In an unexpected turn, the economic slump may lead to healthier eating habits for Americans, especially lower income people. A number of trends are coming together including more people using emergency food banks, the growth of farmers’ markets and community gardens, Alice Waters’ edible schoolyard, the White House garden, etc. One thing I’ve noticed in my grantwriting class at Portland State is a number of students looking for funding to start or expand school, community, or food bank gardens.
Any number of studies say that Americans eat too much meat, fat, sugar, and salt and too few vegetables. This is especially true for poor families who live in neighborhoods without good grocery stores, or don’t have decent kitchens or time to cook, or can’t afford fresh produce. Chronic preventable diseases like diabetes and hypertension, which are epidemic in many poor and minority communities, can be prevented or controlled with diet.
Getting more vegetables into Americans’ diets would have major health benefits and note that most of these aren’t government programs. However, nonprofit Food Banks have for years overused government surplus foods, largely subsidized agricultural products, without regard to their health benefits.
This is from the Oregonian:
“We have a hunger crisis in Oregon. It’s just expanding,” explains Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen, who’s just set up a vegetable garden on the empty cropland, fertile with irony, of the former county poor farm. “My hope is this is the first of many.”
Up at the Vancouver Vineyard Church food pantry, David and Andrea Walker are looking to their third summer harvest. Clark County is part of the Oregon Food Bank area, and in its first year the operation received an OFB award for excellence in client service.
This year, the Walkers are hoping for 5,000 pounds of produce from the 3,000-square-foot garden out behind the church. It’s not a rolling or pastoral stretch; it’s off to the side of an alley-like casual road, just some cultivated acreage — or more precisely, yardage — in the midst of a weedy lot. At some point in the future, the space could turn into a small apartment court, like so many around it.
The New York Times Magazine had an article last Sunday about Growing Power in Milwaukee.
Like others in the so-called good-food movement, Allen, who is 60, asserts that our industrial food system is depleting soil, poisoning water, gobbling fossil fuels and stuffing us with bad calories. Like others, he advocates eating locally grown food. But to Allen, local doesn’t mean a rolling pasture or even a suburban garden: it means 14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing project.
And this is why Allen is so fond of his worms. When you’re producing a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of food in such a small space, soil fertility is everything. Without microbe- and nutrient-rich worm castings (poop, that is), Allen’s Growing Power farm couldn’t provide healthful food to 10,000 urbanites – through his on-farm retail store, in schools and restaurants, at farmers’ markets and in low-cost market baskets delivered to neighborhood pickup points. He couldn’t employ scores of people, some from the nearby housing project; continually train farmers in intensive polyculture; or convert millions of pounds of food waste into a version of black gold.
Another Times story tells of a consultant who works on sustainable food in Oakland, CA:
With its high crime and poverty rates, Oakland doesn’t have nearly the same precious food culture – or produce – that defines nearby Berkeley and San Francisco. But Fernald and Sardo’s home is a modern homestead, preserving the larder for leaner (and busier) times. Every summer they host tomato-canning and jam-making parties; fall is for pumpkin-processing events and butchering pigs with 10 guests invited to make sausage, which Fernald cures in a modified wine fridge in a closet. Splitting a steer with friends? Their chest freezer contains a beefy ode to their vacuum sealer.
Fernald, 34, a former family-farm advocate, was the executive director of last year’s Slow Food Nation event. Now she combines her activism and her acumen with Live Culture, a consultancy that helps companies create sustainable food practices and products. Projects range from developing a line of artisanal cured meats in Shasta and an agritourism in Belize to helping an Alabama barbecue chain source better pork; from working with nonprofits to develop value-added food businesses to organizing the Eat Real Festival, an August fund-raising event that involves 20 taco trucks serving sustainable street food to an estimated 20,000 (plus a butchering contest and home-canned and foraged-food exchange). Fernald is also intent on spreading the urban homesteading bug throughout the Bay Area, having organized the recent Yes, We Can (Food) event, which taught 80 people to make jam.
Here’s a story about the garden on the old Multnomah County poor farm, mentioned above.
On the county’s eastern outskirts where Northeast Halsey Street meets 244th Avenue, prime farmland waited for a new calling. What if the county took even a few of its dozens of vacant acres, Madrigal wondered, and asked the community to work a farm that could help feed hundreds?
The idea not only is part of a local and national trend to return to the earth, but it also brings the county back to its historical roots. The land picked for the farm is part of a sprawling tract that once fulfilled the county’s state-imposed mission to care for its indigent: the Multnomah County Poor Farm.
For practical reasons, she says, gardening makes sense. The county garden will cost about $22,000 to clear, irrigate and plant this year. That could buy a lot of prepackaged food — but not the 20,000 to 40,000 pounds of fresh organic produce that Stone estimates could be grown on the two acres each year.
That produce will go to the Oregon Food Bank and will feed what food resource manager Mike Moran calls a desperate need.
Here’s another farm dedicated to a food bank.
Formed in May of 2000, the Mother Earth Farm is an eight-acre organic farm located in the lush Puyallup Valley. The Farm produces over 150,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables each growing season-all of which is distributed directly to local food banks and hot meal programs. Produce from the Farm is in the hands of food bank clients within eight hours of being harvested. In 2008, the Farm again reached full cultivation of all eight acres producing more than 149,000 pounds of fresh produce, herbs and honey.
Then there are Community Gardens, where neighbors share plots, usually on vacant land or a park. If you Google community gardens you get results for probably all major American cities, and that’s just for starters.
The American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) was founded in 1979 in order to help gardening programs share their limited resources and thereby benefit from each other’s experience and expertise.
ACGA staff, board members, and volunteers answer thousands of requests for information each year about community gardening and greening. They offer support, coach fledgling groups, and promote networking and information sharing on all levels. Through our networking, publications, trainings and annual conference held in a different part of the country each year, ACGA:
- promotes the formation and expansion of national and regional community gardening networks,
- develops resources in support of community gardening and greening,
encourages research on the impact of community greening, and- conducts educational training programs to further community gardening and greening.
Another model is school gardens, where students plant and tend the garden, with produce being used in the cafeteria or shared with families. Pioneered by uber- restaurateur Alice Waters in Berkeley, there are now school gardens in hundreds of communities. A quick Google search turned up four networks promoting school gardens: Kids Gardening, City Farmer, Growing Gardens, and School Garden Network.
Then there’s Michelle, who’s in a sort of class by herself in inspiring American gardeners. From a NY Times article on the White House veggie plot:
Twenty-three fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington will help her dig up the soil for the 1,100-square-foot plot, in a spot visible to passers-by on E Street. (It is just below the Obama girls’ swing set.)
Students from the school, which has had a garden since 2001, will also help plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs. Virtually the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said with a laugh. “Now Grandma, my mom, I don’t know.” Her mother, she said, will probably sit back and say: “Isn’t that lovely. You missed a spot.”
July 10th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Definitely some inspiring work…certainly puts my squash/hot pepper/herb garden to shame. Here is just one more twist from Cleveland – urban gardens as an economic development tool.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1246870657117330.xml&coll=2
July 10th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
JC,
Your squash/hot pepper/herb garden isn’t to be sneezed at. This is a very grassroots phenom and everyone does what they need. We’ve had a side yard garden for years, when the farmer’s markets got big we realized that everything came into the season at the same time, so we switched to a flower garden for cutting, and cut back on growing veggies we could get at market. But this year we are back to more vegetables, Michelle’s inspiration I think. I’m actually just the shovel guy, my wife is the real gardener.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
The whole “food desert” hypothesis is… just that. A hypothesis.
A just as valid hypothesis is that poor people have a poor future time orientation. They do what feels good now (like eating fast food, not vegitables), damn the long term consequences.
There are no healthy food alternatives in the ghetto because there isn’t the demand for them there. Poor future time orientation explains most of the ills of the poor in the first world.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Buzzcut,
I don’t want to get into a long side discussion on this, but you make the jump from poor food choices to “the ghetto”. Most poor people in America are White and many are suburban or rural. Why they don’t plant gardens is a good question. The things I’m talking about are trying to start changing that.
July 11th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Buzzcut,
OK, let’s take a look at your hypothesis that poor minority folks in the inner city simply don’t want nutritious. If this hypothesis is valid, then the urban gardens mentioned in Michael’s blog would have been total faliures, especially the ones in Oakland and Milwaukee. The whole urban garden movement would have absolutly no traction if people in the “ghetto” did not want healthy food.
Here in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Fresh Financing Food Initiative(FFFI)has helped bring in grocery stores to many underserved communities. According to your hypothesis, this would have been a waste of public money. However, these stores are reporting profits, and in some cases expanding, thus hiring more people in the local neighborhoods.
The success of these projects show that your hypothesis is not as valid as you think it is.
July 11th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I hadn’t remembered the term “food desert” so looked it up and got this Wikipedia definition. “A food desert is a district with little or no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet, but often served by plenty of fast food restaurants.”
It’s important to break this down into observable facts and theory.
It’s obvious and easily verifiable that many low income/ poverty stricken communities don’t have good grocery stores. Drive or walk around poor areas and look. That’s not hypothesis, it’s facts on the ground.
WHY this happens is open to discussion and varying hypothesis. Buzzcut’s “poor time orientation” is one and may have some validity. Another is that grocery chains want customers who can buy 2-3 bags for a week and pay cash (check/debit, whatever)and so avoid poor areas. There may be others, and probably there are multiple factors.
This reminds me of when I lived in New York. The common wisdom was that vegetables moved downtown. Fresh produce would first go into stores on the upper East Side, after a week the leftovers would move to middle income neighborhoods like Chelsea or the West Village, another week and the same vegetables would be in the Lower East Side mercados(or uptown in Harlem)and pretty wilted. I never checked this out but judging by the quality of produce in the stores accepted it. Having grown up in california I had something to compare it to.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Food deserts are urban phenomenons. The rural poor often have access to the greatest anti-poverty program known to mankind: Walmart.
Even so, as noted, it isn’t like the white rural poor are… slim. Yet another indication that it is poor future time orientation that is the culprit.
Also, keep in mind that just because there are no supermarkets in the ghetto does not mean that the urban poor don’t shop in supermarkets. They do so in other communities.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Buzzcut, I don’t know if you are making the statements you are to stir up the discussion or whether you actually believe your blanket hypotheses but I feel the need to take a deep breath and respond.
Obesity is an American problem, not just limited to urban poor or rural poor. The efforts that Michael discusses in his original post appear to have been put in place to increase exposure of healty eating to all people. Some of the activities in the inner city receive more coverage since they are supplying food banks, are geared towards educating the next generation (very important) or are re-using lots from demolished houses. Bottom line: With little effort and little cost, we can do better for ourselves and our children.
I live in a nice, middle class neighborhood with several very nice grocery stores close by. I would say that at least half, if not more, of my neighbors would be considered heavy. At my kids swim team practice early this morning, many of the younger siblings were running around eating their Hot Pockets or Pop Tarts while the moms were reading weight loss magazines and talking about how many “points” were in a tacquito. After practice, they jumped in their mini-vans and drove the half-mile home. I think your definition of “poor future time orientation” applies to more than just the low income.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:53 am
I think your definition of “poor future time orientation” applies to more than just the low income.
True. But as with anything, it is all a matter of degrees.
Look, divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth are also problems in America. But like obesity, they are much more prevelant the lower down the income ladder you go.
In fact, I think that income itself is an indication of future time orientation. It refects how much you work and how much education you’ve attained.
July 13th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Future time orientation is something of a luxury a lot of low income earners of all races don’t have. For the “Brittle Class”, the future is now. They simply don’t make enough to save for the future or to make a wise purchases. Everything they do is based on what’s the cheapest. Spending a couple extra dollars for fresh greens is asking a lot from the Brittle Class. These people are one tragedy from financial ruin.
It is not as if these people don’t want to eat healthier food. They certainly do. They can’t afford to. That is where projects like urban gardens and Pennsylvania’s FFFI step in. Creating access to affordable healthy food will reduce obesity and other health risks in poor neighborhoods. They will stop eating fast food or canned food, if they know they can stop somewhere in their neighborhood to buy fresh food.
The big obstacle for grocery stores from opening up in many inner city neighborhoods are the start up costs. (or some cases developers underestimate the potential of these markets) Start up costs for development is much higher in urban dense areas than in suburban areas, however studies have shown the long term costs make suburban development much higher. It may involve destroying old buildings, diverting traffic, affecting local residents, and the worry about crime. This is why the PA’s FFFI is so beneficial, it absorbs the start up costs, or at least assist with the start up costs.
Buzzcut-please excuse me while I laugh at your comment about WalMart being the greatest anti-poverty program known to man.
July 13th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
First a word to Buzzcut. I appreciate your contributions and comments, they’re insightful and make me think more than if everyone agreed — even though I often disagree with your opinions. And sometimes you lead us off in new directions, like the “food desert” which is related but different from the gardening focus I started with.
Back to gardening. This post and a lot of the current publicity around gardening is about low income people, but of course the phenomenon is happening in middle and upper class neighborhoods without as much publicity. A community garden is a group effort while a family garden is private and so not as noticeable, but just as important. And things like farmer’s markets and food co-ops which started in the alternative culture are moving to include middle-class and low income customers.
Today’s home gardens are sometimes compared to WW II victory gardens and there are similarities, but America’s makeup and habits are very different than the 1940’s. Back then, America was largely still rural and agricultural, or Fordist industrial. Or both — where my family was based, on the Ohio-West Virginia border, people lived in small towns with gardens but the men worked in the coal mines. After most of the family moved to California, both sets of my grandparents had gardens, ate from them and canned for the winter.
My step-grandfather looked and acted like John Wayne. A big man for his generation at 6′+, he was gassed in WWI, was a rancher, gold miner, and lumberman (and somehow never made any money, another story). In another time he would have been called macho, but it was unselfconscious. He hunted and got his limit of deer every fall, which went in the freezer and was a large part of my grandparent’s meat for the year. Then when my grandmother’s arthritis got so bad she couldn’t use her hands, he took over the cooking, cleaning and canning — as far as I know without comment. It wasn’t woman’s work, it was work that needed to be done. I learned a lot from him, even though I would have probably disagreed with his politics totally.
If the trend continues, we’re moving back to the fresh, local, more vegetable diet as well as home and community gardens. I think this will have numerous benefits. I doubt I’ll be deer hunting — it’s become an expensive hobby, I haven’t shot a rifle for 30+ years, and the rest of my family is fairly anti-gun which isn’t unusual but too bad in a way.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Deep, you and Michael and others keep stating that fruits and vegitables are more expensive than whatever alternatives are available to the obese.
Is that really true?
First of all, would canned or frozen veggies be that bad an alternative?
Secondly, are vegitables of any kind really more expensive than fast food? Fast food is generally meat. Meat is more expensive than fruits and vegitables?
I shop at Aldi. The fruits and veggies are not fresh, they’re packaged (but not processed). It is wicked cheap. Almost trivially cheap. Based on this experience (and Aldi seems to be expanding to cities, they’re common in and around Chicago and Buffalo) I’m saying that a poor person who wants to eat well can do so. Perhaps not Whole Foods well, but well enough.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Wal-mart’s relentless focus on lower prices, and their revolutionary logistics and warehousing system, is an… underappreciated… anti-poverty program. Let’s just put it that way.
The poor are consumers just like anyone else. Seeing as how the biggest contributor to poverty is not working, second order effects that Walmart might have (lowering wages, or whatever else the left blames them with) are not relevant to calculating the benefits to the poor from Walmart.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Michael, the thought that we’re all going to grow a significant amount of our own food is… well it is certainly not based on sound finances.
People have gardens because they enjoy the pastime of gardening. At any proper valuation of our labor, gardening as a purely economic persuit makes no sense. The productivity of real farmers is simply too high to make that work.
And if people want organic produce, locally grown, and there is a real market for that, it will be provided. It already is being provided. I just walked into a supermarket yesterday (actually, it’s the hypermarket Meijer) and they had a list of all the local farms that they buy from, and what products those farms offer. They also have a large organic produce section.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Buzzcut,
“you and Michael and others keep stating that fruits and vegetables are more expensive than whatever alternatives are available to the obese.” I don’t remember saying that(?)
WalMart is I think, now carrying organic produce, which is a real game changer. I think that’s great. Supermarkets listing local farmers and organic is also part of the trend, among other things it draws attention to the produce.
I actually think Whole Foods produce, organic or not, is mediocre. If Aidi or Meijer can sell good, local produce, all the better and it shows the market growth. Getting people to eat better won’t involve everyone shopping Whole Foods, or everyone gardening, or everyone going to farmers markets. But I see all of these trends growing together.
April 9th, 2010 at 4:32 am
Although it has not yet been scientifically proved, eating food free of chemicals has got to be an option to seriously consider.Organic food are now more easily obtainable through many different outlets. Many farmers sell organic fruit and vegetables. By doing a search on the Internet you will immediately be able to find suppliers of many different types of organic food in many different countries. Supermarkets sell organic fruit and vegetables and other organic produce.