Healthy Food for Everyone

New food aid products are improving the health of those suffering from both moderate and severe levels of malnutrition. Probably the best known is Plumpy’nut, developed by the French company Nutriset. Plumpy’nut has garnered a great deal of attention in the mainstream media; it’s sometimes called a “miracle drug” for its ability to bring children wasted from malnutrition back from the brink of death. A recent study in Niger showed that feeding Plumpy’nut to severely malnourished children under age 2 was associated with a reduction in mortality of roughly 50 percent.

Marie Crise uses her SNAP benefits at the Abingdon farmer’s market. Crise’s situation is all too common. She fled an abusive husband with her 4-year-old son Lee. Currently homeless, they are staying with a relative, using a “couch-surfing” approach until they can afford a room or apartment. Crise is a nursing student at the local community college and she understands how important good nutrition is for Lee at this stage of his life. The farmer’s market is important to her because of the quality of the food.

In New Haven, CT, the West River and Dwight neighborhoods have gone from being a food oasis to a food desert and back again. These neighborhoods have a high concentration of low-income residents. When Shaw’s Supermarket opened in 1998, it was the first full-service store seen in West River or Dwight in almost 20 years. Shaw’s closed in March 2010 as part of a decision by corporate headquarters to cut back the number of stores. Once again, it became difficult for thousands of low-income residents to gain access to a diverse selection of healthy foods. What occurred in the West River and Dwight neighborhoods is noteworthy because it illustrates so clearly the challenges low-income neighborhoods face in gaining access to a source of healthy foods and holding onto it once they have it.

“Lower prices for some healthier foods, such as low-fat milk and dark green vegetables, are associated with decreases in children’s Body Mass Index,” concluded researchers at USDA in a 2011 report. “These results show that the effect of subsidizing healthy food may be just as large as raising prices of less healthy foods.”

Fresh fruit and vegetable consumption in schools has been on the rise for the past decade in Burlington, VT, where nearly half the children qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Burlington is one of 15 school districts in the nation to be named a USDA model farm-to-school program, an effort where local farms are tapped to provide a share of the foods served in schools.{footnote}Bread for the World Institute (June 15, 2011), interview with Doug Davis.{/footnote} Burlington’s program has now grown beyond the cafeteria to bring healthy, fresh snacks into the classroom.

Veronica lives in the village of Ngofi in Mozambique, where families live on what they grow on their farms. She, her husband Marcos, and their four children had a herd of goats; they were wealthier than most of their neighbors since goats are worth 400 pounds of maize each.

When Robin Robbins was a little girl, she used to help her grandfather farm tobacco in southwest Virginia and thought she wanted to be a farmer some day, too. Today, she farms a portion of her grandfather’s land with her husband and daughters, but instead of tobacco, they raise fruits, vegetables, and horticultural products. Robbins also has a full-time job as the marketing and sales manager for Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD), a nonprofit organization formed in 1995 for the express purpose of helping former tobacco farmers to diversify their crops.

SNAP is authorized through the farm bill, usually every five years. This is the most likely time for any significant changes to be made to the program. While deliberating the 2008 farm bill, members of Congress considered a proposal to ban the purchase of soda and other soft drinks with SNAP benefits. The proposal was ultimately rejected, but those who supported a ban pledged to try again during the next reauthorization. Such restrictions are only one battle that defenders of SNAP will have to fight. There will also be fierce political pressure to reduce benefit levels in order to protect funding for farm programs.