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twitterFood — and why so many go hungry — on the table
Panel discussion to focus on disparity between what the rich, poor have to eat
Friday, Oct. 9, 2009 | 2 a.m.
IF YOU GO
What: “Food and Hunger: Eating in America” with panelists Alice Waters, Raj Patel and David Mas Masumoto
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: UNLV Student Union Theatre
Admission: Free; 895-5542
Sun Archives
- Souped-up Three Square food bank could serve as model (8-28-2009)
- CEO of Three Square Food Bank: Nourish your spirit, Las Vegas (8-11-2009)
- Three Square opens west side collection spot (3-11-2009)
- In down economy, shelters seeing more people in need (11-26-2008)
- Six questions for Jule Murray (8-13-2008)
Beyond the Sun
While tourists dive into Las Vegas’ endless buffets and the wealthy enjoy dining on grass-fed Kobe beef, more than 200,000 Las Vegans are struggling to feed themselves. About 141,000 children get government-subsidized school lunches, and 60,000 children have no stable daily source of food outside their schools.
So perhaps gluttonous Las Vegas — which at first seems the most unlikely place for a group of writers to debate agribusiness, global poverty and nutrition — may be a most appropriate place.
UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute and Three Square food bank will host a panel discussion and symposium next week to discuss food and hunger. The institute is bringing three authors from different corners of the food world to discuss how and where Americans get their food and to examine the disparity between the rich man’s food and the poor man’s and why the difference matters.
“For us to do something on different points of view about food — eating, hunger, Americans’ propensity for shoving calories down our throats — is as viable a subject as any we’ve done,” Institute Associate Director Richard Wiley said.
Three Square is using the institute’s panel event as an opportunity to examine how local nonprofit organizations and government agencies can better address the valley’s hunger problems. The food bank will host a symposium Monday among local hunger experts, aid agencies and at least one of the institute panelists to accurately characterize the extent of the problem and examine what to do about it.
“The symposium allows us to take what we’ve all done independently a step further, to gather all the local experts on food and hunger and poverty with global experts to figure out what we can do to close the gap on hunger,” Three Square President Julie Murray said.
The disparity in food quality and supply is key to any discussion of food and hunger, whether global or local. Yet few agree on how best to solve these problems.
The institute’s three panelists hold divergent views on what the world should be growing, distributing and consuming — including whether food should be grown and sold in local markets.
David Mas Masumoto
The author of “Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm,” about his efforts to grow and sell succulent heirloom peaches in California’s San Joaquin Valley, says buying local is not always realistic. The more important issue is who is making the food decisions — the consumer, the farmer, the distributor or the grocery store executive?
Masumoto contends that the consumer has lost more control over his food than he realizes. Produce, including much of the organic food purchased in high-end markets, is hybridized and managed to be easily and cheaply grown and harvested, look immaculate and generally taste like cardboard. Over time, our expectations have changed to the point where this is considered normal and acceptable.
Masumoto tried to change that, one peach at a time, embracing the premise that fruits and vegetables once tasted good, and still should.
It shouldn’t matter that Las Vegas can’t produce much local food, he said. “We all have our ‘foodsheds’ — the places our food comes from,” Masumoto said. “No major city has an agricultural base within its city limits that can support itself. Food has to come from someplace. So Las Vegas has its agricultural base — it may very well be scattered across the world — but I imagine much comes from the Central Valley of California. So in a way, my farm is connected with Las Vegas.”
He said the farmer’s voice is often left out of the food debate and he hopes to bring that perspective to the discussion at UNLV.
He wants people — from restaurateurs to home cooks — to be more aware of where their food is coming from. Most people can’t get their food from within 100 miles of home, but they should know where it is coming from. Every farmer, rancher and fisherman has a business philosophy that frames the choices he makes every day. The more consumers know about the farms that produce their food, the more enlightened they are about the food itself, Masumoto said.
A more sustainable model for future food production calls for preserving and wisely using agricultural land and making wise decisions on water allocation, he said.
“My hope is to rethink our relationships with food — and begin to develop a mental map of these relationships,” he said.
Raj Patel
The author of “Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle For The World Food System,” a book about global hunger and poverty, notes that food doesn’t necessarily end up where it is most needed. Because of the way the global agriculture industry is managed, part of the world is starving, another part has high blood pressure and the wealthiest sliver of world population has enough good, nutritious food at its fingertips to be healthy and fill landfills.
The hunger issue is about more than starving children in Africa, he said; there are children going without breakfast in Henderson and teens struggling with diabetes in North Las Vegas. Unless the valley’s homeless and hungry acquire a taste for nopalitos, mesquite flour and quagga mussels, there’s going to have to be a more global solution, according to Patel’s philosophy. And that solution isn’t necessarily buying expensive organic produce trucked in from Mexico.
Patel is an economist who worked for the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization before becoming an outspoken critic of those organizations’ practices and an advocate for the poor. He thinks change can come only through collective action.
“I’m skeptical that people will be able to change the world food situation simply by eating differently. The reason that people are hungry in Nevada today isn’t because people aren’t eating enough high-end olive oil,” Patel said. “It’s a political problem, and there are political actions — from starting a local food policy council to demanding a change in the U.S. Farm Bill.”
Alice Waters
The chef behind the famous Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., and the author of eight popular cookbooks, Waters is the most prominent — if not most controversial — panel speaker.
She founded Slow Food International, a nonprofit organization that stresses the importance of consuming local, seasonal and sustainably grown foods. She is one of the founders of the slow food and “locavore” movements that have swept the yuppie nation. She advocates not merely buying organic but, more important, buying fresh seasonal food from farmers and ranchers within 100 miles of home.
Her position: Many of the moral and quality problems surrounding food and hunger rest on the heads of corporate farmers and that at least some can be solved by people simply choosing their food more carefully. The mainstream agriculture industry believes this view is naive and unrealistic, that without the industrialization of agriculture, American farmers wouldn’t be able to feed our own population, let alone the world’s. And most of the world’s people have neither the money nor opportunity to buy only the best.
Waters was not available for an interview.
Discussion: 22 comments so far…
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Comment removed by staff. Offensive language.
So you are basically saying "Don't come to Las Vegas, as we are starving and our children will go without while we feed you?"
Do any of the Casinos, Diners, or resorts who advertise with you in their efforts to keep profitable during the current recession actually read this stuff?
If I didn't know Las Vegas, this article would have made me think about my next vacation, and where I would spend my money.
As it is, I know tripe when I read it.
A large number of the people who are currently going without enough food in this economic downturn, are the very same people who were going without enough food when the economy was booming. These are the same people who awlays have enough money to go to 7-11 and buy a couple of jelly donuts and a giant Slurpee.
Every State and City has it's poverty. Las Vegas should never have grown to the current population levels. It was only because of the building boom and availability of higher paying non skilled jobs which attracted all of the barely educated, non skilled people unfortunately who now find themselves out of a job and with no other skills for which to do other than wash dishes, make beds, or empty the garbage. Las Vegas was a tourist destination , and should never have turned into the "fastest growing city in the U.S." a term which Ms. Laverty Jones liked to tout all over the place. Now they are all here, illegal immigrants and all, and we have no work for them. It's not our fault...
this is the result of uncontrolled growth and a non-diverse economy. period.
wait until city center opens and all those construction workers leave. there will be tumbleweeds rolling across the 215.
All the problems in this country and today we all spent 79 million to bomb the moon. 79 million could have created a lot of jobs.
Send the Illegals back across the border. We have 32 million jobs waiting for American Citizens to occupy.
This story is absurd - have you gone to a public school and seen any of the children there? They're all fat on McDonald's dollar menu junk food - obesity is the real problem in America and Las Vegas today. Get real.
I'm moved by all the compassion shown to our neighbors across the valley, and their children, who are hungry through no fault of their own.
First of all, the subsidized school lunches are just another government giveaway. When I was in school I brought a sandwich made at home and ate just fine. These kids dont have to be subsidized at all- its not like they have NO FOOD and are starving. Its just easier for their parents to get the freebies.
As to the comments about the tourists eating good food while the residents here starve, that is just plain BS. Buffets are cheap, particularly at locals casinos, who OFTEN offer two for one coupons, local discounts, etc.
Buffet food here is remarkably good too. I can eat very healthy food at station casinos, and its cheap compared with normal restaurants. Its difficult to even cook at home for what it costs to eat at the buffets. At home you have the issue of having to buy more food than u need and having unequal amounts of leftovers that tend to get tossed out. At the buffets, this problem is averaged over hundreds of people at least, so the efficiency is better both in preparation and usage.
Its popular for writers to jump on the bandwagon of the 'rich and the poor", but this is more to pander to the conventional thinking than to report on reality.
In Vegas, probably more than other places, food is cheap and if you go hungry, its because you are lazy and dont WANT to work. And dont tell me you CANT find a job- what that usually means is that you cant find a job that will pay you what you feel you are WORTH. Drop that antiquated view of what you are WORTH if you could have everything you wanted, and take what you can get right now. At least you eat.
Tom (Staff)
You have to realize most of these posters are wing nuts with NO compassion for anyone but themselves
"...60,000 children have no stable daily source of food outside their schools." If this is true (and I doubt it is) then these children have no one to blame but their parent(s). Perhaps they should learn to dial 911 and get social services involved? Or we could take a look at the little "mom and pop" stores that trade food stamps for liquor and tobacco. So many solutions...........
Tvegas and Tom(Staff) You guys certainly have the full right to your opinions, however I don't see any of the other commentators calling you "wing Nuts" for having your opinion. Lets stop the name calling and get to the point here. Children are not to blame for their going hungry, and yes everything possible should be done to make sure they have food in front of them at least twice a day. But their parents have the responsibility to make sure this is so. Again there are factors throughout the world which contribute to starvation. The first and most important is BIRTH CONTROL! the second pertaining more to this country is IMMIGRATION CONTROL! the third pertaining to this valley is UNCONTROLLED OVERDEVELOPEMENT! These three things are why there is hunger in the valley. LAS VEGAS was NEVER supposed to become the size it is today. It is a tourist destination, a place built by the mob in the middle of the Mojave Desert for people to escape to, to get away from the very things that today are destroying it. Don't call me a "Wing Nut" for speaking the plain truth for what it is...
environprotector,
please re-read my post. I'm not aware that I was engaged in any name calling.
As a general rule, I'm thinking it would be helpful to these discussions if people would read carefully and respond thoughtfully. Just sayin'.
Tom Gorman(Staff) :
I completely agree with what you are 'jus sayin" and if you re- read my comment it was directed to Tvegas for the "wing nut" comment. The body of my comment stating - Children are not to blame for their going hungry, and yes everything possible should be done to make sure they have food in front of them at least twice a day. was addressing your comment about lack of compassion amongst the commentator's.
Gorman is correct about the lack of compassion but I think it is directed at the so-called parent(s) of these kids. I'm a parent. I fed my kids (on my own $$$). My kids are parents. They feed their own kids (on their own $$$). Get it? If the parents aren't doing their job then the kids have to notify the authorities so that they can be taken care of properly.
Tom Gorman-Yes I have little compassion for those who are going hungry. I have worked in social programs and find that the people who are in them are there because they are lazy, have no ambition and are only looking for someone to take care of them.
My parents were sharecroppers in Tennessee in the 1930's and they told me what true porvety was about. There were no programs, no social workers and no safety nets, nothing. You worked your butt off or starved. They moved to California and by working their tails off moved into the middle class and had a pretty comfortable life. They did this on their own without any help. They were simple people but I had two of the finest most honest people in the world raise me and they instilled some pretty honest values into me.
Don't tell me I lack compassion. I just do not feel sorry for bums who have been sucking off the taxpayers for generations. Anyone can make it in this counry if they put forth a little effort, even in these times. It is getting near the time when there will be nothing for them but nothing is what they deserve. We wasted $7 trillion on the war on poverty, using money taken through taxes from honest hard working Americans and what have we got. More feeding from the trough every day. No more handouts no more compassion. Those days are about to end.
jib101 what do you propose we do with them? take 'em out back and shoot 'em? C'mon understand that this valley was not built or ever conceived to house and feed 2 million people. They came during the biggest population explosion period that the southwest has ever experienced since the end of WW11. They came to the promise of good paying unskilled jobs in the construction and exploding hotel industries. The bubble burst and these uneducated, unskilled people are left with nothing to pay mortgages, rent, bills, and last but not least food on the table. The best we can do is to create, and heartily support food banks here in the valley, and the big casino's can do their share of providing food to these centers as well. This is becoming part of a solution, not bitching about how hard our ancestors had it .
You guys just prove my point.
I suggest giving them a bus ticket back where to where ever thy want to go. Freeloading is not a right guarnteed by the constitution. May I suggest you make a large contribution to the charity of your choice if you desire to help these people. I believe most of those going "hungry" were in the same situation before the economic downturn occured.
"Wingnuts", does that go good with hot sauce?Is every body having a bad day today? A man who has food, may have many problems, a man who has no food only has one problem. I am inviting any hungry folk over to my place, now that the wife is gone, and we would have enough, which is as good as a feast.The caliber of people who show lack of compassion are probably the downtrodden themselves. I feel sorry for those who lack compassion, as they are missing one of life's beautiful experiences. Hunger locally can be addressed and conquered, simply by organizing a few vans to hit the kitchens, and ask for extra food, and distributing that to needy (no questions asked) folk at centralized locations, and I would donate my car, if it ran, to this important activity, which is human based, humanity. I would do it because it makes me feel good. Sign me up..
jib101 : you remind me of the old Vegas way of treating the go brokes by getting them a bus ticket to the state line. I'm sure glad your not in charge of any public affairs anywhere! people should always receive food when they have none, money or no money, if you were starving you sure would appreciate some help. Think about what your saying...
O.K.
Here is the deal.
WHEREAS, we consider Vegas as a foreign and a very successful country, nor really an integral part thereof US.
We will sell all that premium high value agricultural crops and shrimps, only in Vegas, as follows:
1. To any one that have money: $1/pound
2. To any one without money: Free
3. To all children of poor parents: Free
4. Special consideration to Vegas' News Media: Free of Salmonella, super hybrid AquaBioHydroponic Mexican tomatoes for 1cent/lbs, contingent upon that the Journalists do care for Vegas.
Is that a good deal?
www.esecorp.org