We are pleased and honored to introduce our Hunger Action Month Guest Blogger Chef Corey Wilson. He is dedicated to helping families regain both the health benefits of home cooked food and the time to enjoy it through his business, A Personable Chef. Corey is our featured chef during this month’s Cooking for a Cause (September 11th). Enjoy!
A couple of years ago, I received an NPR article titled What America Spends on Groceries. It breaks down both how much we spend on them as a total percentage of our budget as well as what percentage is spent on various food categories. It compares both of these statistics now to the same statistics way back in 1982.
Here is the really, really short summary: We spend less of our money on groceries now than then and we buy more crappy processed food now than then. It doesn’t take a statistician to tell us that as a society we eat out more (MUCH MORE) than we did in 1982.
But wait! According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap, the average cost of a meal has gone up 16.8% since 2010! This makes it even harder for those struggling to put food on their tables to provide healthy meals for their families. Since the dawn of civilization, it has always been the most underprivileged citizens of a society who eat the worst and the least. This has historically meant that this population has been significantly underweight. In America today, however, it is the poverty-stricken who are the most obese because the poorest quality and least nutritionally valuable foods are often the least inexpensive. Let’s face it, eating well is expensive.
What did you eat today? Are you focusing on the benefits of the food you choose? How it gives you strength, energy, power? It’s wonderful that you CAN choose foods that provide you with health benefits. Many of our neighbors in need don’t have such a luxury. I wish I had a solution for the world, but I don’t. I do happen to know, however, that Care and Share is dedicated to being part of the solution, not part of the problem. 86% of the food they distribute is highly nutritious (produce, lean meat, dairy products, etc.). This gives our Southern Colorado neighbors in need access to healthy food, and ultimately a choice.
