Hunger Action Week: Views of hunger in West Michigan by those who serve the hungry

Since it is Hunger Action Week in West Michigan, and other people seem interested in having a conversation on hunger, I decided to talk to a few people who work directly with the people we are talking about.  The central question I asked was, "What do you think is most important to know about food insecurity in Grand Rapids and West Michigan?"

Because I don't think most people who aren't food insecure think about people who are food insecure except at certain times of the year - Thanksgiving, Christmas, Lent, during food drives - I wanted to examine more general attitudes about those who eat with help from SNAP and food pantries.  I talked to Marge at Degage Food Pantry, and she said there was a shortage, not just of fresh nutritional food, but of food education.  That lots of people who are food insecure eat terribly unhealthy food without really knowing the alternatives or even realizing how bad it is for them.  But talking about this with her, we both came to the conclusion that was true of many, if not most, people, not just those who do not have enough to buy groceries.  There's a whole generation of kids growing up now drinking pop instead of milk or even water.  Soda is not just nutritionally empty, it's actively bad for you and linked to obesity and even behavioral problems in kids.  Children and young people often have no concept of what constitutes real food, in the sense that it comes from plants and animals, is cooked or minimally processed and consumed soon after together with other people at a table or in another communal setting.  Most kids do regularly eat foods that contains a scary list of chemicals rather than simple ingredients like milk, eggs, flour, and salt.  Many kids in Forest Hills or Rockford or Jenison are malnourished as well.

So in this sense the food insecure are just like the rest of us, eating crap food because it's cheap, because it's tasty, because it's been deliberately, chemically modified to be addictive, because it's been marketed to us continuously since childhood.

I also talked to Angie Kelley at Westminster Food Pantry.  She agreed that food insecure people often buy the worst food because it's cheap.  She also wanted to stress that while a common perception is that people who use food pantries are scamming the system, most people in fact would prefer not to use food pantries and for them it's a matter of being able to afford food OR some other necessary thing like rent or medicine.  No one is building a dream house by going to food pantries instead of Meijer.  Chances are, they've also sidelined items like getting kids braces or paying the phone bill.  It's embarrassing to many people to ask for help; but as a community (and a nation) we are struggling with unemployment and chronic underemployment at the same time food and energy costs are quickly rising.  Many people have themselves donated to food pantries and then found themselves using them in a time of need.

Angie wanted to mention the shortage of fresh produce (something Marge also mentioned).  There isn't a shortage of food, per se, but there is a shortage of healthy food.  With the opening of the Downtown Market, Degage has a new source of fresh produce as the market is donating its excess to them, but most food pantries do not have it to offer, and most people aren't familiar with ways to cook healthy meals from food pantry staples.  Angie said she would love it if there was a centrally located produce distribution center available either to the public directly or to food pantries to supply them.  She also thought it would be wonderful if the various food insecurity agencies would work more collaboratively so that all populations of the hungry could be served better.  As a librarian, further organization always sounds like a good idea to me.
Another tip I took away: Do not donate expired food to food drives or pantries.  It will be discarded.  It's past the recommended date of use for anyone.  Apparently people do this all the time, perhaps not knowing it will be thrown out.

I'd love to hear your further ideas about food and hunger in West Michigan.  Please leave them in the comments!

Hunger Action Week is September 8 - 14th

The Grand Rapids foodshed is changing and developing in fantastic ways, but for the approximately 13% of Kent County residents who experience food insecurity, the doings at the new Downtown Market are of little interest.  That's because affordable is more critical than fresh, local, or organic to them.

Hunger Action Week is a local effort to address the issues of food insecurity and educate people about hunger in West Michigan.  Some of the scheduled events include a SNAP challenge meant to get people to think how would feed themselves or their families on the SNAP allotment of $31.50 per person per week, a poverty simulation exercise, healthy food cook-off between local chefs, and multiple showings of A Place at the Table, a documentary on hunger starring Jeff Bridges.

While I think learning about hunger in our area is a very good thing and many people could benefit from the realization that their circumstances are not everyone's circumstances, I do have problems with both the SNAP food stamp program and even well meaning, enthusiastically staffed programs like Kids' Food Basket.  Since the government now distributes its food benefits via a swipeable Bridge Card, committing fraud is pretty easy and the government has little influence over which foods households purchase with that money.  Cards do offer both more dignity and autonomy to the process  at the individual level, but much of the money our government spends on "food" goes to complete garbage - high sugar, low nutrition fast foods that ensure that while kids might not feel hungry, they are nonetheless being undernourished and their bodies are not receiving enough nutrients to grow and develop properly.  I have donated to Kids Food Basket before and the suppers they send home are easier to transport than they are to digest.  Juice boxes?  Sugar.  Peanut butter sandwiches?  Sugar.  Trail mix?  Sugar.  Apple?  Natural sugar.  I know Kids Food Basket chooses to send home a meal the organization believes kids will eat of their own accord, but this is not a meal I'd want my child to eat every night.  The body turns excess sugar into fat, and childhood obesity in America is very high.  More than one out of three kids in America is currently overweight or obese.  Many of these kids are the same kids who are in food insecure environments.

The problem with hunger in America is not a lack of food.  We are not sub-Saharan Africa, and even amidst drought conditions, the food supply remains more than adequate for our population.  Grocery stores also toss a significant amount of unspoiled food in dumpsters rather than give it away.  Affording food has become troublesome for many families in the last decade as the price of stables like meat and milk and bread continues to rise along with gas prices, making a trip to the store more expensive all the time.  However, if you are carefully shopping and cooking all of your own meals (not to mention gardening or foraging), it is possible to feed a family on a modest food budget.  The food won't be exciting or luxurious, but it can be tasty, nutritious and regular.  Simple Depression era meals like those featured in Cooking with Clara are easy to make.  I baked four loaves of bread using her recipe last weekend, and they were delicious.  Since my husband received notice of being laid off in July, we've cut back on any extraneous food expenditures (eating out, buying luxuries like bakery goods, soda, nice cheeses, or any other food I love to buy), but we are still eating foods that are healthy and delicious.  I just have to cook or bake much more or pick and can it myself.

Some people resent the paternalism that creeps into discussions about poverty and hunger, but it's already paternalistic to pay for or distribute food - it's based on the assumption that people cannot or will not provide for themselves or their children.  I would prefer to see community kitchens arise to eradicate hunger in our neighborhoods.  It would be far more feasible to oversee what people are being fed and to make sure the nutritional content was high, and it would bring people together back to a communal table where they could interact with the people around them instead of eating a bagged lunch in front of a television or computer screen.  There are plenty of empty storefronts in my area of the city, Creston, and the government's money would be spent employing local people doing hands-on work, it would not be going directly or indirectly to industrial farms, CAFOs, or big food corporations that market crap to kids (and adults).

I know this is a pipe dream - there are too many vested interests in the current state of hunger - but if we are going to talk about what will get people the food they need, I'd love to hear solutions that would help people long term, not meal by meal.

Check out some of the Hunger Action Week offerings.  They look very interesting and may inspire meals at your house too.