Buscador avanzado

The lunchroom at Alyssa Blakemore’s son’s school. (Alyssa Blakemore)

Each day on our short walk to our town’s scuola materna, my son and I stroll past tiny yards brimming with tomato plants, squashes and citrus trees. A vine of kiwis adorns the entry to one neighbor’s home, and rows of olive trees dot a hillside nearby. Juicy cantaloupes in summer, ripe figs in fall — these are but a few of the mouthwatering choices my son enjoys every day at his Italian preschool.

In the six months since we moved to Italy on military assignment, I’ve been shocked at how well Italy feeds its schoolchildren compared with the United States.…  Seguir leyendo »

We Need a Secretary of Food

Turning Point: The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated an already troubled food industry, leading to widespread hunger and food shortages in some populations.

I am a chef who believes in feeding the many, not just the few. So when quarantines were first introduced around the United States earlier this year, my team at World Central Kitchen, a network of chefs and community organizers stationed around the globe, looked for places where we could feed the masses affected by the combined crises of the pandemic and the recession that it has caused.

You didn’t need to be a genius to find them. The communities suffering most from the effects of Covid-19 are those suffering most from the effects of poverty and economic injustice — places like the Navajo Nation in the American West, which is larger in area than 10 of our states but often remains forgotten when we tell the American story.…  Seguir leyendo »

Johanna Ramirez organized and distributed the last checks for all 105 employees who were let go from three Upper West Side restaurants. The restaurants also distributed all its remaining food supplies to its workers. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times

Writing in the middle of two devastating cholera pandemics in the early 1800s, the great French culinary thinker Brillat-Savarin articulated a truth we urgently need to grasp today: “The destiny of nations depends on how they feed themselves.”

The coronavirus pandemic threatens to create both a public health and economic catastrophe. But we cannot afford to ignore the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding out of sight.

Our fate as a nation depends on how we feed our most vulnerable citizens through this crisis. If our leaders step up now with federal aid, food can be the solution — supporting millions of jobs while also feeding millions of people in desperate need.…  Seguir leyendo »

Congress should put aside partisanship and turf protection as it considers bold changes to a decades-old and increasingly inefficient international food-aid program.

U.S. global food assistance provides vital humanitarian and emergency assistance to people facing famine, natural disasters or conflict. It is a central to U.S. leadership toward peace and security. This is why modernization now is so critical.The Obama administration’s 2014 budget proposed overhauling the Food for Peace program, building on a similar reform proposal from the George W. Bush administration to reduce high administrative costs and thereby reach more hungry people. The Obama proposal would allow greater flexibility in how food aid is procured, transported and delivered through the use of local and regional food procurement, cash assistance or our current system of moving U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

On a trip to Germany a few years ago, I wandered into the meat section of a grocery store. What I saw astonished me.

The beef section in the meat case was very small and the prices were very high — the price of a very average cut of beef was similar to what we would expect to pay for a prime cut of beef in a very high-end grocery store in the United States. It appeared to me that European families had very little choice — in either quality or price — when they purchased beef for a family meal.…  Seguir leyendo »