Food and Faith

The best F&F posts of 2009

JANUARY

• depersonalize "the hungry"
• A True Story
• MLK, intestines, and big questions
• eating mercury
• Spirit of an Age

FEBRUARY

• superbowl food
• California Drought - Coming to a Supermarket Near You
• California Drought - Coming to a Backyard Near Me
• Deserts and Asparagus in Peru
• living her faith by fasting
• The Day before Lent

MARCH

• sushinomics
• tent cities sprout up
• Of Aging Mothers, Health Care, and the Making of Soup
• the world according to monsanto
• Food & Family

APRIL

• Governments Urged to Reject Another "Green Revolution"
• climate change leaves more hungry
• the best food news for a tuesday morning
• World Hunger & Call

MAY

• sustainable food video
• What I've learned so far from planting plants
• combined pesticides may cause Parkinson's
• Andean Harvest Festival by a first-time participant
• Our Own Backyard

JUNE

• swine flu 1999
• Pray for Peace in Peru
• what's on my food?
• growing gardens and community in Harlem - ABC news

JULY

• Bread of Life
• Not Indifferent
• advocate raw milk and get sued?
• Monsanto GM-corn harvest fails massively in South Africa

AUGUST

• the corporate co-opt of local
• Milk, from a Wisconsinite
• Meat, from a Wisconsinite

SEPTEMBER

• from food crisis to food justice!
• Julie and Julia and Jesus
• A Taste of God
• what is consuming me?
• Green Revolution leads to famine?
• Fruits and Stew

OCTOBER

• It's October 12th: What are you celebrating?
• Farmers tell it like it is
• World Food Day update: Monsanto monopoly, peasants fight back
• Got food? Check for bees
• Liquid Justice

NOVEMBER

• The Way of Manna
• Local Food at a Stand Still
• Monks, mushrooms and the sacramental nature of everyday eating
• one straw revolutionary lives on
• Black Friday and Fair Trade

DECEMBER

• Hoodwinked
• People declare what?
• Food justice on the side
• A tale of two churches

A tale of two churches

Imagine two churches across the street from each other. Both realize that many people in their congregations and community are struggling with economic problems to a degree that they sometimes have trouble feeding their families. Both churches decide to set up food pantries to help. But they decide to run those pantries in different ways.

Church X
• Asks its members to bring non-perishable food to the church’s food pantry.
• Members purchase food at the grocery store for the pantry, spending a total of $5,000 over the course of a year.
• Neither the church nor its members receive any tax break for the food gifts.
• $5,000 worth of store-purchased food totals about 3,500 pounds.
• Church members lovingly assemble 70 50-pound standardized boxes of food.
• They offer the standardized food boxes to 70 hungry families.
• Because the families’ dietary needs, preferences, and other factors are not considered, as much as half of the food goes to waste.

Bottom line: At a cost of $5,000, Church X provides hungry families with 1,750 pounds to 3,500 pounds of food they can use.

Church Y
• Asks its members to donate funds to the church’s food pantry account at the Food Bank.
• Church members donate $5,000 over the course of a year.
• Church members’ gifts qualify for a 50% Michigan tax credit and up to a 25% Federal tax deduction, so the after-tax cost to the members is as little as $1,250.
• $5,000 in donations let the church obtain approximately 35,700 pounds of food from the Food Bank.
• Church members lovingly stock the shelves of their food pantry.
• They invite 714 families to come select 50 pounds each of food that fits their families’ needs.
• Because the families choose what they can use, vitually none of the food goes to waste.

Bottom line: At a cost of as little as $1,250, Church Y provides hungry families with 35,700 pounds of food they can use. 

Both congregations mean well, but the subtle differences in how they mobilize and dispense food aid make a huge difference in how much help they are able to provide, and how much it costs to provide it. When times are hard and needs are great, doesn’t it make sense to review options and make educated choices in these matters?

Reprinted from Full Plate Press, Spring 2009 edition.

Maps galore

Do you love maps? I do. And they have been coming into my life in abundance. Atlases are great, but these are interactive too. So I thought I would share a few. This first one is a map of all the exciting programs gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing are making possible this year... (Click on the map or the link!)

2009 Programs Supported by the Presbyterian Hunger Program

Roll over the tags and learn about the programs and visit their websites.

Case studies of community food initiatives around the world
From the Wallace Center

Mouse over a thumbtack to find out about a community food enterprise.

Food Stamp Usage Across the Country

The number of food stamp recipients has climbed by about 10 million over the past two years, resulting in a program that now feeds 1 in 8 Americans and nearly 1 in 4 children.

Slide your cursor over this interactive map to find food stamp information in your county.

Hunger at Home in the U.S.
How does hunger affect your community?

Roll over a state to find out the state of childhood hunger, poverty and other facts.

Food justice on the side

One reader of the Food Justice e-newsletter wanted to know how to pass on this information to other, and how to invite them to subscribe. Subscribing is easy. Just go to Hunger Program's subscription page to sign up for e-newsletters. The content from the latest Food Justice e-newsletter is below and the next post down. Dig in...

1) Guatemala update from the December global food crisis fast 

2) WARC/Global Dialogue on the Accra Confession

3) “Farmworkers, Low-wage Jobs, and Living into a New Economy”
- Online Workshop Session and Liturgical Materials on Farm Worker Justice

Food justice morsels you might have missed:

•    Fair food
•    Good farms capture carbon!
•    Local food at a stand still
•    Farmers tell it like it is
•    Liquid justice
•    Green Revolution leads to famine?

People declare what?

What happens when

— the numbers of hungry people has surpassed the one billion mark, and when

— 642 persons gather from 93 countries representing 450 organizations of peasant and family farmers, small-scale fisher folk, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, youth, women, the urban people, agricultural workers, local and international NGOs, faith groups and other social actors, and hold a parallel gathering to the United Nations World Food Security Summit in Rome in November, 2009?

They declare that food sovereignty is the real solution to the tragedy of hunger in our world.

The declaration calls for:

• The participation of women, small-scale farmers, Indigenous Peoples, artisanal fisherfolk, food workers, youth, the urban poor, environmental organizations, human rights defenders, NGOs working for the realization of the right to food and food sovereignty and to ensure that their voices are heard when making agricultural, trade and development assistance policies.
• The commitment of governments and U.N. agencies to the eradication of hunger and malnutrition, the realization of the right to food and the people's food sovereignty agenda.

Read the inspiring People’s Declaration which can be found in English, Spanish and French – or downloaded directly in English here.

Hoodwinked

John Perkins may not know about the Presbyterian doctrine of total depravity, but he sure makes a case for it! If you read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, I'm guessing you'll want to read John Perkins' latest, Hoodwinked. Jill Richardson writes a review on La Vida Locavore starting with these words -

In Hoodwinked, John Perkins exposes the rotten core of a system that we here on this blog have been chipping away at around the edges. The manifestations of the problem come in our lack of a health care system, our unjust, pollution-based food system and its failure to nourish us...

Not for the faint of heart!

For lighter education on another topic related to the food industry, which accounts for a large percentage of carbon emissions, see Annie Leonard's new stick figure animation - this time about Cap & Trade, the proposed solution to global warming.

And if you missed The Story of Stuff, you are in for a treat.