PEACEMEAL - Tackling World Hunger Can Be Confusing. Addressing the Problem with Small Bites Might Make it More Manageable (Commentary)

--- by Cynthia Thomet

You may not have heard about an individual named David Beckmann president of the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit Bread for the World, whose focus is to urge decision makers to “end hunger at home and abroad.” I hadn’t, until he was awarded the World Food Prize at the 2010 Laureate Award Ceremony in Des Moines, Iowa.

As a 501(c)4 organization, Bread for the World is a little different from other nonprofits, because of its ability to devote its time, resources and energy not only to educating decision makers about ending hunger, but also to advocating specific policy change, or directly lobbying policy makers on this issue. Beckmann recently published a book called, Exodus from Hunger: We Are Called to Change the Politics of Hunger.

In one commentary I wrote for PeaceMeal, entitled “Billions Undernourished” was on the eve of World Food Day, and I learned a lot about what world hunger means in a nutshell: nearly one billion people in the world suffer from chronic hunger. The 1 Billion Hungry awareness campaign by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations called upon us to tap into our anger over this piece of information and do something to change this sad reality.

One billion people is alot of people. 

Rick Steves, a well-known travel guide writer and public television travel host, wrote in an inspired blog post about his recent trip—not to Europe, but to the World Food Prize ceremonies: “With all my travel experience, I've gained empathy for the struggles of people in developing nations, but my concern used to be confused and directionless.”

Indeed, humanitarians and world leaders are challenged with suggesting solutions and introducing policy to balance the forces that have wreaked havoc on the earth—from the natural disasters that have emerged as a result of climate change to the laws of capitalism that are still beholden to the cold realities of supply and demand, and the sometimes colder political motivations that tamper with the international trade economy’s so-called “invisible hand”.

Earlier this week, a headline in The Guardian announced, “Scramble to meet shortfall in food aid: Tens of thousands in Swaziland to miss out on food aid as lack of donor funding forces the WFP to cut assistance.”  

Tens of thousands. That’s a lot of people, too.

The article elaborates on some of the elements that complicate delivering food aid in Swaziland:

In one anecdote from Steves’ blog post, he describes a discussion panel about keeping young people interested in farming. When asked about this, Afghanistan’s minister of agriculture, Mohammad Asif Rahimi said, “Remember, in your society one percent of the people are farmers. In Afghanistan, 80 percent of our people are farmers. Encouraging young people to farm is not an issue for us.”

Still, the Guardian spoke with Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agriculture Development who would like to see countries investing in agriculture, making the sector “more attractive to youth and less dependent on rainfall for irrigation.”

It appears that the causes of, and approaches to, addressing world hunger are as numerous as its victims. An approach that would seem reasonable in Afghanistan and Swaziland might seem ludicrous in the United States, or vice versa. But this should not stop you from taking at least one step towards doing good.

Campaigns such as “1 Billion Hungry” have the potential to raise eyebrows, but they also have the potential to overpower and devastate action with crushingly huge numbers that reduce the individual to feelings of helplessness—or directionlessness. As we approach the end of the year, please do not allow your concern to feel directionless. Hopefully, a growing awareness of our global interconnectedness can help us feel obligated to move into a future where undernourishment is just a scientific definition, not a human reality. 

--- The author is Cynthia Thomet, a humanitarian, and co owner and doyenne of the award winning downtown Atlanta, Georgia; US restaurant, Lunacy Black Market.

PEACEMEAL - Baking Bread to Break Bread, Building Communities from the Inside Out (Commentary)

 - by Cynthia Thomet

Nothing says “comfort” quite like freshly baked bread. Everything about it feels good. Making it, there’s the sifting of flour, carefully adding water to knead the combination into smooth dough.  Baking it, the leavening has a fragrance that can draw crowds. Significantly, making bread is a process that takes time. 

The positive impact is even greater for relief efforts. Today, I came across a little story published on the World Food Programme website entitled, “Pakistan: Food Aid Means Fresh Bread for Homeless Families,” the article underlines the basic human need to eat food for survival, but more importantly, it’s about people surviving the devastating impact of broken families, ruptured communities. 

The recent floods washed through Pakistan as I was coincidentally wrapping up a book called “Three Cups of Tea,” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. It is a non-fiction account of Greg Mortenson’s commitment and travels to build schools for girls and youth in the most rural areas of Northern Pakistan following a troublesome K2 climb. Throughout the book are scenes of poor families and struggling villages preparing feasts from what little they have to create a lifelong bond with Greg, and to secure a commitment from him to build another school for their children.

People who break bread together can develop a deeper understanding for meeting basic needs to build better communities.

There’s one scene in this book where Greg was frustrated to learn that the money he raised in the United States was re-appropriated by village elders in Korphe, Pakistan to build a bridge across a treacherous ravine—one that for decades was bridged by a zip-line of sorts. Greg was immediately aware that bridge project would eat all the funds he raised for a school and would put off building the school for at least another year.

Greg worried what his backers would think. He had approached the village with the vision of building a school. As he fretted and micro-managed construction of the bridge, he was taken aside by Haji Ali, a village elder, who taught him one of the most important lessons for helping communities: “We’re the country of thirty-minute power lunches. Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.”

After that meeting with Ali, Greg let go. The bridge was the best solution for this village, as it was the only reasonable way to transport tons of construction materials across the canyon through which some of Central Asia’s coldest glacial waters flowed. The following year, the school was built and led to a domino effect over the next several years of school-building projects throughout this mountainous region of Central Asia. All because he took the time to drink three cups of tea. 

In my mind, the two stories written years apart connected in my consciousness this week. Food is more than fuel, just as my sitting next to a stranger is more than a random occurrence. The moment can carry the impact of a butterfly fluttering its wings on the opposite end of the earth. It can breathe comfort into your soul like freshly baked bread.

--- The author is Cynthia Thomet, a humanitarian, and co owner and doyenne of the award winning downtown Atlanta, Georgia; US restaurant, Lunacy Black Market. http://www.lunacyblackmarket.com/

PEACEMEAL - "Lunch" The Film (Report)

(HN, October 19, 2010) – Wrapping up our look at hunger and malnutrition in honor of World Food Day, HUMNEWS’ presents, “LUNCH: The Film”.  Produced by Filmmaker Avis Richards, Founder of Bird’s Nest Productions and the Bird’s Nest Foundation, LUNCH explores the pervasively unhealthy food which the US school lunch program provides to children in the public school system.  This lack of quality can lead to malnourishment and disease, even if children are stuffed full of empty calories.  Healthy food is the right of all the world’s population. 

About LUNCH

As nation-wide funding for school cafeterias rapidly decreases and high-calorie, low-nutrient meals have become order of the day, our nation's children are being afflicted by a slew of diet-based diseases from high-blood pressure and cholesterol to diabetes and obesity. In LUNCH, a revealing documentary short, director Avis Richards investigates the causes and the consequences of “growing up in a junk-food culture.” Through numerous on-site interviews with food workers, doctors, educators, and students, LUNCH provides a candid, penetrating, and disturbing account of the National School Lunch Program's failure to promote the proper dietary habits to ensure our youth's physical, social, and psychological well-being. The documentary also explores viable alternatives to the hamburger hegemony, talking with farmers and other community leaders about their efforts to put locally-grown, whole foods back on the menu and make diet and nutrition a core part of every school's educational model. LUNCH serves up an eye-opening account of a national crisis and its potential solutions, a film that should interest anyone concerned about the future of our students and our society.

Storyline

LUNCH is a short documentary exploring the effects of the National School Lunch Program on America’s children today in schools and seeks to shed light on the current situation through candid interviews with doctors, teachers, farmers and various specialists.

The National School Lunch Program feeds some 28 Million children who eat 1 and sometimes 2 meals a day at school. Sadly the food that is served to them too often resembles fast food. The effects are far reaching.

Statistics have shown that kids today will have a lower life expectancy than their parents. Many doctors have had no training in diagnosing adult onset diabetes in younger patients. In 2007 the total cost of diabetes treatment was $174 Billion and that is only expected to rise as more and more people are diagnosed everyday.

One of the major problems is that parents, students, and even school administrators do not pay attention to poor food quality. Ironically even fast food chains have to supply information on what they are serving. So why isn’t that the case with our schools?

With a school system underfunded and a school food surplus sold in bulk and “on the cheap”, the results have been the downsizing of proper kitchen in school cafeterias to the point where pre-made fast food style lunches are the only meals available. This is a recipe for disaster and it is having an adverse effect not only on kid’s health, but it is teaching kids to identify food as being fast food and the result goes beyond heath and weight issues but to self-esteem and abilities to function properly in classrooms. From healthcare to national test average scores, everything is tied to what we eat.

The most common argument that children will not eat healthy food however many in the field disagree with this statement and say its simply a matter of making nutritional food available to them. The film explores how some schools, dubbing themselves as “Green Schools” such as Hamstead Hill Academy in Baltimore, have made nutrition a core part of their educational model. From school garden to cooking classes these schools have taught children to make healthy choices by including them in the preparation of their own meals.

The film also targets a broader range of social issues beyond school and healthcare touching on economics where the importance of locally grown produce in the Baltimore school system has lead to a partnership with Great Kids Farm. Not only does this farm supply produce for the school system but it also educates kids on where their food comes from and offers affordable alternatives to the expensive national distribution plan current in existence. Farms like Great Kids Farm not only create jobs locally but studies have shown that small farms, which use their soil to grow a variety of multiple produce are far more effective than their larger monocropping farm counterparts.

There is a national movement in the US to build a real connection to the food we eat starting with local farmers and schools all the way to Michelle Obama’s white House garden all to show that people don’t need a big farm to have a positive impact on each other and on America.

Production Notes

The idea for LUNCH was born when producer and director Avis Richards realized that our country’s National School Lunch Program was not working and decided to do something about it. With Earth Day Network's input, Avis embarked on a year-long research process. Once she analyzed and understood the issue, she decided to share her findings in a film that would not only expose the problem but also recommend solutions.

Traveling from Boston to New York to Washington D.C. to Baltimore, Avis and her team interviewed medical doctors, teachers, chefs, school directors, food producers, volunteers, and others from various walks of life to ensure that documentary would feature various opinions.

As they compiled interviews, their passion for the subject grew stronger and they became motivated to create a piece that would create impact both the general public and policy makers, so that children across the country may have access to healthy meals on a daily basis, and more importantly, that they can learn the importance of a healthy diet, a lesson that will last a lifetime.

SOME STATISTICS:

■  The US Child Nutrition Act, which supplies breakfast and lunch to some 31 million students = $12 billion annually.

■  The US elementary school lunches average 821 calories per lunch.

■  80% of US schools do not meet the USDA standards for fat composition.

■  Children who consume US school lunches are about 2% more likely to be obese than those who brown bag their lunches.

■  Soda vending machines are present in 43% of elementary schools, 74% of middle schools and nearly all of high schools.”

■  Nutrition requirements for school lunches: “Current regulations require schools to meet the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommend that no more than 30 percent of an individual's calories come from fat, and less than 10 percent from saturated fat. Regulations also establish a standard for school meals to provide one-third of the Recommended Daily Allowances of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories.”

■  “The National School Lunch Program gets about 15 to 20 percent of its food from the federal government each year, the paper says, with beef and chicken making up a big portion of the largess. But the meat received from the USDA receives far less testing for contamination than it would be by fast-food outlets that have had past troubles.”

■  “Most public schools offer students a government-subsidized lunch that is supposed to adhere to certain fat, caloric and nutritional standards. 20% of schools also sell branded fast foods such as Pizza Hut and Little Caesars pizza or McDonald's burgers and fries, according to a 2000 study of school health policies and programs by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

■  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 percent of children (over 9 million) 6-19 years old are overweight or obese -- a number that has tripled since 1980.
For children born in the United States in 2000, the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives is estimated to be about 30 percent for boys and 40 percent for girls. ("Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance, 2005," Institute of Medicine.)

■  In case reports limited to the 1990s, Type 2 diabetes accounted for 8 to 45 percent of all new pediatric cases of diabetes, in contrast with fewer than 4 percent before the 1990s.  ("Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance, 2005," Institute of Medicine.)

■  By as early as 7 years of age, being obese may raise a child's risk of future heart disease and stroke, even in the absence of other cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

■  “The likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes and hypertension rises steeply with increasing body fatness. Confined to older adults for most of the 20th century, this disease now affects obese children even before puberty. Approximately 85% of people with diabetes are type 2, and of these, 90% are obese or overweight…Raised BMI also increases the risks of cancer of the breast, colon, prostate, endometroium, kidney and gallbladder.” (World Health Organization)

■  The CDC reviewed the discharge records of hospitals nationwide from 1979 to 1999, specifically of children ranging in age from 6 to 17 years and analyzed the results for all obesity-related illnesses. The researchers found that the incidence of:

•  Diabetes had nearly doubled
•  Obesity and gallbladder disease tripled
•  Sleep apnea increased five-fold

■  More than 70% obese adolescents retain their overweight and obese condition even during their adulthood.

■  As the percentages of obese children raises, so does the percentage of those affected with juvenile diabetes at nearly the same rate.

 ---HUMNEWS wishes to thank Avis Richards and her production team for sharing LUNCH with our audience.

PEACEMEAL - Billions Undernourished: Are You Mad as Hell or Fat and Happy? (Commentary)

- by Cynthia Thomet

The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 925 million (nearly 1 billion) people in the world are undernourished. Following last year’s hunger summit in November, FAO Director General Jacques Diouf was quoted as saying, “with a child dying every six seconds because of undernourishment related problems, hunger remains the world's largest tragedy and scandal” in a press release that called upon people, organizations and states at all levels to do their part in ending world hunger.

 Given that today is World Food Day, you can start by signing this petition http://www.1billionhungry.org/ and joining the ranks of the outraged that are helping create a social media storm to address these tragic statistics. (Webcast to take place here: http://www.fao.org/webcast/.)

I am mad as hell, but I’m also a bit confused. In contrast, the World Health Organization reports that there are more than 1 billion overweight people in the world, of whom at least 300 million are overweight.

Overweight and undernourished.

While world hunger is on the decline and currently hovering at 925 million, it is still “unacceptably high”. In 2009, the number of undernourished people—with little access to food—exceeded 1 billion. Economists and other analysts at a handful of prominent nongovernmental organizations attribute the small decline to lower global food costs and improved economic conditions, but a walk or a drive around Washington D.C. and its Beltway neighborhoods might show a pudgier, less nutritious, reality.

Despite the souring economy in the United States, Americans aren’t getting smaller. And fatter does not necessarily mean happier—unless seriously ill means happy. Recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cite a “dramatic increase in obesity in the United States” and show boldly colored maps highlighting the prevalence of obesity in 33 states, a whopping 72 million Americans. Also frightening are the overlapping reports of diabetes and other health consequences of obesity, including stroke, certain cancers, and heart disease to name a few.

So it’s a little ironic that while about 1 billion people in the world are hungry and undernourished, there’s another billion people who are stuffed and undernourished.

In other words, worldwide undernourishment is a huge and unfed problem. It’s like being at Marie Antoinette’s buffet where there’s only cake to feed the aristocrats and not a thing for the famished. There appears to be an ever-widening “food gap” between the developed nations who appear to be over-exposed to fodder, and those developing countries that do not have enough to go around.

One response is a revolution. A report out of Norway called “Viable Food Future” addresses undernourishment, obesity, poverty, climate change with a sort of food revolution that targets the food production process.

It says, “If the goal is not to follow the path of vanishing empires of the past, then we need to revisit our relation to the earth, our sense of solidarity, and the way we fulfill our basic needs”.  With a view to small-scale food systems coupled with sustainable agricultural processes, the report presents opportunities to eradicate hunger, reduce obesity, cool the planet, and even improve employment for billions of people, and local economies.

A food revolution, indeed.

--- The author is Cynthia Thomet, a humanitarian, and co owner and doyenne of the award winning downtown Atlanta, Georgia; US restaurant, Lunacy Black Market. http://www.lunacyblackmarket.com  

PEACEMEAL - Cooking Good Food Can Transform Beasts into Beauties (Commentary)

- by Cynthia Thomet

Good food, like a freshly-made, addictive dip can produce an instant “food orgasm”. Appreciation for good food can tempt you to go back for a careless, but passionately enjoyed, “double dip”. (If you’re unfamiliar with the term, see a YouTube clip of the Seinfeld episode on double-dipping.)   Bad food, like artificial ingredients, trans-fats and dishes that are poorly assembled, can send you and your lardy caboose into a food coma so debilitating you wouldn’t even be able to open the door to trick-or-treaters.  

Bad food—and I use the term very liberally—can ruin a person’s career or blow a perfectly good relationship.

A family friend used to tell the same story whenever we gathered to eat. He, an international journalist, was invited to dinner at the house of a prominent Japanese source.  I believe the host was an ambassador.

The meal began on crisp, white rectangular plates. A simple, delicate salad, with slices of raw fish. Dressing criss-crossed the plate, carrots were carved into mini boats, radishes were rice paper houses. The arrangement was an edible relief of a Japanese village. The cleanest presentation communicated the care for precision of Japanese design.

As my friend lifted his chopsticks to destroy the beautiful landscape, he eyed a skinny, green inch worm working its way out of a tangle of frisée.

“Look! Mine’s animated!”

The ambassador, stunned, embarrassed and shamed, had the offending plate removed, and made his way into the kitchen. My friend is certain that a chef lost his job that day and wishes he hadn’t said a thing. Even if he had told the Ambassador that he wasn’t offended, but rather amused by the unexpected guest at the table, he wonders whether it would have altered the course of history.

The Seinfeld episode, and my friend’s real-life episode, bear witness to the fact that our relationships (our places in society and culture) are inextricably linked to the foods we eat, how we identify with those foods and our futures as people and as a human race.  

If beastly behavior can cause conflict, perhaps a good meal could transform our animal instincts into creative deal-brokering. Maybe there’s a recipe for causing a delicious ripple effect across a negotiating table.

Richard Wrangham of Harvard University might agree. In a press release  published on the university website, Wrangham is quoted as saying, “Cooking is what makes the human diet ‘human,’ and the most logical explanation for the advances in brain and body size over our ape ancestors.”

If cooking had the power to change a species biologically and anatomically over millennia, then it would follow that it could have relatively immediate effects on us socially—even if the technique remained, by and large, the same.

My editor framed her vision for the column, citing the food commonalities shared between Palestinians and Israelis. If world leaders could dip their flatbread into the same bowl of the most amazing hummus, maybe they could broker an agreement and collaboratively teach the world a thing or two about dip. 

(On that note, do you have a recipe for amazing dip? Post it to the HUMNEWS guest book!)

--- The author is Cynthia Thomet, a humanitarian, and co owner and doyenne of the award winning downtown Atlanta, Georgia; US restaurant, Lunacy Black Market. http://www.lunacyblackmarket.com