Food Bank Friday! March 27, 2009!

[ColbertWatcher]

Needs your immediate attention

The people at the http://friendsofpineridgereservation.org/projects/Winter_Coats_and_Electric_Heaters.shtml">Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. They're looking for winter coats and space heaters. Please help any way you can.

In addition, everyone's favorite Alaskan blogger Mudflats has some serious and scary news about the tiny community of Emmonak, Alaska here.

Alaska Newspapers, Inc. has been delivering donated supplies with their newspapers to the tiny rural communities in Alaska (like Emmonak), and they provide a link to their shopping list for donations.

For more information about Emmonak, please check out: The Mudflats, http://divasblueoasis.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=9355C7FA69BC2C072FB445409C53FF5C?diaryId=422">Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis and http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2009/01/spirit-of-emmonak-burns-brightly-in.html">Progressive Alaska.

Despite all that, Alaska's embarrassment of a governor has http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/19/palin-rejects-stimulus">rejected nearly half of state’s stimulus funds meant for education, health care, and labor.

Does that mean that all of Alaska's problems are fixed?

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ALSO
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We know North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota are under water today.

Does anyone have any links or information about how to help out? Does anyone know what is needed?

If you are in the area, or know how best to help, please post in reply and we can start up a new thread to get it more attention.

Why is this posted every week?

Many media outlets are http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=food+banks+demand+up&btnG=Search">reporting that many food banks across the country are running out of food.

Nearly 30 million people are receiving food stamps in the U.S. (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=us&nolr=1&q=food+stamps+30+million&btnG=Search">Google news search)

2/19/2009 Update: Duer babylonsister posted a New York Times article with the latest on hunger in America.

Food in the news

This past week I found out about something called a "grocery auction."

The AP sent a reporter to a place called Dallas, Pennsylvania, to write up a story and dump it on the wire, where every other news outlet picked it up. They included photos.

This is the one that I thought best illustrated the event:


I'm sure not all the food looked like it was swept up off a floor, but is this really the state that we're in?

And then there's this story (Come on, people -- human hunger trumps politics and hassle) from the LA Times about the roughly 1.5 million tons of perfectly good food being thrown out every year by California caterers, hotels and restaurants.

On the bright side, as I was catching up on a few episodes of The Colbert Report that I had missed, I found out about Mark Bittman, who wrote a book called <http://powells.com/biblio/1-9781416575641-0|"Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes">

He said some very interesting things about the way Americans eat:

#1 Of the three pounds of food that every American eats every day:
* about one half a pound of it is meat
* and a pound and a half of it is other animal products
* the remainder is mostly processed food or junk food

#2 serving a family of four a steak dinner uses the same amount of energy as having that family drive around in an SUV for three hours while every light is on in their house

#3 the UN estimates that 1/6th to 1/5th of all greenhouse gases come from industrial livestock production
* America turns out 10 billion heads of industrial livestock every year (which comes to approximately 30 animals per person per year)

#4 eating three fewer cheeseburgers every week would be equivalent to taking all the SUVs off the roads.

Looks like the most honest information is still coming from the jesters.

Some donation ideas

* donate money DUer peace13 reminds us that if a food bank accepts money, they can get food in bulk. Also consider donating office supplies to the organization that runs the food bank (old computers, phones, fax machines, paper, etc)

* "adopt" a food bank item and replenish it whenever it runs low (posted by DUer girl gone mad)

* donate birthday or holiday "kits" (DUer Rabrrrrrr)

* support Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) http://www.chiron-communications.com/farms.html

* donate to Second Harvest http://www.feedingamerica.org/?show_nce=1

* Find and donate "free after rebate" items offered by many stores http://www.salescircular.com/

* DUer peacebird found her household with a few extra dollars every month after paying off a car note, so now they donate that amount to food bank every month. (Way to go peacebird!)

Support your local cooperative extension service

* From the extension links in this section, donate all the items to complete one of the recipes (print out and donate copies of the recipe, too!)

* Donate recipe books (or other publications on nutrition) from your local cooperative extension service (Most states cooperative extensions services have all kinds of things available)

Also, after a quick google search for "cooperative extension service recipe," here are three of the top links:

* The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Recipe Central http://lancaster.unl.edu/food/recipe.shtml#basic">Basic Foods From Fridge, Freezer and Cupboard, including a single-page http://lancaster.unl.edu/FOOD/BasicFoodsforCupboard.pdf">list of ingredients (pdf) for all the recipes on the UNL site

* Cornell University Cooperative Extension-New York City's complete (http://nyc.cce.cornell.edu/nutrition/recipes/2008/NH%20Recipe%20Collection.pdf">Nutirion and Health Program Recipe Collection) (pdf)

* University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture's Cooperative Extension Service Departments Family and Consumer Sciences Programming
Recipes recipes for people with diabetes

DUer 1776Forever posted a link for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension in another thread.

More information about the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (Main website and Food, Nutrition and Health links)

The Cooperative Extension System is a nationwide, non-credit educational network. Each U.S. state and territory has a state office at its land-grant university and a network of local or regional offices. These offices are staffed by one or more experts who provide useful, practical, and research-based information to agricultural producers, small business owners, youth, consumers, and others in rural areas and communities of all sizes.

CSREES is the federal partner in the Cooperative Extension System. It provides federal funding to the system and, through program leadership, helps the system identify and address current issues and problems.

Food bank checklist

* Print out the flier below and make copies for your friends, family or co-workers to take with you when you go grocery shopping.

* surreptitiously leave copies at the grocery store!

(You don't have to pick up everything on the list, just remember to pick up something.)

If you're unable to donate at this time, but may need assistance yourself, please check out these ideas from your fellow DUers ...

* DUer readmoreoften has some great advice for where to find inexpensive food in your area

* DUer ProgrezivIndie compiled several links on one webpage (for help finding a job, medical care, food, etc) and <b>what to do to keep your food edible after a disaster</b>!.

* Please support candidates and policies that guarantee livable wages.

[BonnieJW]

1. There is a reason hotels and restaurants throw out food.

My daughter is a chef and if they donate the food and someone should get sick, the hotel/restaurant can be held liable. What needs to happen is a third party that visits establishments, takes the leftovers and delivers them where needed.

[ColbertWatcher]

2. According to the link ...

"... a 1996 federal law specifically shields people from liability for any problems resulting from food donations -- if someone gets sick ..."Los Angeles Times

[ColbertWatcher]

3. Kick. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Sunday kick. n/t