The Senate is scheduled to have a debate on the Farm Bill on Monday, May 20th. Below is a message adopted from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' Action Center; please send to your Senators now to help protect nutrition programs for all Americans! If you don't know who your Congressional representatives are or their contact information, you can find it here.
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Please protect nutrition programs (Title IV) and nutrition research (Title VII) in the Farm Bill. Your support of a Farm Bill, focused on strong nutrition programs and research, that supports healthy people as well as the health of the earth, will improve the health of Americans and stimulate local economies.
As a constituent, I urge you to:
Protect funding for –
• The SNAP-Nutrition Education (SNAP-Ed) Program. In order to make healthy food choices on a limited budget, people need to be empowered with knowledge. SNAP-Ed educates families and has proven to lead to healthier eating habits. SNAP-Ed is a necessary benefit of the larger Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) package. SNAP-Ed is also in every state, including yours!
• The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP provides eligible, low-income families monthly benefits to purchase much needed food. SNAP also stimulates the economy by increasing participants’ purchasing power. For every $5 in new SNAP benefits, as much as $9.20 is generated in local economic activity.
• The Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) supplies low-income families, many of which are seniors, USDA commodity foods. The CSFP food package provides good sources of the nutrients typically lacking in the diet of this population.
• The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) provides nutritious foods that supplement the diets of low-income needy persons. This program utilizes organizations like food banks to reach this population.
• A strong Research and Extension title. Evidenced-based food and agriculture research will ensure a safe and healthy food supply for years to come. Investing in food, nutrition and agriculture research is vital to guide sound decisions. Much of this research is conducted at each state’s land grant university.
Protect the program integrity of -
• The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) provides school children access to fresh fruits and vegetables. This program has been shown, in a robust 2013 evaluation, to increase children’s fruit and vegetable consumption by 15%, without increasing their overall calorie intake. This means children are eating fresh fruits and vegetables instead of other, potentially less healthy foods. FFVP also helps creates the foundation for healthy life-long habits.
• The Seniors Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program benefits seniors and local farmers. This well established and well received program provides seniors access to seasonal produce while supporting local farmers and economies.
These important programs: 1.Contribute to healthy life-long habits; 2. Allow recipients to maintain their health and well-being during temporary times of economic hardship; and 3. May decrease the risk of developing costly and debilitating chronic diseases which strain our healthcare system.
Please protect these extremely valuable programs as the Farm Bill is debated on the Senate floor.
It's been an busy, exciting past couple of months in the world of nutrition, food justice, and food system advocacy. The Hunger & Environmental Nutrition (HEN) Dietetic Practice Group of the newly re-named Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association) finalized a new set of Corporate Sponsorship Guidelines to guide the sponsorship activities not only of HEN, but also to serve as an example of what many Academy members, Registered Dietitians, and other nutritionists would like to see as the guidelines adopted by the Academy at large.
The Environmental Working Group launched the "Good Food on a Tight Budget" shopping guide, and HEN held a webinar to give an overview. (Info from this webinar, as well as other HEN webinars on GMOs and "Healthy Institutions: Strategies for Farm to Tray," are on the HEN website).
Another great video, along the same lines of describing the global food crisis & how to fix it, is "Feeding Nine Billion":
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy shared their Draft Principles of Food Justice, created after the Food + Justice = Democracy conference in September.
Christina Schiavoni, food sovereignty advocate and moderator of Oxfam Action Corps NYC's International Women's Day event in March, moved on from her position at WHY Hunger to focus more intensively on food sovereignty from abroad, but not before imparting the wisdom about the film "Growing Change" about food sovereignty in Venezuela, which I am hoping we can organize a screening of in the coming year.
When Hurricane Sandy hit, Occupy Faith NYC made the connections between those hardest hit in Rockaway and Cuba: climate change inevitably has a greater impact on the poor.
Locally: The NYC Nutrition Education Network held a "Sustainability in the Food System" event in March (here's a resource list from the event). Bronx Health REACH held a Bronx School Health & Wellness Conference in May, and published a newsletter documenting this and much of our other nutrition and fitness work. The "Just in the Bronx: Our Voice, Our Choice" Summit was in September, where Professor Mark Naison from Fordham University gave the keynote address (which you can read on the Bronx Health REACH blog). At the Summit, there was a Call to Action for both community members and elected officials, in regards to how we can improve the health of the Bronx. Bronx Health REACH also became the borough-lead for the Community Transformation Grant in NYC - focused on improving healthy eating, active living, and reducing alcohol and tobacco - which is being overseen by the Partnership for a Healthier NYC.
I learned about the Ironwill Foundation, a great organization that does nutrition education classes for parents at the Mercy Center in the Bronx, and numerous middle schools throughout NYC and Newark, NJ with the Ironwill Kids PowerUp! curriculum. (video!). I also got to see the premiere of the film "Soul Food Junkies" at Lincoln Center, which will be broadcast nationally on PBS on January 14, 2013 at 10pm.
Since seeing the film Forks Over Knives over a year ago (which does a good job promoting a plant-based diet), I heard some critiques about its subjectivity and even had doubts about a few things myself. Then I read some of this critique of The China Study, which delves deep into the scientific literature and should keep any scientist, doctor, or dietitian busy for a while. Suffice it to say, I still believe the Oxfam GROW Method is the ideal way to eat to support health and environmental sustainability.
If you learn nothing else from reading this post, you should know that the food system is broken. There are many contributing factors to this, but a considerable portion can be traced back to the actions of a few multinational food conglomerates and governments which support these corporations. This happened with NAFTA, which favors the US in trade agreements and basically dumps overly subsidized grain products onto other countries, driving the price of these commodities down so low that many farmers in the developing countries receiving the grains can't make a living farming anymore, thereby becoming economic refugees, fleeing to the US (how ironic) as immigrants, trying to make a new life for themselves. This is what The Other Side of Immigration looks like and is the irony of the Harvest of Empire. The impact of corporations and their ability to undermine communities (and even governments) has the potential to become exponentially worse if we don't pay attention to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a new free trade agreement that has been questioned — if not outright opposed — by environmental, consumer, indigenous, family farm, labor and other social justice groups on four continents. We must plead that governments don't blindly sign on to this, especially without the text being made public.
It would not be possible to make this post completely comprehensive of all the great work of food justice advocates or even all of the initiatives I've learned about this year, but hopefully this provides you with some good food for thought and action :) And just for kicks, here's some more good info not mentioned above. Happy 2013!
I saw an open heart surgery a few weeks ago. And I never want to see another one in my life.
What the food industry has done to us is very disturbing. It's messed with people's minds and mouths. It's made our country and much of the world obese. And we can't stand for it any more.
But luckily, the Hunger & Environmental Nutrition (HEN) Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association also gets this message. We have an ADA Corporate Relations Sponsors Review Task Force and are developing a survey that will go out to HEN members (and other registered dietitians eventually) to obtain data we can present to ADA so that this organization can start to change its practices.
This is one of the things that has to happen if we are ever to solve the obesity crisis in this country. Another thing we have to do is reexamine our practices, see if they're aligned with our morals, and most importantly rethink the questions we're asking so that we can learn from our mistakes (as Jim Wallis argues in his new book Rediscovering Values on Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street: A Moral Compass for the New Economy). And don't ever forget, everything's related: the rise in obesity and chronic disease is related to the economy - it has drastically increased the amount of money being spent in our sickcare system...billions of dollars are being spent treating chronic diseases. What did centenarians do centuries ago?? Not spend billions of dollars on a sickcare system, that's for sure.
Let's start with a few new questions, then. First off: What guidelines should we be using to determine the food we put into our bodies? In Michael Pollan's new book Food Rules, he lays out 64 simply put guidelines for what foods to eat, such as "don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food," "avoid foods you see advertised on television," and "don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk." For the reader who wants a bit more detail, check out Marion Nestle's book What to Eat.
Here's another question: What's the root cause of the obesity epidemic? My answer: agricultural policy. Corn and soy subsidies and a Farm Bill limitation on growing fruits and vegetables, supported by no other than the specialty crop growers who don't want the prices of fruits and vegetables to go down because then they will lose money. That's why I wrote an independent study paper for Marion Nestle last semester on the corn and soy subsidies. (Which, by the way, I'm going to revise and revise until it's good enough to be taken seriously by people with power. So if you want to contribute to the conversation, by all means share your thoughts with me.)
Let's do this. Growing our own food is so much better than open heart surgeries.
Apologies for not posting in quite a while, this semester hasn't allowed much time for blogging due to the time constraints of a dietetic internship and classes at NYU. I have, however, continued to post interesting links and events on my twitter page, twitter.com/kellymoltzen.
Aside from everyday clinical dietetics, other activities I am currently undertaking: -Working on a green foodservice project for the national VA - we are surveying foodservice directors and providing resources for them to green their foodservice production systems -Learning about the awesome cultural transformation program of the VA -Attempting to write a paper on the commodity system as an independent study with Marion Nestle (corn and soy subsidies lead to increased production of unhealthy foods by the food industry which leads to obesity) -Taking an International Nutrition course -Taking a course on Assessing Community Health Needs. Our group is looking at the issue of tobacco smoking within the Mexican immigrant community of Jackson Heights, Queens -Trying to stay updated on all the other sustainability and food happenings of NYC (including with Oxfam Action Corps NYC, the NYC Foodprint Alliance, etc) -Planning the beginnings of a student group of the DIFM DPG (Dietitians in Integrative and Functional Medicine Dietetic Practice Group of the American Dietetic Association) (twitter: @adadifm) (facebook: ADA Dietitians in Integrative and Functional Medicine (DIFM)) -Trying to keep up with emails including the HEN DPG list-serve -Co-chairing a task force on the issue of ADA sponsorship with the HEN DPG (should've seen that one coming) -Attempting to plan an event with charity:water at NYU for the spring through the NYU Steinhardt Public Health Student Group
So, sorry I have not had time to post more often. Just wanted to update this blog during the month of October :)
The healthcare debates have gotten more intense since my last post. It seems as though most of the politicians want to pass a healthcare bill that doesn't have a public option; but as I've heard multiple times, if it doesn't include a public option, it's not healthcare reform.
Why do we need a public option in healthcare reform? Well, there are many issues with our healthcare system as it now stands. We spend more on healthcare than any other country yet don't rank nearly as high in terms of life expectancy and overall quality of life as some other countries which have more of a public option plan in their healthcare system. Maggie Mahar, author of the book Money-Driven Medicine that got made into a documentary, explains that three decades of research at Dartmouth University show that this is due to the fact that there is a great amount of waste in the system - nearly one third of the more than $2 trillion spent on healthcare is spent on "ineffective, often unproven procedures, overpriced drugs and devices, that are no better than the drugs and devices they are replacing... unnecessary hospitalizations, unnecessary tests." There is no limit on spending for healthcare in the US, and it has gotten out of control. Another point made in the documentary is that our system is based on physicians "doing" things (tests, procedures, appointments) instead of being focused on improving the health of the patient. We don't have a patient-centered model anymore, even though medical students take the Hippocratic Oath to put the patients first. Why is this? Because medicine and healthcare have become intertwined with the free market economy of the US. Hospitals took a corporate model when they began to hire MBA professionals as CEOs of hospitals instead of MDs. Doctors are influenced by the pharmaceutical industry and product makers who are trying to sell items to them, and the patient-centered model takes the back burner because doctors are getting paid based on the most expensive tests they can conduct, not on the most efficient way they can instill positive healthy change in their patients. This corporate model has its foundations in being legally bound to put its shareholders first (i.e. in front of the patients). Maggie Mahar says that in healthcare, this is akin to the Swahili saying that "'when the elephants fight, the grass is trampled'; - the patients are essentially the grass."
Concerned citizens and patients are not the only ones who have an issue with our sick-care system (as that's what it really is). Many physicians have expressed frustration with not having enough time to spend with patients, and feeling that they are being told what to do although that may not necessarily be the right thing to do. They fear that the quality of care they are providing for their patients is diminishing. There's not just one blameworthy party here - the failing system is a product of the clash between the free market economy and the need to provide healthcare. It's a shame we let it get this far, with nutrition-related healthcare issues spiraling out of control and doctors not even being taught sufficiently about nutrition during medical school. I often wonder why med students take the Hippocratic Oath to help their patients, and yet don't follow Hippocrates' mantra "let food by thy medicine and let thy medicine be thy food." At least physicians are starting to band together for Physicians for a National Health Program and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Given the incredible debt most medical students find themselves in due to med school tuition and malpractice insurance costs, in addition to an institutional emphasis on "more, more, more" tests and procedures, many med students are taking the more lucrative path of specialties, instead of the much more needed, much less respected and underpaid primary care physicians - but not all of them. One medical student at SUNY Downstate Medical College who has not yet been discouraged from primary care has started a blog and Primary Healthcare Discussion Group. He understands that doctors need to focus more on preventive strategies such as nutritional interventions. In regards to our healthcare system, he says we must hope that "US health care gets some form of huge overhaul for the better in the next year(s), otherwise Healthcare itself may become the cause of morbidity and mortality not only on the growing uninsured, but also on all other sectors of American society." According to the Money-Driven Medicine documentary, the corporate healthcare model cannot be sustained because eventually, only the extremely well-to-do patients will have access to it.
We also need a more patient-centered model - and I believe we should use the model that Dr. Neil Calman, the President of the Institute for Family Health, has been using since 2002. He uses EPIC, a Health Information Technology (HIT) system that involves the patient in every step of treatment, from the physician going over charts with a patient and determining a present state of illness, to deciding what the plan of treatment will be and ensuring the information is easily understandable and accessible for the patient to take home after the appointment is over. Dr. Calman explains that the HIT he is such a proponent of (he's on President Obama's HIT advisory board) is that of a "myChart" system where the patient records are available to the patient, and the patient is able to access their medical records online from home as well as send secure emais to their provider. HIT does not refer to a network of information to be shared in between different healthcare institutions for the case of patients who move from one hospital to another - that he refers to as Health Information Exchange (HIE). I had the opportunity to attend the healthcare rally in Times Square on Saturday Aug. 29, where three thousand people showed up to express their desire for a public option in healthcare reform. There's a lot of confusion as to what a single-payer healthcare system or public option would entail, and if it would cut benefits etc etc. But as discussed in my last post, there's no need to worry about what would happen if (God willing) we can pass a public option plan. There are several really good resources you can check out for more information - "Reality Check" put out by the White House, Tim Foley's change.org healthcare blog, and the House Committee on Education and Labor's website on America's Affordable Health Choices Act.
It doesn't end here, though. Corporations such as the pharmaceutical industry and medical product makers aren't the only ones influencing the healthcare industry. Corporate sponsorship is a huge issue for many organizations, and one I have struggled with as a member of the American Dietetic Association. ADA corporate sponsorship has led to many dubious nutrition recommendations and there are many people who do not respect dietitians and the ADA because of this influence. The ADA supports the use of the USDA's food guide pyramid recommendations, which is influenced to a large extent by lobbying from the dairy and beef industries, according to Marion Nestle's book Food Politics. This understandably has led to a lot of confusion among the general public as to what should be regarded as a healthy diet, which logically is a partial contributor to the upsurge of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease epidemics. (There are other issues, of course - such as corporate advertising of unhealthy food, as well as unsanitary and dangerous chemical treatment of foods - but you can read about these elsewhere on this blog.)
Fortunately, there is a progressive group of dietitians that belong to a subgroup called the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group, which has some pretty strong advocates who are on the verge of making a taskforce to take on the corporate sponsorship issue within the ADA. The importance of changing to sponsors who are more concerned about public health should not be underestimated. It's embarrassing that I have a bag from an ADA conference that has a logo proudly announcing its sponsorship by PepsiCo.
On this second annual National Registered Dietitian Day, March 11, 2009, RD's on the blogosphere everywhere have come together for a "blogfest" to get the word out about the great work that RD's do. While I am not yet a Registered Dietitian, I plan to be within the next few years and definitely know and respect their work. I am a member of the American Dietetic Association's Hunger & Environmental Nutrition (HEN) Dietetic Practice Group and want to especially thank my HEN colleagues for always sharing their incredible, endless wealth of knowledge with others. The HEN-listserve has been and will continue to be a great window into the world of just, wholesome, sustainable food systems that I can only attempt to relay to the rest of blogging world. If you are a HEN member, thank you for all you do. If you are an RD or "RD2B," I encourage you to join HEN. It is a decision you will not regret. If you fit neither of these categories, please at least check out Ashley Colpaart's post on the US Food Policy blog: Dietitians Working in Food Policy, the New Frontier. She's not only described many of the great ways RD's are working to bring food back to its roots, but has also listed many other RD's blogs as part of the blogfest.
I just read this excellent letter by Senator Tom Harkin in my On The Pulse. I'm glad we have him in the Senate.
How We Can Progress
By Sen. Tom Harkin
Public health professionals understand that making progress in the fight against obesity and diet-and-lifestyle-related chronic disease requires comprehensive, multi-sectoral change. We need concerted efforts in our homes and family life, at school, in the workplace, in the design of our communities, and in our health care system if we are going to reverse high rates of cancer, heart disease, obesity, type-2 diabetes, and other conditions associated with poor diet and lack of physical activity. Policymakers need to be creative in helping support these changes, including looking beyond healthcare legislation per se, in order to identify less obvious avenues. On virtually every bill under consideration, Congress should ask whether it can be modified to encourage the adoption of healthier lifestyles.
As chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, I led the effort to reauthorize and update federal food and agricultural policy in the recently passed Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (better known as “the farm bill”). The term “farm bill” is something of a misnomer, since a majority of the funding authorized by that legislation goes to federal food assistance programs, both at home and abroad. It was a priority of mine to ensure that this omnibus legislation included significant health-promotion provisions. In my view, anyone who eats has a stake in the farm bill. I am hopeful that, over time, the many health-promoting initiatives included in the new bill will have a significant impact on the health of our citizens, especially our children.
For example, the new farm bill includes significant reforms to the Food Stamp Program, which is renamed as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), to reflect the fact that paper stamps have long since been replaced by electronic benefit cards. Most significantly, the bill ends the erosion of purchasing power of SNAP benefits that has occurred since the mid 1990s, and even increases benefits modestly. This increase in the value of SNAP benefits will enable families to purchase more healthful foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that, unfortunately, often cost more than mass-produced foods loaded with fat, sugar, salt, and calories.
I am also enthusiastic about a new provision, which I included in the bill, to test whether food-assistance recipients will purchase healthier foods if given economic incentives to do so. The bill includes funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the SNAP Program, to oversee and evaluate a pilot program in which recipients will receive bonus payments for the portion of their benefits they use to purchase healthful foods. For example, when a program participant spends $100 in SNAP benefits at the local grocery, $50 of which is used to purchase healthful foods such as fruits and vegetables, he or she will receive some amount bonus credits for the $50 in healthful food purchases. This will be a difficult pilot to design, implement, and analyze, but it holds great potential to help us understand the ways in which existing federal food assistance programs can encourage better nutritional choices. I am hopeful that this pilot project will be a success, and that we will be able to use the SNAP program to encourage and incentivize healthful choices on a national scale.
The farm bill also includes an historic expansion of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program, which provides free fresh fruits and vegetables to children at schools. I initiated this program in the 2002 farm bill on a pilot basis. Over the years, many have argued to me that children won’t choose to make the healthful choice when they are at school. I disagreed. When our schools are overrun with junk food and sugary beverages, how can we really say that we are giving them an opportunity to make such a choice? I initiated the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program out of a desire to get healthier foods into our schools so that the healthy choice is an easy one to make.
Since its start five years ago, the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program has been an extraordinary success – popular not just with students, but also with teachers, school administrators, and parents. As a result of strong interest, the new farm bill extends the program from just a handful of states to all 50 states. Within five years, the program will have an annual budget of $150 million and will serve as many as three million elementary school children each year. Just as important, the farm bill includes strong new language requiring that first priority be given to schools with significant proportions of low-income children.
I am a strong believer in broad, community-wide changes aimed at promoting better nutrition. This is especially urgent in low-income communities, which often lack access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables. After all, how can we expect families to make healthful food choices when their neighborhood offers them only expensive convenience stores and cheap fast-food outlets?
I am proud that the farm bill significantly expands funding for the promotion of farmers markets in the United States, which play an important role in providing consumers with opportunities to obtain fresh, local, and healthy foods. As part of this effort, the bill also dedicated funding to establish an infrastructure for SNAP program participants to use their electronic benefit cards at farmers markets. The new legislation also increases funding for the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, which awards grants to provide low-income seniors with coupons that can be exchanged for eligible foods at farmers markets, roadside stands, and community supported agriculture programs.
ADA members will want to know that I worked with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to establish and fund the Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development Center, which will identify best practices and provide technical assistance for groups that bring healthy, local foods into underserved communities.
I am proud that this law both initiates and sustains a wide range of programs designed to improve the health of the American people, especially children. At a time when heightened attention is being focused on the rapidly rising cost of food staples, we also need to keep our attention focused on encouraging healthful food choices, and on increasing the affordability and availability of foods essential to good health.
Upon reading the American Dietetic Association's November 2008 "Student Scoop," I learned about two great initiatives: Feel Good World and The Hunger Project. FeelGood is a non-profit organization with chapters at universities across the country that makes grilled cheese sandwiches in exchange for whatever donation "feels good" to the customer. At Stephanie Noto's chapter (who wrote the article), they raised $4000 for The Hunger Project. The Hunger Project is an organization that helps people in impoverished areas to learn sustainability and self-reliance. It mobilizes people at the grassroots level, empowers women, and forges partnerships with the local government. From a public health perspective, this sounds like a great organization. You can sign up for their e-newsletter at their site.
