Food and Poverty: Food Insecurity and Food Sovereignty among America's Poor

Food and Poverty: Food Insecurity and Food Sovereignty among America's Poor

Food insecurity rates, which skyrocketed with the Great Recession, have yet to fall to pre-recession levels. Food pantries are stretched thin, and states are imposing new restrictions on programs like SNAP that are preventing people from getting crucial government assistance. At the same time, we see an increase in obesity that results from lack of access to healthy foods. The poor face a daily choice between paying bills and paying for food. "[ Food and Poverty ] has a wealth of data and perspectives I had not before considered. As a practicing physician I see how my patients are greatly affected by their food and lifestyle choices. This book has helped me understand that there are larger forces at play in food production and distribution that impact the daily choices our patients make." --Shruti Varadarajan, MD, Family Medicine E. Brooke Kelly is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Julia Waity is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Leslie Hossfeld , Professor of Sociology, Mississippi State University, is current director of the Mississippi Food Insecurity Project. Food And Poverty Food Insecurity and Food Sovereignty among America's Poor By Leslie H. Hossfeld, E. Brooke Kelly, Julia F. Waity Vanderbilt University Press Copyright © 2018 Vanderbilt University Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8265-2204-7 Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, ix, INTRODUCTION, 1, PART ONE: CONCEPTS, 1. Security via Sovereignty: Lessons from the Global South Myriam Paredes and Mark Edwards, 5, 2. Can You Put Food on the Table? Redefining Poverty in America Maureen Berner and Alexander Vazquez, 17, 3. Food, Poverty, and Lifestyle Patterns: How Diversity Matters Michael Jindra and Nicolas Larchet, 30, PART TWO: PROBLEMS, 4. Food Spending Profiles for White, Black, and Hispanic Households Living in Poverty Raphaël Charron-Chénier, 47, 5. The Geography of Risk: A Case Study of Food Insecurity, Poverty, and Food Assistance between the Urban and the Rural Michael D. Gillespie, 63, 6. Poverty, Food Insecurity, and Health among Youth Don Willis and Kevin M. Fitzpatrick, 79, 7. The Role of Coupons in Exacerbating Food Insecurity and Obesity Kaitland M. Byrd, W. Carson Byrd, and Samuel R. Cook, 92, 8. The Rise and Falter of Emergency Food Assistance Jennifer W. Bouek, 104, 9. The Complex Challenges to Participation in Federal Nutrition Programs Rachel Wilkerson, Kathy Krey, and Linda English, 114, 10. Access to Food Assistance for Food Insecure Seniors Marie C. Gualtieri, 128, 11. Food Deserts and Injustice: Poverty, Food Insecurity, and Food Sovereignty in Three Rust Belt Cities Stephen J. Scanlan and Sam Regas, 142, 12. Shifting Access to Food: Food Deserts in Atlanta, 1980–2010 Gloria Ross and Bill Winders, 162, PART THREE: SOLUTIONS, 13. Together at the Table: The Power of Public-Private Partnerships to Alleviate Hunger Erin Nolen, Jeremy Everett, Doug McDurham, and Kathy Krey, 179, 14. Race, Class, Privilege, and Bias in South Florida Food Movements Marina Karides and Patricia Widener, 191, 15. Food Insecurity in Southeast Grand Rapids, Michigan: How Our Kitchen Table Is Building Food Justice in the Face of Profiteering and Exclusionary Practices Christy Mello, 204, 16. Community Leadership and Participation to Increase Food Access and Quality: Notes from the Field Ameena Batada and Olufemi Lewis, 216, 17. Hunger in the Land of Plenty: Local Responses to Food Insecurity in Iowa Gabrielle Roesch-McNally, Jacqueline Nester, Andrea Basche, Eric Christianson, and Emily Zimmerman, 230, 18. Food Pantries on College and University Campuses: An Emerging Solution to Food Insecurity Carmel E. Price and Natalie R. Sampson, 245, CONTRIBUTORS, 259, INDEX, 261, CHAPTER 1 Security via Sovereignty Lessons from the Global South MYRIAM PAREDES AND MARK EDWARDS The American shopper walking down a grocery store aisle naively participates in a food system full of ironies and unintended consequences. If asked to interpret the contrast between great volumes of food on the shelves and the request at the cash register for contributions to the food bank, a thoughtful person will quickly recognize the most blatant of ironies — a country that produces mass quantities of food and pays farmers to stop producing too much is also a country with 17.4 million food insecure households (Coleman-Jensen, Rabbitt, Gregory, and Singh 2015). But beyond this glaring contradiction, the complexities and frequent dysfunctions of the country's provisioning remain a mystery. One reason for shoppers' naiveté is the dominance of food security "thinking" about the feeding of populations and the lack of awareness of an alternative food sovereignty theoretical framework. In this chapter we highlight the distinctions, connections, and implications of these frameworks, advocating for a more thoughtful approach to understanding the feeding of th