Word is out about new food company and social enterprise called Small Small, and we couldn’t be more excited to highlight their mission. Aimed at bringing Ethiopian food culture to a broader scale, Small Small’s first project is selling traditional hot sauce and Berbere spice sourced directly from Ethiopia. Read More

Red Hook street vendor

Although Hispanics constitute the smallest demographic in Brooklyn’s Red Hook, one area of the neighborhood has been home to a significant number of Latin American food vendors. Since 1974, these vendors have served athletes and pedestrians who gather at the Red Hook Ball Fields, earning the vendors the nickname, “Ballfield Vendors.” Read More

Harlem Success Garden

Only two years ago, the lot across the street from P.S. 175 in Harlem was desolate: an abandoned community garden overflowing with trash, rats, and weeds. Thanks largely to the elementary school students next door, the space is a garden once more as it overflows with everything from cucumbers and melons to birds and worms, not to mention a ton of fresh basil.

The restoration all started with Tony Hillery, a man who originally came to P.S. 175 to assist the school’s parent coordinator. After spending some time in the area, though, Hillery had a revelation. Walking around the neighborhood, he counted 53 fried chicken restaurants within a three-block radius, and he began to think about the community’s access to nutritious food.

“You have pizza, fried chicken, fried fish, fried everything. I couldn’t get a healthy meal,” he said. “It was an epiphany. I said to myself: Why not do something?” Read More

New plants

In a city where skyscrapers and massive buildings outnumber arable land, community gardens are hard to come by. Those that are fortunate to plant a few crops in their backyards rarely do so, leaving millions of residents scoping for processed food at their local supermarkets. Some products contain chemicals that the average consumer has little knowledge of and they may do more harm than good. Read More

Tom Philpott, Karen Washington, Marcus, Tamar Adler, Carolyn Mugar

Last night I participated in a food panel with Mother Jones magazine. The topic was simply “What’s In Your Food?” and my esteemed fellow conversationalists and I discussed how the food we eat plays a critical role in our lives and in politics. From Big Ag to pink slime and food deserts to the possible ban on large servings of soda, we shared our thoughts on what we think can be done to change the way we eat.

Mother Jones publisher Steve Katz opened the floor with an examination of the word, economics. Coming from the Ancient Greek word meaning “management of a household” it got us thinking about how money affects the way we eat—but it shouldn’t.  Read More

Photo: Bram Cymet

Until last week, those individuals looking to receive food stamps had to endure a very critical, degrading and frustrating fingerprinting process that has been heavily criticized by policy officials, political figures and most recently, Governor Andrew Cuomo. The past few months have seen various verbal altercations between Cuomo and City Mayor Bloomberg, who argues for the process of fingerprinting, saying how the process limits fraud. Cuomo, on the other hand has been quoted saying, “We shouldn’t treat the poor or hungry as criminals.” One of the biggest factors in Cuomo’s decision to alleviate fingerprinting altogether has to do with the efforts towards ending childhood hunger. Since almost half of all food stamp beneficiaries are children, boosting the number of eligible families who are able to receive food stamps would be an effective way to end the worldwide problem. Read More

Photo: Ryan Morrison

A few weeks back, the NY Times launched an essay contest for readers to answer the contentious philosophical question that puts many food-enthusiasts on edge: is meat-eating ethical? In a social moment of heightened vegetarian, vegan and global warming awareness that have lunged the topic of meat and overall food consumption into the limelight, a few highlights worthy of consideration stood out among the passionate responses.  Considering the current flooding of health-initiatives, complex diets and a focus on farm to table politics, the contest highlighted the sometimes-contradictory and always opinionated debate on the ethics of meat-eating.

One woman who grew up on a farm discusses the most basic levels of interconnection between crops, animals and humans–one that relies on animals to graze the fields upon which they naturally fertilize and that people need to consume to keep in step with a natural order. She stresses the fact that a balanced and healthy life is one in which we should not dismiss part of this self-sustaining cycle where animals need to be eaten, if not for any other reason than to make room on an increasingly crowded planet.  Read More

Photo: Cyndi Amaya

Michel Nischan never seizes to amaze me. He is a man of many sorts – an award-winning cookbook author, famed chef of Dressing Room in Westport, CT and a fellow advocate for local and sustainable eating. His passion for food began at an early age but his pioneering efforts towards healthful eating arose when his son Chris was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. In dealing with his son’s health and looking for new initiatives in local food systems, Nischan’s outlook on food was altered. “Food as a single subject has more of an impact on human health, societal health, environmental health and economic health than any other single subject,” he said.

So I was pleased to see that NPR recently featured Michel and brought attention to his non-profit, Wholesome Wave, that connects low-income neighborhoods with fresh food straight from the local farmers. Read More

Photo:Ian Britton

By: Allana Mortell

This week, the FDA announced that in order to obtain antibiotics for farm animals, nation-wide farmers and ranchers now require a prescription from a licensed veterinarian. Reason being, officials hope to reduce the inane amount of human deaths that have continued to result from overuse of these same drugs. The connection between farm animals and the overuse of the drugs stems from the growing bacteria that appears after using small amounts of these antibiotics over time. The biggest problem being that since the bacteria is resistant to any effects of the drugs, once humans are infected with said bacteria, they cannot be treated with routine antibiotic therapy.

Eighty percent of antibiotics sold in the United States are used in animals and at least 2 million people are sickened and more than 99,000 die every year from hospital acquired infections. Though it is unclear how many of these specific illnesses are resulting from agricultural use of antibiotics, the FDA hopes by regulating such a ban, the number of deaths will reduce significantly over time. Read More

Photo: NCReedplayer

By: Justin Chan

As President Barack Obama and his administration attempt to quell the fear over the recent recession, the public can find solace in knowing that those who have been hit particularly hard by the economic crisis have benefitted somewhat in the past few years.

According to the New York Times, the United States Department of Agriculture released a new study that claims that food stamps have significantly reduced the country’s poverty rate during the recession. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which administers the food stamps, reportedly lowered the poverty rate by 8 percent in 2009, the latest year noted in the study.

Although the food stamp program serves more than 46 million people and is considered to be one of the largest efforts against poverty, its history dates back to the early 1900s, when unemployment became rampant. Read More