Farmworkers and Franciscans

In my previous post, I mentioned how there have been people fasting in a tent on the national mall for immigration reform since November 12th - including over Thanksgiving. I found it more than a little insensitive that most Americans could enjoy a day of feasting in recognition of how welcoming the Native Americans were to pilgrims, while living in the bliss of ignorance or apathy that Congress is stalling a vote on immigration reform - reform that could improve the lives of 11 million aspiring Americans who are currently suffering the impact of deportations, deaths on the border, exploitation at work, and fear of living in the shadows with no path to citizenship.  So I posted about the immigration reform efforts and fasted for part of the day, which made me more conscious and grateful for the food I was eating. But it also made me more conscious of two other things. Seeing food scraps thrown away reminded me of the absurd amount of food that gets thrown away every year (1.3 billion tons) - an unconscionable sin in a world of abundance where so many go hungry. Secondly, preparing food without being able to eat it right away made me think of the plight of the farmworkers who grew the food, as farmers are some of the hungriest people in the world.

This past week (November 24-30) was the second annual International Food Workers Week, which "brings awareness to the issues facing food workers, supports their organizing efforts for fair, sustainable jobs and promotes solidarity among workers all across the food chain." Yet in the US alone, there are nearly 20 million Americans who are often poorly paid, exploited, and can't even afford to put food on their own tables.

Meanwhile, less than two weeks ago (November 19) was the feast day of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the patron saint of Secular Franciscans - Christians "embedded in the world" who have made a commitment to follow the lifestyle of St. Francis. From Lori Pieper, SFO we learn that St. Elizabeth was a food justice advocate at heart: while born into royalty, she "dedicated herself to the relief of the poor" and "refused any food that might have been unjustly exacted from the peasants by her husband's officials."

What implications does this have for those who strive to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi?  St. Francis saw everyone and everything as his brothers and sisters, seeing God in the eyes of the poor and in the earth alike. He sought to establish right relationship with creation and with all of humankind.

From Franciscan Br. Keith Warner who has experience working for justice for farmworkers and writes about the close relationship between Franciscan Friars and César Chávez, we can come to understand that ministering to and spending time with the poor and those closest to the earth - to those who grow the very food which we take for granted and eat every day - can have significant spiritual implications as well as deepen our interest in grassroots social movements.

As we finish up our Thanksgiving leftovers, enter into the Advent season and enjoy the bounty of the earth throughout the year, let us not forget the plight of the workers who grow, prepare and serve our food. The Food Chain Workers Alliance organizes and supports workers throughout the year on improving the livelihoods of workers throughout the food chain.   Here is a TEDx talk by Joann Lo about her experiences working with the Food Chain Workers Alliance:


Currently, we have an opportunity to stand with 8 million food system and 21 additional low-wage workers in their request that Congress raise the minimum wage:  in early December, the US Senate is expected to vote on a "Motion to Proceed" on the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, which would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour over the next three years and the tipped minimum wage from $2.13 to 70% of the regular minimum wage.

Let's stand in solidarity with food workers. Here are a couple of actions you can take to learn more and support fair wages and sustainable jobs for workers all across the food chain:

• Read Beyond Foodworkers' Karmic Tip Jar This Thanksgiving by Raj Patel 
• Sign the Petition to raise the minimum wage and tipped minimum wage 
• Read The Welcome Table: A Fresh Look at the Restaurant Industry on Civil Eats and consider joining or organizing an Eat Up in your neighborhood  
• Learn more and keep up with the Food Chain Workers Alliance  

Creation Care and Public Health - Same thing, different terms?

Over 200 scientists identifying as evangelical Christians signed a letter that was released today calling on Congress to pass meaningful legislation to address climate change. This is remarkable evidence that science and religion should be seen as complementary. As Dr. John Roe and others have pointed out, "many see science itself as an integral part of God's plan for the world." The evangelical climate change letter is part of Sojourners' creation care campaign, which calls on our moral obligation to care for God's creation.

I've been thinking more and more about the term "creation care" since I attended the National Mobilizing Circle training at Sojourners last summer where we had invigorating discussions about climate change and environmental justice. More recently, I've started thinking about creation care from a Franciscan perspective. Through the eyes of St. Francis of Assisi, the divine is found in all of creation, and we all exist in interdependence with the rest of creation.  Using this rationale, human beings not above or below the other parts of creation - the land, the oceans, the plants, and the animals.  And as Lisa Sharon Harper has pointed out, the Hebrew words of Genesis 1 tell us that it is the ties between things that are "forcefully good." If we live in right relationship with the rest of creation, there is justice and peace in the world.  But when we don't live in right relationship with the world, injustices abound, and the health of people and the earth suffers.

If you're not yet completely sold on the idea of our absolute interdependence with the rest of creation, perhaps some discussion would help.  Through the leadership of 200 evangelical scientists, we've established the scientific underpinnings of climate change are real and this constitutes a moral imperative to care for creation.  And the industrial food system is intricately connected with climate change, as I've demonstrated here.  The industrial food system is also connected to such injustices as hunger and health issues, with a billion hungry and a billion overweight people in the world.  Most of these people suffer because they can't afford healthy food to nourish their bodies.  This results from economic injustices such as a failure to pay workers living wages which would allow them to afford the food they need to live a healthy lifestyle. Plus, many of the world's hungry are actually the farmers who grow our food; because of corrupt governments and corporate agreements, land is pulled out from under people all the time through land grabs, thereby exacerbating food security issues. And when people can't afford food and don't have access to the land and water needed to grow food, turmoil and war often results, leading to more unnecessary casualties.  On the flipside, people who only have access to nutrient-poor, calorie-dense foods tend to develop diet-related diseases which wind up costing us billions of dollars in healthcare - unnecessary costs which drain our wallets and exhaust our economy.

So when it comes down to it, when we don't care for the earth and each other and nourish ourselves with the exquisite bounty that our Creator has provided for us, we destroy our health and the earth's health, and it leads to a mess of social injustices which exacerbate the health issues.  But when we learn to see ourselves as part of creation that needs to be cared for and create the conditions and supportive environments in which people can lead healthy lives, we can impact the social determinants of health and improve the health of all of creation.

Act Now to Protect Nutrition in the Farm Bill!

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.

Farm Bill Action Needed!

The House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture is at work on its version of the 2012 Food & Farm Bill right now. (The Senate Agriculture Committee passed its version out of committee just a few weeks back).  Now is the time to tell the House what we want to see in the Farm Bill!      

                      

The House Committee on Agriculture has set up a comment box for constituents to submit their feedback. It’s open to everyone, but comments must be in by this Sunday, May 20.

To be heard, send a message to Congress via the Comments Box at http://agriculture.house.gov/farmbill_feedback.html.  

Below you will find some background information about the Farm Bill as it pertains to health, as well as a sample letter with information about the Farm Bill's effect on nutrition, hunger, support for farmers, and the environment. Sending a message to Congress is important, and it will only take a minute! 

The Farm Bill and Our Health

What is the Farm Bill?

The Farm Bill originally was set up to help American farmers.   However, over time, most of the subsidy payments to farmers went to commodity crops instead, with hardly any money going to support the growing of a variety of fruits and vegetables. 

How can this affect our health?

The Farm Bill includes a number of different titles that influence our food system. Changes made to the Farm Bill over the past several decades have made healthy food more expensive and unhealthy food cheaper, pushing the price of fruits and vegetables up by nearly 40% over 15 years and pushing the price of soft drinks (made from processed corn) down by 23%.  In addition, there is not currently enough farmland in the US devoted to growing fruits and vegetables for everyone to meet the US Dietary Guidelines of at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.  

A Clean Bill of Health

View more PowerPoint from FoodTechConnect

A growing number of policymakers and public health professionals understand the relationships among agricultural policy, our food system and the public’s health, and even succeeded in making some minor advancements in the 2008 Farm Bill that supported both the public’s health and farmers.  However, today’s budget challenges now threaten the funding levels and continuation of several of these achievements.  In particular, the 2008 Farm Bill included a Healthy Food Provisions Package which included policies and programs supporting public health.  Some of these programs, which successfully help improve access to healthy food for low-income communities, need to be expanded, not cut.  These include:

·         Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program - provides low-income seniors with coupons that can be exchanged for eligible foods (fruits, vegetables, honey, and fresh-cut herbs) at farmers’ markets, roadside stands, and community supported agriculture programs

·         Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program - makes fruit and vegetable snacks available at no cost to all children in participating elementary schools

·         Farmers’ Market Electronic Benefits Transfer Program – funds wireless EBT machines at farmers markets, which enables farmers markets to accept SNAP (food stamps)

·         Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development - provides grants to help the establishment of businesses that can increase access to healthy, affordable foods for underserved communities, while creating jobs

·         Community Food Projects - addresses food insecurity through developing community food projects that help promote the self-sufficiency of low-income communities. Examples include innovative approaches to nutrition education, and support for farm-to-school programs.

·         SNAP Nutrition Education Program (SNAP-Ed) – supports nutrition education for people eligible for SNAP, but was recently expanded to include individuals who reside in a community with a significant low-income population. Allowable nutrition education was recently expanded to include broader community and public health approaches to improve nutrition.

In addition, the WIC Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program – which provides women, infants and children enrolled in WIC with vouchers to use at farmer’s markets – has traditionally been funded through the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, but should be put under the Farm Bill to protect it from cuts in the future. 

And now, for a sample letter that you can send to Congress via the Comments Box at http://agriculture.house.gov/farmbill_feedback.html: 

As the Committee considers the 2012 Food and Farm Bill, I urge you to: 

Preserve and expand funding for the Healthy Food Provisions Package which includes policies and programs supporting public health.  These programs, which successfully help improve access to healthy food for low-income communities, include: 
•Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program 
•Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program 
•Farmers’ Market Electronic Benefits Transfer Program 
•Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development  
•Community Food Projects 
•SNAP Nutrition Education Program (SNAP-Ed)  

Place the WIC Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program under the Farm Bill instead of under Child Nutrition Reauthorization.  This program promotes the consumption of produce by women, infants, and children enrolled in the WIC program while successfully creating a base of customers at farmer’s markets in low-income neighborhoods; 

Support our fight against hunger by maintaining and strengthening critical nutrition programs in this time of unprecedented need. We must not solve our budget problems on the backs of those experiencing food insecurity, including our most vulnerable – our children, the elderly, and the disabled;

Provide an even "plowing" field by fully funding programs supporting beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, organic farming, regional farming and food economies, and rural development. We need more farmers and ranchers, more sustainable food production, and more economic opportunity in our food system;

End direct payments and counter-cyclical commodity programs, replacing them with loophole-free agriculture risk coverage and implement a cap on crop insurance premium subsidies. We must support farmers that really need the help, not the biggest farms that don’t.

Eliminate the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) livestock set-aside to limit funds granted to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) for waste management infrastructure and protect the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) from disproportionate cuts and improve it by ranking applications solely on their conservation benefits. We must ensure that limited conservation funding maximizes lasting environmental benefits.

Thank you! 


Information compiled from the NYC Food and Farm Bill Working Group and the Center for a Livable Future's Growing Healthy Food & Farm Policy report in collaboration with NY Faith & Justice Farm Bill / food justice working groups

What's On Your Plate? on the Discovery Planet Green Channel

If you've read any of my earlier posts about "What's On Your Plate" you know how important a film it is. Fortunately, the film will be shown soon on Discovery's Planet Green Channel. I received a message from WOYP staff asking me to post some information about how to view it. So here it is!

Catch What's on Your Plate?, the documentary about kids and food politics, on national TV this February 7th, 2010!

Join families across the country for a Family Cook-In! on Sunday, February 7th and spend an afternoon learning with your kids about food - what it's made of, where it come from and how to enjoy every bite.

First, download our Screening Toolkit. It has all the stuff you need to have a fun and delicious Family Cook-In!
Second, watch What's on Your Plate? at 2:00 p.m. on Discovery's Planet Green. (Go to http://planetgreen.channelfinder.net/ to find your local channel).
Third, check out the games and activities in our Screening Toolkit.
Fourth, cook and eat together! Get everyone in the kitchen chopping, stirring, pouring and baking. Then sit down together for some fresh and yummy home-cooked food.

Think food justice is too tricky for kids? Think again.

What's On Your Plate? proves that not only can kids understand the issues, they can actually teach other kids about how they are what they eat.

The film follows two eleven-year-old multi-racial city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. With the camera as their companion, the girl guides talk to each other, food activists, farmers, new friends, storekeepers, their families, and the viewer, in their quest to understand what’s on all of our plates.

According to Michael Pollan: ""What's On Your Plate?" is exactly the film we need now."

And Alice Waters says: "It was an amazing experience to hear kids talking about these issues. This movie can have a real impact on the way we think about what we’re eating."

Don't miss this chance to see this witty and provocative film on national television!
Join in the conversation on how we can change what we eat, and in the process, change our world.

Visit our website for more information on the film and how you can get involved.
www.whatsonyourplateproject.com

Can't make the Family Cook-In! broadcast? No problem.
The film will be showing throughout the week, with additional broadcasts on:
Saturday February 6th, 2010 at 10 pm
Thursday February 11th at 11 pm
Friday February 12th at 7 am
Friday February 12th at 3 pm

No more of this sick-care system; we need a public option plan

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.

Thoughts on "Eat This, Not That!"

A friend of mine recently mentioned the book “Eat This Not That!” that Ellen Degeneres talked about on her show, and that appeared in "Men's Health" magazine. I read a book review on the kid version, “Eat This Not That! For Kids” in my American Dietetic Association – ADA Times magazine. This is what it said:

"While most of the nutrition information in this book is solid and science-based, what's less clear is how some foods made it onto the ‘Eat This’ list, while others are on the ‘Not That’ list. For example, the authors recommend a package of vanilla crème sandwich cookies (170 calories, 7 grams fat), but not a package of mini chocolate chip cookies (170 calories, 8 g fat). Other ‘Eat This’ items include a kid's fried shrimp and fries meal or a candy bar, while some puzzling ‘Not This’ items include canned corn (no salt added) or white rice. While this fun, photo-filled book could be a great tool to pique a kid's interest in nutrition or start a dialogue about food, it does little to educate readers about maintaining an overall balanced diet and it is certainly not the "complete nutrition and fitness guide for kids it claims to be.”

After speaking with Marion Nestle at NYU today, I can’t agree more. Marion is very much anti- food industry marketing its products, and for good reason. I do believe that it’s important to educate people on what a healthy diet consists of and the nutritional benefits of eating healthy foods (and why I created the blog http://whyeathealthy.blogspot.com/), but when the food industry does it solely to make their product look like a better choice than the next product, it’s gone too far. Better to stick with the whole foods – whole grains, fruits, vegetables – than to figure out the minute differences between the multitudes of processed foods on the market.

Read "Food Politics" by Marion Nestle and "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan…then you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Food Politics, Social Marketing, the Art of Persuasion and People's Values

Food politics. Ever heard of it? Well this video should give you a good idea: The Food Lobby Goes to School.

Here's a recent NY Times story by Alice Waters.
And if that's not enough, read Food Politics by Marion Nestle. And Food Marketing to Children and Youth by the Institute of Medicine.

This is why we need to do something! Children today are expected to be the first generation to die at a younger age than their parents, and obese teenagers are as likely to die prematurely as smokers. THIS IS NOT OKAY. And it seems like conventional public health interventions aren't working. So why don't we give the industry a taste of their own medicine, by using social marketing? Basically, social marketing is taking the strategies of the corporate industry - the one that has successfully brainwashed society into thinking fast food is "in" and that has even brainwashed people in developing countries into seeing fast food as a sign of prosperity (more on that later) - and using their marketing strategies to positively influence public health. It's all about the art of persuasion and knowing how to get to people's core value systems. If you know what people value, you can get them to do what you want. This is particularly helpful if the thing you want them to do is a habit which is good for them, such as successfully getting a village in Ghana to wash their hands with soap with the "Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing With Soap." So as you can see, the art of persuasion and social marketing can be adapted for a variety of public health interventions - understanding people and their value systems doesn't always have to be used for worsening society :)

Op-Ed: Vision of a Grassroots, Grass-Fed Revolution

Here's an article I wrote for the NYU Steinhardt Public Health Student Group Fall 2008 Newsletter:

Op-Ed: Vision of a Grassroots, Grass-Fed Revolution
by Kelly Moltzen

Growing up, we were taught by the USDA that “all foods can fit,” that everything in moderation is good for us. We were taught that we needed dairy products in our diet in order to get calcium, otherwise we would develop osteoporosis. We were taught that we needed to get our protein from meat. But what if this were not the whole picture? Would the USDA actually hide information from us?

Unfortunately, yes. It seems as though Congress is more concerned about taking food industry lobbyists’ money than about giving the public scientifically sound advice, as Marion Nestle tells us in her book Food Politics. However disturbing this may sound, we cannot allow the food industry to dominate us, not when 63% of Americans are overweight or obese and children born in the year 2000 or after may be the first generation to die before their parents; not when animals are subjected to living on claustrophobic, unsanitary Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO), force-fed corn and artificial substances that make them sick, necessitating the use of administering antibiotics before we buy and eat the omega-6 laden meat which makes us sick. Not when 25% of the foods we buy in the grocery store has some form of corn in them, and the ammonium nitrate left over from the production of explosives during World War II is used to fertilize crops – facts Michael Pollan shares with us in The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

This country needs a complete change of mindset, where we raise humanely treated omega-3 rich grass-fed animals and stop using additives and pesticides on our food. We need to craft a world that is not dominated by the need of the food industry to keep money in its wallet, but one that is driven by the need to keep real food on the table. A world where our children don’t need to learn how to read labels, but instead learn how to grow vegetables. A world where we get energy from the sun and wind, not coal and oil, and where we eat our food, not burn it as biofuel.

Fortunately there is a revolution starting, as people have banned together for such programs as the Real Food Challenge and Slow Food Nation. Californians had an initiative on their ballot this November called “Proposition 2,” which was a huge breakthrough for humane farm animal treatment. It prohibits cruel and inhumane ways of confining animals in their cages. The USDA recently passed more rigorous regulations for organic food, prohibiting the existence of organic CAFOs. The list of 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee appointees looks promising as well. Yet we need to continue supporting CSA communities, creating farm to school programs, and weakening the connection between food industry lobbyists and Washington, D.C. If we don’t do it, then who will?

Politics of Food Conference speeches

Here are the morning keynote speakers from the Politics of Food Conference held at Colombia University in NYC on Nov. 19, 2008:

http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/news_events/special_events/politics_of_food/