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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] The Poor Get Diabetes; The Rich Get Local and Organic
  • Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 20:40:57 -0700


http://www.alternet.org/story/72417/
The Poor Get Diabetes; The Rich Get Local and Organic
By Mark Winne, Beacon Press
Posted on January 9, 2008
The following is an excerpt from Mark Winne's new book, Closing the
Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty.

As a class, lower income people have been well represented in some of
the best-covered food stories of our day, particularly hunger,
obesity, and diabetes. As these issues have faded in and out of the
public's eye over the last 25 years, another food trend was rapidly
becoming a national obsession -- namely, local and organic.

At about the same time that Berkeley diva Alice Waters was first
showing us how to bestow style and grace on something as ordinary as
a local tomato, the Reagan administration's anti-poor policies were
driving an unprecedented number of people into soup kitchens and food
banks. And as organic food advocates were putting the finishing
touches on what was to become the first national standard for organic
food, supermarket chains were nailing plywood across their city store
windows bidding farewell to lower income America.

Organic food and agriculture had barely climbed out of the bassinet
in 1989 when 60 Minutes ran its now famous Alar story. The exposure
it received before 40 million television viewers ignited a firestorm
of consumer reaction that eventually made organic food the fastest
growing segment of the U.S. food industry.

Yuppie families reacted first. Like every parent since time
immemorial, these parents wanted what was best for their children,
and the emerging evidence that our food supply was tainted
accelerated their desire for the healthiest and safest food possible.
Though the research surrounding the health and safety attributes of
various foods remained foggy, competing claims opened up a never
ending number of consumer options. One's food choices may be
vegetarian, vegan, organic, grass-fed, free-range, humanely raised,
or some combination of these. As to the source of this food, it could
range from "generally local when it's easy to get" to "obsessively
local and will eat nothing else."

In low-income circles, however, such food anxieties got little
traction. Between getting to a food store where the bananas weren't
black and having enough money to buy any food at all, low-income
shoppers had little inclination to parse the differences between
grass-fed and grass-finished. But this didn't imply that their
awareness of organic food was non-existent, nor did it mean that low-
income consumers were less likely to buy organic if they had the chance.

Low-Income Shoppers Speak

To better understand a variety of issues, the Hartford Food System, a
Connecticut-based non-profit organization that I directed for 24
years, would often meet with low-income families to get their point
of view. On one such occasion, we asked eight members of Hartford's
Clay/Arsenal neighborhood to discuss local and organic food. Like
other impoverished urban neighborhoods, Clay/Arsenal was entirely
devoid of good quality food stores, and their residents experienced
hunger, obesity, and diabetes at rates that were two to three times
the national average. This group was comprised exclusively of
Hispanic and African American residents.

First off, the group expressed an immediate consensus that fresh,
inexpensive food -- the food they generally preferred -- was
unavailable in their neighborhood. Everyone agreed that traveling to
a full-line supermarket was a hassle because it required one or two
long bus rides or an expensive taxi fare. As a result, they did their
major shopping once or twice a month, and when they shopped, price
was their most important consideration.

When asked what the word organic meant to them, the residents
answered "real food," "natural," "healthy," and "you know what's in
it." While they believed that organic food was preferable to food
they described as "processed," "full of chemicals," or "toxic," they
said that buying organic food wasn't even an option, because it was
simply not available to them. One young woman made a point of saying
that she didn't trust the environment where she lived or the food she
ingested. "Everything gives you cancer these days," she said.
Conversely, there was an underlying tone of confidence in the safety
and healthfulness of food that they could identify as local and organic.

Their awareness of the benefits of local and organic food was very
high. For the elderly, there was the nostalgic association with
tastes, places, and times gone by. For those with young children,
there was an apprehension that nearly everything associated with
their external environment, including food, was a threat. Like
parents of all races, education levels, and occupations, these moms
wanted what was best for their children as well, even when they knew
that what was best was not available to them.

Local and Organic Go Mainstream

"In a burst of new interest in food," spouted Newsweek's 2006 food
issue, "Americans are demanding -- and paying for -- the freshest and
least chemically treated products available." Whole Foods' John
Mackey told the Wall Street Journal, "The organic-food lifestyle is
not a fad ... It's a value system, a belief system. It's penetrating
into the mainstream."

As we cast our eye over the sheer effulgence of American food, there
appears to be no limit to the type and number of food products for
those who are motivated by taste, environmental concern, animal
welfare, political correctness, or simple virtue. Niman Ranch
produces a pork to die for, and costs significantly more than the
factory-farmed alternative. Don't want to spend the "best four years
of your life" eating swill from the college cafeteria trough? Select
from any of hundreds of colleges and universities that are now
featuring "sustainable dining" (some inspired by master chef Alice
Waters). And when you just can't find anything that satisfies your
organic lifestyle where you live, you can always pack up and leave.
The New York Times style page featured a number of families who had
the financial wherewithal to escape from New York City to the Hudson
River valley. Once there, the families "began eating strictly organic
foods." One couple said they had moved because the wife was pregnant
with their second child and "we decided that the children needed to
be in nature."

Sounds pretty good. In fact, it just may be the latest incarnation of
the American dream. But what about those who can't escape or afford
to eat "strictly organic" or for whom "buying local" means the past-
code date, packaged baloney at the neighborhood bodega? How do we
fulfill the desire for healthy and sustainably produced food that is
increasingly shared by all?

There are two general directions that have shown promise in closing
this food gap: one is through private, largely non-profit projects
and the other is through public policy. At the Hartford Food System
we founded the Holcomb Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
Farm that made an explicit commitment to distribute about 40 percent
of its local and organic produce to the city's low-income community.
Using a hybrid method of funding, CSAs like the Holcomb Farm (Just
Food in New York City and the Western Massachusetts Food Bank in
Hadley are other examples) have been organized around the country to
ensure that CSAs are not solely the province of a white, bright
elite. Other models like the People's Grocery in Oakland are using
mobile markets to bring high quality, healthy food into communities
that are underserved by supermarkets.

Public policy advocacy has leveraged federal and state funding to
provide special farmers' market vouchers to low-income women,
children, and elders (Farmers Market Nutrition Program). These small
denomination coupons have opened an increasing share of the nation's
4,500 farmers' markets to a wider demographic of shoppers. Along the
same lines, a small but steady stream of farmers' markets are
installing swipe card machines to enable food stamp recipients to use
their electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards to buy local food. And
in what might be the biggest breakthrough yet, the national Women,
Infant, and Children Program (WIC) will be implementing a new fruit
and vegetable program that is potentially worth hundreds of million
dollars to lower income consumers and local farmers.

While it may be some time before we see a Whole Foods open in East
Harlem, non-profit organizations like the Philadelphia-based Food
Trust have secured millions of dollars in state financing to develop
food stores in underserved urban and rural Pennsylvania communities.
As part of an overall economic development strategy, these stores are
not only providing new sources of healthy and affordable food to low-
income families, they are also expanding employment opportunities and
the local property tax base.

These projects and policies have inched us closer to bridging the
divide between the haves and have-nots, but unless every segment of
society rejects the notion that there is one food system for the
poor, and one for everyone else, these gains will remain marginal.

--------------

Mark Winne was the executive director of the Hartford Food System for
25 years. His first book "Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table
in the Land of Plenty" was published by Beacon Press in January 2008.







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