I do the grocery shopping in my family and lately I can’t help thinking about what's in the basket before I get to the check out line. We all know how the price of food has been rising. So far it hasn’t really changed what I'm eating. I’m fortunate in that way, and I’m growing more aware of it each day.
We also know this is a bigger issue than what' s in our own grocery baskets. The cost of food has shot up dramatically all around the world. In some places the consequences are grave. Food riots have occurred in dozens of countries as people who were already living on the edge are pushed that much closer to starvation. It’s quite alarming and something we’re not used to thinking about, the possibility of societies descending into chaos, governments falling because of food prices and hunger. I don’t think this is an exaggeration. The prime minister of Haiti was sacked last week after government forces turned their weapons on protestors and killed some of them.
Here in the United States, the effects of rising food prices on the poor have not been this dramatic, but many people are feeling more than just a little pinched. I don’t often get to talk with people in the emergency food network, but at a meeting I attended last month where lots of food bank staff was there from all across the country, they were saying their shelves are emptying faster than they can restock them, and they’re certainly calling this a crisis. They rely on private donations and government support and neither is keeping up with demand, so people who need food are getting turned away because there isn’t enough.
I remember the first time I visited a food bank. I was awestruck by the amount of food I saw on the shelves. From floor to ceiling, and this was a room the size of a warehouse, boxes of food were stacked evenly and orderly. There were signs of industrial efficiency all around the place. I’ve seen this same thing in food banks in other parts of the country. Most people I'm guessing don’t know what the inside of a food bank looks like. My first trip to a food bank made me appreciate how much hunger there is in America—or would be without the great work of these food bankers.
Actually, food banks provide a much smaller share of the food assistance than what’s provided through the USDA nutrition programs. Almost one in ten people relies on the Food Stamp Program, and then there are the WIC families, the kids at school who get free school lunches, and the low-income seniors who get their food packages delivered to their door or in the cafeterias at senior centers. It all happens invisibly for the most part, and I have to say I've come to think this is also a problem. We’ve institutionalized food assistance such that we take hunger in our country for granted. The book Sweet Charity addresses this subject in depth and is a good read.
I don’t write this because I'm upset with food banks or food stamps or anything or anybody responding to the real needs of hungry people. I do get upset whenever I think that there are people who believe there is no hunger in the United States, and I do wish sometimes hunger was made easier to see. While I have only met a small number, I know there are a lot of people who doubt there is hunger in America. I interviewed a woman last year while working on the 2008 Hunger Report, Working Harder for Working Families, and she told me about being hungry and what it is like to battle hunger on a regular basis. I wish everyone who doubted could hear her say these words:
I shopped carefully, using coupons, looking for the specials in the newspaper. I made lists before going to the supermarket. If it was not on the list, I didn’t buy it. I taught my daughter to do math by shopping for groceries. If it was in the basket she could add up exactly how much the bill would be before we got to the check out line.
When you’re poor you have to do things to stretch the food. I remember we scraped the seeds out of a Halloween jack-o-lantern so that we could dry them to eat. I watered down my daughter’s apple juice. I watered down her formula, but stopped doing when she became anemic. That time I got really scared.
I tell myself we have to keep writing these reports and putting these stories out there for people to be reminded that hunger has not gone away. You do what you can not to let it remain invisible.
Is it just me? Maybe it's just the way I've been raised. I, nor have ny of my immediate family has ever gone hungry. Not that were rich, were not poor. In my entire life I've never bought a store tomato- those are grown in the back yard, next to the lettuce, next to the apple trees, and the potato box. What we dont eat we can for later. This is what grandma learned in the great depresion, do for yourself. Dirt, a few seeds, a little water, it dont take much. As I look at these people rioting I dont see the same 'do for yourself' attitude. Theres a lot to eat when you serve cornbread and stew meat. We always roasted pumkin seeds, then after haloween the jack-o-lantern became pumpkin pies, and pumpkin bread.
Plant a seed in that mud, dont eat it.
Posted by: Dave | April 19, 2008 at 11:50 AM