scholarly journals Setting the table, not running it: An inclusive approach to access to healthy foods

2021 ◽  
pp. 47-50
Author(s):  
Karen Emmerman
Keyword(s):  
Child Labor ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Justice ◽  
Healthy Foods ◽  
Species Barrier ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Living Wages ◽  
Inclusive Approach ◽  
Access To Healthy Foods

Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.) is a vegan food justice nonprofit in northern California. We focus on making a more just and sustainable food system for everyone involved. Since injustice in the food system crosses the species barrier, we work to connect the dots between the exploitation of human and nonhuman animals. We focus our efforts on four main areas: ending the use of animals in the food system, improving access to healthy foods in Black, Brown, and low-income communities, exposing the worst forms of child labor (including slavery) in the chocolate industry, and advocating for farmworker rights. These seemingly disparate areas have much in common: they are interlocking forms of oppres­sion, marginalization, and domination in the food system. We recognize that the intersecting nature of oppression necessitates a nuanced response. For example, as an organization working on both farm­worker justice and food apartheid, we cannot advocate for lowering the price of food as this would negatively impact produce workers who already suffer grave systemic injustice. Instead, we advocate for equality of access and living wages for everyone.[1] In this piece, we focus on our approach to the lack of access to healthy foods, and specifically our community-based efforts in Vallejo, California.

scholarly journals Shaping Physical, Economic, and Policy Components of the Food Environment to Create Sustainable Healthy Diets

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2_suppl) ◽  
pp. 74S-86S
Author(s):  
Adam Drewnowski ◽  
Eva C. Monterrosa ◽  
Saskia de Pee ◽  
Edward A. Frongillo ◽  
Stefanie Vandevijvere
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Food Environment ◽  
Food System ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Food Environments ◽  
Healthy Foods ◽  
Equitable Access ◽  
Nutrition Labels ◽  
Healthy Diets ◽  
Physical Spaces

Background: Sustainable healthy diets are those dietary patterns that promote all dimensions of individuals’ health and well-being; have low environmental pressure and impact; are accessible, affordable, safe, and equitable; and are culturally acceptable. The food environment, defined as the interface between the wider food system and consumer’s food acquisition and consumption, is critical for ensuring equitable access to foods that are healthy, safe, affordable, and appealing. Discussion: Current food environments are creating inequities, and sustainable healthy foods are generally more accessible for those of higher socioeconomic status. The physical, economic, and policy components of the food environment can all be acted on to promote sustainable healthy diets. Physical spaces can be modified to improve relative availability (ie, proximity) of food outlets that carry nutritious foods in low-income communities; to address economic access certain actions may improve affordability, such as fortification, preventing food loss through supply chain improvements; and commodity specific vouchers for fruits, vegetables, and legumes. Other policy actions that address accessibility to sustainable healthy foods are comprehensive marketing restrictions and easy-to-understand front-of-pack nutrition labels. While shaping food environments will require concerted action from all stakeholders, governments and private sector bear significant responsibility for ensuring equitable access to sustainable healthy diets.

scholarly journals Healthy eating: a matter of prioritisation by households or policymakers?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Joreintje Dingena Mackenbach
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Healthy Eating ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Food System ◽  
Vegetable Consumption ◽  
Fruit And Vegetable Consumption ◽  
Healthy Foods ◽  
Fruit And Vegetable ◽  
Decision Making Processes

Abstract I reflect upon the potential reasons why American low-income households do not spend an optimal proportion of their food budgets on fruits and vegetables, even though this would allow them to meet the recommended levels of fruit and vegetable consumption. Other priorities than health, automatic decision-making processes and access to healthy foods play a role, but solutions for the persistent socio-economic inequalities in diet should be sought in the wider food system which promotes cheap, mass-produced foods. I argue that, ultimately, healthy eating is not a matter of prioritisation by individual households but by policymakers.

scholarly journals Where do food desert residents buy most of their junk food? Supermarkets

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (14) ◽  
pp. 2608-2616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A Vaughan ◽  
Deborah A Cohen ◽  
Madhumita Ghosh-Dastidar ◽  
Gerald P Hunter ◽  
Tamara Dubowitz
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Food Desert ◽  
Healthy Foods ◽  
Food Retail ◽  
Limited Access ◽  
Food Purchases ◽  
Convenience Stores ◽  
Food And Beverage ◽  
Predominantly Female ◽  
Access To Healthy Foods

Abstract Objective To examine where residents in an area with limited access to healthy foods (an urban food desert) purchased healthier and less healthy foods. Design Food shopping receipts were collected over a one-week period in 2013. These were analysed to describe where residents shopped for food and what types of food they bought. Setting Two low-income, predominantly African-American neighbourhoods with limited access to healthy foods in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Subjects Two hundred and ninety-three households in which the primary food shoppers were predominantly female (77·8 %) and non-Hispanic black (91·1 %) adults. Results Full-service supermarkets were by far the most common food retail outlet from which food receipts were returned and accounted for a much larger proportion (57·4 %) of food and beverage expenditures, both healthy and unhealthy, than other food retail outlets. Although patronized less frequently, convenience stores were notable purveyors of unhealthy foods. Conclusions Findings highlight the need to implement policies that can help to decrease unhealthy food purchases in full-service supermarkets and convenience stores and increase healthy food purchases in convenience stores.

scholarly journals A modified choice experiment to examine willingness to participate in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program among low-income parents

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared T. McGuirt ◽  
Stephanie B. Jilcott Pitts ◽  
Karla L. Hanson ◽  
Molly DeMarco ◽  
Rebecca A. Seguin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Choice Experiment ◽  
Limited Resource ◽  
Community Supported Agriculture ◽  
Willingness To Participate ◽  
Healthy Foods ◽  
Food Quantity ◽  
Access To Healthy Foods

AbstractThere is a need to improve geographical and financial access to healthy foods for limited resource populations in rural areas. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs can improve access to healthy foods in rural and limited-resource populations. However, research is needed to discern the most appealing conditions for a CSA (e.g. price, frequency, food quantity) among rural, low-income customers. The goal of this study was to understand low-income consumers' preferences related to participation in a CSA program, considering price, frequency, food quantity and accessibility (e.g. distance) conditions. A modified exploratory choice experiment exercise was embedded within in-depth interviews to examine willingness to participate in CSA under a variety of conditions among 42 low-income adults with at least one child in the household in North Carolina, New York, Vermont and Washington. Willingness to participate in a CSA under each condition was summed and compared across conditions. Results were stratified by race, number of children and household members and McNemar's test and Student's t-test were used to examine differences in willingness between conditions. Salient quotes were extracted to support themes related to each condition. Our analysis suggests that the ideal CSA would be a full-sized share of eight to nine items of mixed variety, distributed every other week, priced at less than US$15, no more than 10 min further than the supermarket (SM) from their home and preferably less expensive but no more than 20% more expensive than SM prices. CSAs interested in reaching rural low-income populations may benefit from considering these consumer-level preferences.

Sustainable Food Consumption in the Neoliberal Order

2021 ◽  
pp. 1036-1061
Author(s):  
Henry E. Alapiki ◽  
Luke A. Amadi
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Food Consumption ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Food System ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Sustainability Challenges ◽  
Global Food

In recent decades, we have seen the rise of the sustainable food consumption field and its push for disciplinary space in development studies. This chapter turns to the original impetus of sustainable food consumption and the question of how neoliberal order can be reconciled with the need to save the ecology. Beyond the fundamental objectives, there is a need to assess the links between the global food system, as influenced by neoliberal order, and the signs that it leads to adversity for low-income countries. A review of relevant literature in the sustainable consumption field is explored using content analysis to examine links between neoliberal food consumption dynamics, the logic of global food politics, and the emerging terminological shifts from food consumption to food system. The world systems theory and the Marxian political ecology framework are used to show that sustainability is notable for emphasizing resource efficiency and equitability, which can be useful when sustainability challenges are matched with ecological policies. This chapter makes some policy recommendations.

scholarly journals “Good For You and Good To You": The Importance of Emphasizing Race when Radicalizing Students around the Food Movement

2014 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 22-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Burdick
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Justice ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
Soul Food ◽  
American Society ◽  
Justice Movements ◽  
Food Movement

While there is great radical and anti-capitalist potential within the “Food Movement,” it can often be undermined by foodie culture’s attachment to a problematic racial politics in which white, urban and middle/upper classed subject positions are articulated through romanticized attachments to local and organic foodways, attachments that at times unconsciously echo nativist and settle colonial sentiments. These problematic racial logics limit the food movement’s ability to fully address the ways by which the corporate domination of the food system disproportionally impacts low-income communities and communities of color. This article contends that food educators must fundamentally rewrite and reshape the very foundations of our food pedagogy to forefront the ways by which the food system is and always has been driven by the exploitation of bodies of color, the forced removal of Indigenous peoples from their homelands and the ways by which food access continues to be predicated on systems of power that perpetuate racial genocide. Drawing upon the experiences from a unit taught on “soul food” in an undergraduate course on the U.S. Food System, this article offers pedagogical strategies and innovative interdisciplinary methodological approaches to teaching the race based apartheid within the American food system and role of race within contemporary food justice movements. As such, this article will contend that conversations with students on soul food, and a race-centered analysis of the food system, ultimately result in a more radical food consciousness, one that is not just located in food related issues, but also grounded in a foundational critique of the complex hierarchal systems of power and oppression that drive American society.

scholarly journals Centering Justice in a Sustainable Food Systems Master's Program

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley M. Greeson ◽  
Robin C. D. Currey
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Food System ◽  
Food Justice ◽  
Master's Program ◽  
Sustainable Food Systems ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Master Of Science ◽  
Pedagogical Frameworks

The new Master of Science in Sustainable Food Systems (MSFS) program at Prescott College was re-envisioned as part of the preferred teach out partnership with Green Mountain College that closed in 2019. In collaboration with faculty from both colleges, the new MSFS program was developed to intentionally center social justice and offer students a Food Justice concentration. Food justice is a growing movement that seeks to shift global, industrial food systems toward more equitable, just, and sustainable foodways. Using this definition, students in the Food Justice core course uncovered how forms of institutional oppression prevent certain communities from accessing healthy and culturally appropriate food. This course was designed and taught from an anti-racist, anti-colonial, and culturally sustaining pedagogical framework. The Food Justice course frames students' investigation of the current food system and how issues of privilege, access, and identity relate to food justice throughout the MSFS program. Through experiential learning, students were asked to develop and implement a project that aligns with social justice values. In this perspective paper, we describe our experiences as sustainable food systems educators in making structural changes to the master's program. We share the values and assumptions that led to the development of the Food Justice concentration and course; detail our pedagogical frameworks; and highlight students' projects as a manifestation of the student experience.

scholarly journals A slow road from meat dominance to more sustainable diets: an analysis of purchase preferences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maijaliisa Erkkola ◽  
Satu Kinnunen ◽  
Henna Reetta Vepsäläinen ◽  
Jelena Meinilä ◽  
Liisa Uusitalo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Food System ◽  
Transition Probabilities ◽  
Logistic Models ◽  
Red Meat ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Protein Sources ◽  
Grocery Purchase ◽  
Step Transition

Background: Achieving a sustainable and healthy diet requires increased replacement of red meat with more sustainable foods. There is a call for novel methodologies to assess the potential of different interventions and policies in enhancing the transition from the current to more sustainable choices. Objective: We aimed to characterize consumer clusters with similar preferences in protein sources, to compare the purchase prices of these foods, and to identify ongoing transitions from one protein source to another. Design: Grocery purchase data with individual attributes on 29,437 consenting loyalty card holders were analyzed over 2.3 year period. We designed a sequence analysis to group participants to clusters with similar purchase preferences over the follow-up period and to estimate transition probabilities between preferences. We studied the determinants of prevalent purchase profiles by ordinal logistic models. Results: We identified six participant profiles with similar preferences in four protein sources: red meat, poultry, fish, and plant-based foods. Red meat dominated the purchase preferences and showed the highest persistence over time. The majority (70%) of the participants demonstrated somewhat mixed purchase profiles. A step-by-step transition from red meat towards plant-based food preference seems most likely via poultry and fish. Overall, low income was not a barrier to a more sustainable purchase profile, while price may deter the purchase of fish. The most important resources in choosing more sustainable profiles were education and stage of family life. Conclusions: Societal incentives for sustainable food choices seem most crucial at transition stages of life course and for the less educated. Here we also demonstrate that grocery purchase data offer a valuable tool for monitoring the progressive transition towards a healthy and sustainable food system.

scholarly journals Gendered and Racial Injustices in American Food Systems and Cultures

Humanities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Sally Kitch ◽  
Joan McGregor ◽  
G. Mauricio Mejía ◽  
Sara El-Sayed ◽  
Christy Spackman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
The United States ◽  
Food Justice ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
And Gender

Multiple factors create food injustices in the United States. They occur in different societal sectors and traverse multiple scales, from the constrained choices of the industrialized food system to legal and corporate structures that replicate entrenched racial and gender inequalities, to cultural expectations around food preparation and consumption. Such injustices further harm already disadvantaged groups, especially women and racial minorities, while also exacerbating environmental deterioration. This article consists of five sections that employ complementary approaches in the humanities, design studies, and science and technology studies. The authors explore cases that represent structural injustices in the current American food system, including: the racialized and gendered effects of food systems and cultures on both men and women; the misguided and de-territorialized global branding of the Mediterranean Diet as a universal ideal; the role of food safety regulations around microbes in reinforcing racialized food injustices; and the benefits of considering the American food system and all of its parts as designed artifacts that can be redesigned. The article concludes by discussing how achieving food justice can simultaneously promote sustainable food production and consumption practices—A process that, like the article itself, invites scholars and practitioners to actively design our food system in ways that empower different stakeholders and emphasize the importance of collaboration and interconnection.

A slow road from meat dominance to more sustainable diets: an analysis of purchase preferences (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maijaliisa Erkkola ◽  
Satu Kinnunen ◽  
Henna Vepsäläinen ◽  
Jelena Meinilä ◽  
Liisa Uusitalo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Food System ◽  
Transition Probabilities ◽  
Logistic Models ◽  
Red Meat ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Protein Sources ◽  
System P ◽  
Grocery Purchase ◽  
Step Transition

BACKGROUND Achieving a sustainable and healthy diet requires increased replacement of red meat with more sustainable foods. There is a call for novel methodologies to assess the potential of different interventions and policies in enhancing the transition from the current to more sustainable choices. OBJECTIVE We aimed to characterize consumer clusters with similar preferences in protein sources, to compare the purchase prices of these foods, and to identify ongoing transitions from one protein source to another. METHODS Grocery purchase data with individual attributes on 29,437 consenting loyalty card holders were analyzed over 2.3 year period. We designed a sequence analysis to group participants to clusters with similar purchase preferences over the follow-up period and to estimate transition probabilities between preferences. We studied the determinants of prevalent purchase profiles by ordinal logistic models. RESULTS We identified six participant profiles with similar preferences in four protein sources: red meat, poultry, fish, and plant-based foods. Red meat dominated the purchase preferences and showed the highest persistence over time. The majority (70%) of the participants demonstrated somewhat mixed purchase profiles. A step-by-step transition from red meat towards plant-based food preference seems most likely via poultry and fish. Overall, low income was not a barrier to a more sustainable purchase profile, while price may deter the purchase of fish. The most important resources in choosing more sustainable profiles were education and stage of family life. CONCLUSIONS Societal incentives for sustainable food choices seem most crucial at transition stages of life course and for the less educated. Here we also demonstrate that grocery purchase data offer a valuable tool for monitoring the progressive transition towards a healthy and sustainable food system. CLINICALTRIAL Not applicable.

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