup kitchens, etc. Food is extremely abundant in America, therefore Poppendieck's statement is proven true when she states that there is too much focus on hunger. Throughout this text, she strongly supports her claims about hunger, equality, and poverty in general.
President Obama once said, “As the wealthiest nation on Earth, I believe the United States has a moral obligation to lead the fight against hunger and malnutrition, and to partner with others.” Food insecurity has always been an issue of the public as well as around the world. For so long, many generations of Americans have been living in poverty or in a low income state. It would be surprise as to how many Americans are living in poverty. As a result of this living situation, there are problems that arise with it. One of the problems is food insecurity. Food insecurity can be simply explained as not having access to affordable and quality food. This problem can lead to serious
Poverty is regarded as the major cause of food insecurity. A household food security depends on access to food. America has access to good healthy food. However, a family too poor to buy them do not enjoy food security. Rosenbaum and Neuberger (2005) report that each year the number of people using government food assistance programs grows. “Food stamps are targeted to those with the greatest need for help in purchasing food… [and] helps to lessen the extent and severity of poverty (Rosenbaum and Neuberger 2005)”.
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this is working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government has now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as “a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors have caused food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien, director of public policy and research at Chicago-based Second Harvest says “’we’ve seen a real shift in who we serve. A decade ago, it was almost always homeless, single men and chronic substance abusers. Now we have children and working families at soup kitchens’” (Koch). These families that are feeling the effects of food insecurity will not be only ones affected by it, but all of America. Studies have shown that there is a link between food security, performance in the classroom, and obesity. If this issue is not faced head on, America will have a generation of children not fully prepared for the workforce and high health insurance rates due to obesity health issues.
According to Dolgoff and Feldstein (2003), “the needs and goals of the Food Stamp Program are to alleviate hunger and malnutrition by enabling low-income households to buy a nutritious adequate diet” (p. 132). The program also improved the market for local merchants to produce food for eligible low-income households and other agencies such as the School Lunch Program which safeguard the health and wel...
Food insecurity is defined by those who either do not have enough or are at real risk of not having enough food for their family. In May of 2009, there were approximately 38 million Americans defined as food insecure. That number grew to nearly 49 million 6 months later, and today there are over 50 million food insecure Americans (1 out of every 6). I find this astounding, because about 30 percent of all produce is thrown away before it even reaches the grocery store. Why? Because of cosmetic imperfections that are stipulated by large grocers that decide how produce should look. That is roughly 100 billion pounds of food a year or 1 pound per American per day that is being wasted because they aren’t pretty. America has begun to cater to only the perfectionist shoppers and has forgotten about those who do not have the money to purchase highly-priced produce. One of the ways we can start to solve this problem is through minimizing food waste at the beginning of the chain. Farmers typically throw away roughly 30 percent of all produce because they do not meet the guidelines for color, shape or number of blemishes. Instead, we should be following the
American citizens economic standing plays a role in the what foods they buy, where they buy, and their accessibility to buy. According to the United States Department of Agriculture an estimated twenty-three and a half million people live in a “food desert”. which is an urban or rural community that has little to no access to fresh food distributors such as a supermarket or farmers market. A lot of times these communities only food options are convenience stores and fast food restaurants, such as McDonalds and 7-Eleven, that...
Many people here in America are hardworking and resourceful, but an insecure economy can have a long-lasting effect on a diverse group of people. One of the greatest manifestations of this is the inability to consistently afford a healthy diet. In a report by done by researchers in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ‘in 2011, 14.9 percent or 17.9 million people in America were food insecure (Coleman-Jensen, Nordic, Andrews, & Carlson, 2012).’ Although many different organizations such as the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” or the SNAP food stamp program has set out to eradicate hunger, by giving assistance to low income participants, to help them afford food, it does still exist in many different people’s lives, at one point or another. While many other underdeveloped countries have harder times with hunger, many of them, due to socioeconomic difficulties, hunger still causes many problems for different people in America.
After volunteering three times with the social action committee and high school group from Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church in the previous years, the Houston Food Bank became very familiar both in regards of their history and how their volunteerism works. The Houston Food Bank is a non-profit organization that seeks donations of non-perishable food items to serve the low-income families in eighteen counties across Texas. However, during a recent trip to the food bank with the University of Houston-Downtown College of Business, the interactions with a larger group of classmates became more dynamic. Three main topics involving group work at the Houston Food Bank are service learning, community service, and volunteerism. Service learning
There are two types of people in Canada those who are economically stable and those who are not. The gap has become so broad that society could never reach an equal balance. Due to some Canadians not being employed, financially stable or educated it leads to them developing a lifestyle that could be a harmful to their health, this reason allowed food banks to take place helping those Canadians that are in need by donating food and volunteering to make a difference. The goodhearted people who started them thought food banks would be a short-term response. Now they 're a normal feature of our landscape (Power, 2011). This shows that even though Food Banks were initially a short-term response towards hungry, due to the gap that is placed between the rich and the poor it has become difficult reducing the gap. As the rich are getting richer and the poor are still struggling to shorten the gap, the food banks provide support to the poor by giving them food to eat and give them a healthy diet so they can decrease the risk of harming their health. This is a major issue because try to shut down the food banks do affect the social gap vigorously. Moreover, if they stop food banks many would die of hunger due to their social conditions and the rate of poor individuals would increase causing the social gap to increase. One reason why food banks do not have a huge effect on hunger is because not a lot Canadians, one out of four,
In the United States of America, the richest nation in the world, one in six Americans do not have enough food to eat. Have you ever wondered why there are so many food banks and food pantries throughout the country? They are not simply, as you might think, able to offer emergency food assistance. Indeed, they are the main sources of food for millions of food-insecure Americans. Food insecurity, the state of not having sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food, is very widespread and common in America.