October 17, 2013
Posts Tagged: food
October 10, 2013
Access and a Space for Empowerment
Federal food assistance programs, particularly WIC and SNAP, have the ability to carve out spaces in which individuals can be empowered… The increased buying power that SNAP offers low-income families and individuals is a tool they can use to take control of their diet. WIC, even with the restrictions, is yet another tool. These resources, along with other resources such as budgeting and nutrition education, provide a space in which individuals have authority over what they eat and how they use their personal resources. And this authority, this control over their being, gives spaces for empowerment.
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September 20, 2013
Church of the Pilgrims’ Food & Faith Season starts with compost, soil and communion
Written by Ashley Goff and Rebecca Barnes
During this liturgical season that the Church of the Pilgrims calls “Homecoming,” the Sundays between September and the end of November, we are focusing on the theme of Food and Faith. Within the theme of Food and Faith, we are taking on this arc for a focus: humus, exile, and harvest. To fully experience this theme we are having communion each week in worship.
The inspirations for this theme of Food and Faith is Sacred Greens, Pilgrims’ urban garden which produces food to supplement meals for Open Table (our Sunday lunch for hungry neighbors). The book “Food and Faith” by Norman Wirzba has also been influential.
The first few weeks we are naming the element that formed our existence: soil. From a theological perspective, we are lifting up the Biblical interpretation that we are formed out of the humus, or topsoil, and it is from that place where the earth creature took it’s shape.
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July 3, 2013
I’m Patriotic as CAN be
Tomorrow is Independence day. The day we American’s celebrate the signing of a document that asserted that all men were created equal and with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. On the Forth we normally assert those rights and pursue our happiness with flag waving, gracious displays of fireworks, and grilled food. I’m not knocking it, I enjoy a good cook out. But I do find it interesting that many think of this day as display of patriotism.
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June 5, 2013
Embracing Imperfect Eating
I am going to share with you, a poem:
Enriched flour
and cheese powder,
monosodium glutamate
and ammonium sulfate,
silicon dioxide
and yellow number 5
Okay, it is not really a poem. Just a selection of ingredients you’ll find listed on the back of the store brand cheese-its box in my recycling bin…
It’s the dirty laundry of this food justice advocate. But I air these treason in favor inclusion and the prevention of burnout.
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April 29, 2013
The Informed Eating Game
April 10, 2013
Why a Garden? 1st Food Justice Learning Call on Tax Day!
Food Justice Learning Call
Hosted by the Presbyterian Hunger Program & the Food Justice Fellows
Why a Garden?
Community, Church and Market Gardens & Resources for Urban Agriculture
Monday, April 15
12:00 noon (eastern); 11am (central);
10am (mountain); 9am (pacific)
Call 424-203-8075 and Enter 180305#
Hear presentations from three experienced urban agriculture practitioners & join in a conversation about the multiple benefits (and challenges) of gardening in community. Learn, share struggles and what works, connect with people and resources, and be inspired to build just, resilient and sustainable food economies.
Presenters: Laura Henderson, Executive Director of Growing Places
Jeremy John, Quixote Center
Laura Collins, Healthy Food for All Program Coordinator, CAIN
April 2, 2013
We are Fossil Fuels
“From dust you were made, and to dust you will return.”
Our bodies were created of earth; they are sustained by what we intake, which is grown by, or feeds off the earth; and ultimately we will return to the earth.
I wonder however, if the modern world version of the phrase should be, “From fossil fuels you are made, to them you cannot return”
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March 22, 2013
You Have Been Denied
Going through this tedious very stressful process has opened my naive eyes to the system of government assistance. Aren’t government assistance programs meant to help reduce the daily stresses instead of creating more? How can these individuals and families work through the system to get what they need without high stress and time away from work and family?
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December 26, 2012
Diner’s Guide APP is out!
From our friends at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United!
EXCITING NEWS! Our 2nd annual ROC National Diners’ Guide to Ethical Eating 2013: A Consumer Guide on the Working Conditions of America’s Restaurants IS OUT & entirely new, the ROC Diners’ Guide smartphone app, created by Clay Ewing, Assistant Professor at the University of Miami, putting restaurant rankings at consumers’ fingertips.
The free app is available NOW for iPhone and Android mobile devices.
“ROC-U produced a National Diner’s Guide that rates restaurant based on how they treat their employees.” Mark Bittman exclaimed in his New York Times column earlier this year. “We have pocket guides for fish; finally, there’s one for humans.”
As the holiday season for dining out and office parties at restaurants begins, the Guide makes it easy for consumers and companies to evaluate more than 150 restaurants and national chains based on a number of key criteria:
– Do they provide paid sick days to ensure that those who handle and serve food are not passing on illnesses?
– Do they pay at least $9 per hour to non-tipped workers and at least $5 per hour to tipped workers? (The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour for non-tipped workers and just $2.13 for tipped workers.)
– Do they provide opportunities for advancement, so that at least 50 percent of their employees were promoted to those positions from within?
In the 2013 edition of the guide, ROC has included 73 restaurants that are committed to taking a “high road” approach to workers and consumers, up from 35 restaurants in the 2012 edition. Congrats to all the Gold and Silver star winners in the Guide (some of them might surprise you)!
So check out the 2013 ROC Nat’l Diners’ Guide and DOWNLOAD THE APP – find out if your favorite restaurants have been naughty or nice…
Don’t forget to leave a review if you like the app!
Sincerely,
ROC-United
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