How local food pantries, meal programs fight food insecurity

To decrease the nation's food waste, activists in Denmark showed the people that it was safe to buy and consume items that were very recently expired. From live demonstrations where celebrity chef features expired items in the entrees to reducing prices for out-of-date items, "Danes now throw away 25 percent less food than they did five years ago."

After incarceration, Black men and women have a difficult time re-integrating into society without financial and educational resources. A former Black Panther activist has created the non-profit Oakland &the World Enterprises to offer an urban farm as a prisoner re-entry program and community center. The Oakland project supports self-sufficiency, self-determination, and empowerment for Black people.

Organizations in Detroit are piloting a program to apply food stamp credits in grocery stores towards the purchase of nutritious produce, in order to increase access to healthy items. The initiative can also help the local economy prosper through increased promotion of locally grown produce.

In an agricultural system designed for big-industrial growers, many farmers struggle to bridge the relationship between their produce and consumers, as well as strengthening local economies. The food hub is a collection of buildings that process and distribute the sale of local food. Eastern Market in Detroit is an example of a food hub that makes local produce accessible to low-income neighborhoods.

World Concern, a Seattle-based Christian humanitarian group, provides people around the world with vouchers they can use in select markets, rather than the traditional emergency food aid of rice and other grains. In Dhobley, Somalia, the solution of vouchers quickens the process of receiving the food and contributes to the local economy.

Culinary and agricultural education can sometimes take a backseat to the more academic side of high school. But Blue Hill is teaching high school students the importance of healthy cooking and home grown produce through a cooking class that was recently instituted in Manhattan high schools.

The 'food desert' term is a hot buzzword that suggests lack of access. Research on obesity and food availability in poor areas suggests that access must be considered, but only alongside additional factors like price, taste and education.

Even with all available help, New Yorkers miss about 100 million meals each year - food stamps are not enough. But some New York food banks allow for the homeless to choose their own food products, making healthy choices easier.

Programs to get fresh produce carts to areas with no access to healthy food work best when government and determined entrepreneurs team up. Success from this model is evident in New York City, where the city has incentivized the selling of fruits and vegetables by street vendors in areas that are in the most need of the produce.

By the 1980s, Roxbury and north Dorchester had been devastated by the disinvestment and white flight of the 1960s and 1970s. Racist banking and housing policies (“redlining”) had segregated people of color from opportunity, barring them from getting home loans except in certain neighborhoods. So the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) brought together residents to develop their own comprehensive plan to revitalize their community, building a community food system along the way.