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” ...
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 ...
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: ...
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 ...
Sugary drink taxes are bubbling up across the nation. From Philadelphia to Berkeley, Calif., these sugary drink taxes are having an intended benefit—reducing consumption of bad-for-health sugary drinks and driving up water sales. But where is the tax money going? Let's look at Washington, D.C. (11.3% Latino), which recently added a sugary drink tax and is already considering a stronger one, and whether the revenue is benefiting health.
New Sugary Drink Sales Tax in D.C.
D.C. leaders recently bumped up the local sales tax from 6% to 8% on drinks with natural or artificial sweeteners that contain less than 100% juice or at least 50% milk bought in stores. City council member Mary Cheh pushed for the tax. She moved to insert this tax in the city’s $15.5 billion 2020 ...
Amid an obesity crisis and a coronavirus pandemic, Latinos and all people need more water, and less sugar. Do you agree? Speak up! Submit a model comment below to urge the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans to add water to the MyPlate/MiPlato graphic, reduce the amount of added sugars, and make healthier diets equitable for all people! Update 6/11/20: Over 55,000 people submitted comments!
Submit a Comment for Dietary Equity!
Nearly two of every three people in the United States live with at least one chronic disease like obesity and heart disease, according to the CDC. These are caused in part by poor diets. Unhealthy eating is now the top cause of premature death in the nation (https://salud.to/unhealthy-eating-death). Communities of color and low-income families ...
U.S. Latinos face high levels of poverty, food swamps, and food insecurity—living without reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food. In Texas, the food insecurity rate is 14.3%. That’s why Texas State Representative Diego Bernal championed legislation that would allow schools to set up school food pantries. Because of this law, schools are helping those who are hungry and food insecure as well as reducing food waste. The law has also inspired others to create change and do good for the community, like Jenny Arredondo, Samantha Almaraz, and Pablo Ramirez.
Diego Bernal & School Food Pantries
Bernal was heartbroken after touring Texas schools and seeing students go hungry, even as "perfectly edible food" was being thrown away in cafeterias. He wanted to ...
High-schoolers Samantha Almaraz and Pablo Ramirez see many classmates who struggle with hunger and poverty in the 85% Latino border town of McAllen, Texas. They wanted to help. So Samantha and Pablo, 10th-graders at Lamar Academy, started a school food pantry by working with their parents, school leaders, and using the Salud America! “School Food Pantry Action Pack” as a guide for their efforts. With their pantry, called the Energy Bar, they store leftover food from the cafeteria and distribute it to hungry students. "We're surrounded by people who are hungry and that don't get food,” said Samantha, who with Pablo is in the International Baccalaureate program at Lamar in McAllen ISD. "They tell us, ‘I don't have food waiting for me at home.’” The Energy Bar ...
Days after Salud America! members helped flood USDA with comments to protect the SNAP food assistance program, the comment period has reopened after a controversial new report. Comments now can be submitted until Nov. 1, 2019. The reopened comment period comes after a surprise release of USDA data that advocates say underscores the deep harm of its proposed rule to limit access to the SNAP. The change would eliminate food assistance for 3.1 million people and jeopardize free school meals for nearly 1 million kids, according to the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC). “Even for those who remain eligible, forcing low-income families to navigate the burdensome paperwork will inevitably lead to eligible children losing access to a critical source of daily nutrition,” said ...
