9 Big Actions for Safe Routes to Healthy Food


bus at grocery store

Everyone deserves a safe and reliable way to get to healthy food—whether a supermarket, corner store, food bank, farmers market, or community garden. Unfortunately, many Latinos and people in low-income communities, rural communities, and communities of color are disproportionately burdened by long and unreliable commutes, as well as unsafe routes to nutritious food. That’s why the Safe Routes to Healthy Food Task Force worked for two years to refine the concept of safe routes to healthy food. Now they’ve released a new report with policy implications, opportunities, and recommendations. “This collaboration demonstrated that improving access to healthy foods for people without cars can be improved by a variety of sectors, including: transportation, healthy food access, ...

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SNAP’s Online Grocery Program Provides Healthy Food


Online food shopping SNAP Latinos

Food deserts cause countless American families to struggle with access to nutritious, healthy meals. While this issue is pervasive, government agencies are trying to make progress in this issue with novel approaches — using the ever-growing technological landscape. In 2014, the Farm Bill passed by congress introduced an Online Purchase Pilot (OPP) that gave beneficiaries an option to use SNAP to purchase groceries online for delivery. A recent study out of Yale University found this program has the potential to help those families who live in areas that lack access to fresh foods and produce. "For individuals using SNAP, there's been a lot of bad rap about the quality of food that they purchase, and there's not been a lot of focus on trying to support individuals getting ...

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Salud Talks Podcast Episode 21: “Dietary Discrimination”


STE21 Healthy Food Desert Access

Food insecurity is an issue gripping American families—including those in the Latino community—across the country. These individuals, who live in what experts call food deserts, can lack access to healthy, nutritious meals. Dwayne Wharton, an Independent Consultant with Dwayne Wharton & Partners and the former Director Of External Affairs at The Food Trust, joins Salud Talks to discuss this issue and what progress is needed to ensure Latinos and all Americans have access to healthy foods. Check out this discussion on the Salud Talks Podcast, Episode 21, "Dietary Discrimination"!  WHAT: A #SaludTalks discussion about widespread food insecurity impacting countless Latino and all American families GUEST: Dwayne Wharton, an Independent Consultant with Dwayne ...

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Salud Talks Podcast Episode 19: “Peddling Poison”


Salud Talks Sugary Drinks One Web

When was the last time you drank soda, juice, or other forms of sugary drinks? For most Americans, it is a normal part of everyday life. The problem? These drinks are incredibly unhealthy, more so than some companies would lead consumers to believe, according to Xavier Morales, executive director of The Praxis Project, and Jim Krieger, executive director of Healthy Food America. Check out this discussion on the Salud Talks Podcast, Episode 19, "Peddling Poison"! WHAT: A #SaludTalks discussion about sugary drinks and their harmful impacts on consumers GUESTS: Xavier Morales, executive director of The Praxis Project, and Jim Krieger, executive director of Healthy Food America WHERE: Available wherever fine podcasts are downloaded, including Apple Podcasts, ...

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Comment Now: USDA to Roll Back School Food Nutrition Standards


latino kids in a school food lunch line

School food nutrition is at risk again. The USDA, which relaxed school nutrition standards in 2018, is proposing two rule changes it says will give schools and summer programs more flexibility to meet student meal preferences and reduce food waste. But health experts warn this will roll back progress on school food nutrition. Schools could, for instance, cut breakfast fruit by a half-cup. Fries and burgers could be served a la carte. Pasta could count as a vegetable. This is a longer-term health threat than the coronavirus pandemic, according to Healthy Eating Research. "This would create a huge loophole in school nutrition guidelines, paving the way for children to choose pizza, burgers, French fries, and other foods high in calories, saturated fat or sodium in place of ...

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5 Ways to Build Healthier Food Systems


Sustainable food systems

The future of humanity depends on building healthier food systems. Why? Because our current food and farming systems make us sick in these ways: Unhealthy working conditions Contaminants in the water, soil, or air Specific foods are unsafe for consumption Unhealthy diets Lack of access to adequate, acceptable food That is why the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES Food) published a report to identify five leverage points for building healthier food systems. 1. Promote Food Systems Thinking It’s time to overcome political and scientific silos. It’s time to reconnect people with the realities of the food on their plates. The way food impacts health isn’t an isolated event. We need to promote “food system thinking” ...

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5 Ways Our Current Food Systems Make Us Sick


5 Ways Our Current Food Systems Make Us Sick

Our food systems affect our health in good and bad ways. For example, some of the most severe health impacts of food systems trace back to some of the core industrial food and farming practices. These include chemical-intensive agriculture, intensive livestock production, and mass production and marketing of processed foods. That is why the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES Food) published a report to identify five ways our current food systems make us sick, seven challenges to understanding and addressing them, and five leverage points for building healthier food systems. Here are five ways our current food system makes us sick: 1. People Get Sick Because They Work in Unhealthy Conditions Pesticides are responsible for an estimated 200,000 acute ...

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#SaludTues Tweetchat 1/28: Elevating Plant-Based Food Systems


Plant based food systems

What we choose to eat affects everything. However, our current food system is unhealthy and unsustainable, leaving us with options that pollute our air and water, consume large amounts of energy, and contribute to chronic disease and premature death, all while leaving millions undernourished. Transitioning away from an animal-based system to a plant-based system, for example, has numerous social, environmental, economic, and individual health benefits. Let’s use #SaludTues on January 28, 2020, to tweet about how you can raise awareness about and push for policies to support healthy food systems. WHAT: #SaludTues Tweetchat: “Elevating Plant-Based Food Systems” TIME/DATE: 1-2 p.m. ET Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020 WHERE: On Twitter with hashtag #SaludTues HOST: ...

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Salud America! Members Speak Up for SNAP as Thousands Lose Benefits


snap healthy food federal assistance baby hispanic infant eating

Salud America! members were among more than 120,000 people who submitted comments about a proposed cut the the SNAP federal food aid program. USDA wants to change in how it calculates heating and cooling costs when it comes to SNAP benefits. The change would limit individual states’ abilities to factor in utility costs with SNAP. This could affect people who live in cold-weather states like New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Vermont. The change would cut program benefits by $4.5 billion over five years. Almost 8,000 households would lose SNAP benefits entirely. Although people submitted 120,000 comments via regulations.gov, only 5,060 are available publicly on the website. Of these, 150 were from Salud America! members. "SNAP cuts have dangerous impacts on ...

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