My favorite part of the Why Hunger website is how personal the stories are. Many of the snapshots talk about new policies, programs, or initiatives, but they focus in on the individual community members that these larger plans affect. I think its very easy, especially in D.C., to get wrapped up in the legislation and forget about the people that this food movement is really about, like Jean Paul, owner of Philly cornerstore ChuChu.

Situated in a very concentrated row house neighborhood of North Philly, Chu Chu has a responsibility to feed the community. Jean Paul provides the main source of food for up to 65 families that live in the densely populated  area. Chu Chu is also the closest food supplier for four schools, ranging from pre K to High School, meaning the store serves on average 50 kids a day. The main thing Jean Paul knows about food systems is that it’s all about trust. He is entrusted with the health of his community and its future generations, as are all members of the food chain.

Feeding the neighborhood is not a duty Jean Paul takes lightly, which is why he participates in the Food Trust’s Healthy Corner Store Initiative. The great part about the  program is that it keeps the focus of the food movement on the personal level. Rather than mandating statewide solutions with specific requirements, the initiative allows the individual business owners to find solutions for their own communities. Food Trust provides storage space, nutrition classes, and mentoring, but beyond that corner store owners are supposed to find, stock, and promote their own healthy produce. This allows Jean Paul to be more connected to his food chain, as he must interact more directly with suppliers and his customers to promote healthy options, while providing solutions best fit for his neighborhood.

I think there is an interesting balance to be found between putting the burden of solutions too heavily on community members while also making sure solutions aren’t too broad based they become inapplicable to specific problems a neighborhood might face. The antidote to a poisonous food system dominated by large-scale agriculture should not be solely dominated by large-scale healthy food programs. After all, the local food movement is supposed to be local.

 

I’m working for a food incubator (focused on restaurants) in DC, and considering the fact that there are a few other food incubators in the area, the article about the Taos County Economic Development Corporation caught my eye. Food incubators create a low-risk space for people to produce food, and this organization did just that.

 

The two women who started this organization, Terrie and Patti, are standouts. The community of Taos is known for having a deep knowledge in farming and ranching, and these women really tapped into these invaluable resources. The community is relatively rural and they wanted to help create more economic opportunities that created a good local food economy. Their development: create a space where different individuals can make homemade food products. Because the permit process and education about food production can be complicated, they streamlined the process making it easier for individuals who want to be food producers.

 

To me, the most striking food producer that came out of their corporation was a mobile meat processing truck. This is great for small scale farmers who raise their cattle in a humane way but cannot afford to process their meat humanely because of outrageously expensive equipment or certification costs. I’ve read plenty of stories of ranchers or meat processors struggling to get by because they attempt to humanely raise and slaughter meat. This creates a way for them to do both, but is low risk because they don’t have to pay for the expensive equipment. The meat currently does not go out into the rural community, but Terrie and Pattie are working to make the locally raised meat is available to local individuals.

 

From what I’ve seen in DC and this article, I feel like more people should look into this business model. It could probably help many small business owners survive; it would probably also be a great way to have more sustainable local foods and support a local economy.

Walking into a corner store, you’re often bombarded with an assortment of colorfully packaged foods that are dotted with enticing advertisements, like ”buy 1, get one free” or “2 for 3.” These foods are often high in fat, sugar and artificial ingredients but are satisfying to an empty stomach, especially one that is looking for instant gratification and only able to spend a few dollars. The actual quality and nutritional value of these products are secondary to their price and “tastiness,” and convenience trumps everything.

Jean Paul, a corner store owner in North Philadelphia, recognizes these tendencies and has sought to improve access to not only affordable but fresh food within the traditional corner store structure. Through support from The Food Trust’s Healthy Corner Store Initiative, Paul is making it easier for children, who make up the a large portion of his customer base, to choose to buy healthier foods.

There is a similar initiative in Washington, D.C. and ever since I learned about the program, I have been curious to learn more about the store owners’ opinions of the program and their roles in selling the fresh produce.

I found Jean Paul’s approach inspiring. As the article explains, he had the option to discontinue the selling fresh and healthy produce when he acquired the business. However, as a vendor, he recognizes his role in shaping his customers’ purchases, while still providing them with the autonomy to make their own choices. With regular customers, he has the unique opportunity to build relationships with his customers and steer them towards more nutritious, and “valuable” foods. He acknowledges his moral responsibility to value the health of his customers and “doesn’t like the idea of being the outlet for unhealthy food bought by unhealthy kinds who don’t know any better and don’t have many alternatives even if they did know.”

We often talk about how we need to know our farmers, but in some situations, especially in urban environments, that is a lot easier said than done. However, I think small local business owners, like Jean Paul and other corner store vendors, can be advocates for healthy, sustainable food purchases in a similar way. They are the familiar faces for many urban community members, and therefore are in a position to be trusted educational resources for their customers. I think that with increased support from organizations like The Food Trust, more and more business owners like Jean Paul will start to see the long-term benefits of building healthy relationships with their customers through the sale of nutritious and fresh produce.

This week it almost felt like we were presented with a hunger-themed pintrest board. A whole bunch of stories and organizations that probably each have inspiring and notable qualities. While the organization of options and groups was a bit overwhelming to me, there was one aspect of the webpage that I was immediately drawn to – a map. On this particular map there was a location geotag attributed to each article displayed on the page.

The map is the classic google map interface, and the tags become more accurately location based as you zoom in. I found this characteristic very intriguing because while it would make more sense to just show each location at it’s actual location at any scale, thats not really how people tend to think about themes and issues when it comes to food. For example, all the stories from the regional south appear to be located in the state of Virginia at the most zoomed out version of the map, however with one click they quickly all disperse to various states like Oklahoma, Georgia, etc. Compare this with someone’s, usually not from the south, understanding of “southern food”. I personally would not know the difference between Carolina barbecue and texas style barbecue.

So faced with this very intriguing map, of food, I began to think about the food maps we created at the beginning of this whole course. The way we tend to think about food starts out as very general: it’s tasty, we associate it with family and friends, and usually can help mark important moments in our lifetimes. The food maps we created helped explain time as well as our involvement and interest in FoodWorks. The food map on the grassroots why hunger page explained food themes across geographic regions. From these two sources it’s easy to tell that food can offer some pretty profound linkages over multiple mediums.

This article about Rufus and Demalda Newsome is a great way to end these blog posts, and a way to tie in all of the themes and topics that we have discussed throughout the course. Before I began to read this article, I was expecting another explanation about how a husband and wife were helping those in their community who were in need, but I got so much more than that. I read an article that touched on religion, social, political, economic, and community triumphs and failures.

What really struck me about this piece was the fact that Rufus and Demalda lived amongst the people whom they were helping. I thought this was great because it brought an even greater connection between all of the families that lived in the neighborhood. I think the takeaway from this is that food is a form of connection because it  brings so many people together from so many different races, creeds, and backgrounds. The ability for one dish or one ingredient to have the ability to strike up a conversation between people of different races, beliefs, creeds, and individuals who speak different languages is absolutely amazing.

The way this article ties in religion and social issues is also very intriguing because it shows how much food influences so many immediate factors in our everyday lives. I loved when Demalda mentioned that it was important to build a connection with the people she was giving food to by the way she framed the question. She mentioned that instead of educating about obesity; she would ask about family history in order to form a connection with those whom she was serving. Additionally, I think that Demalda being Catholic plays a big role in her interest with social justice and serving others. She has great care about these issues because through her faith and religion she is exposed to the methods of how to help those whom are suffering in this world.

Both Demalda and Rufus do so much good for people, but perhaps their greatest strength together is their ability to connect with the people they are serving because it forms a great deal of trust between the community; a community in which both Rufus and Demalda call home. This article shows how valuable living off of the land is today, and how a call back to the value of the land can begin to help solve many of the health and societal problems that haunt individuals today.