Food Not Bombs groups all across the southern United States are feeding families displaced by Katrina. We need clothes,cooking equipment, food, cooks and money to provide for thousands of hungry homeless people.

By Kirsten Anderberg

The American food pyramid is not the only food pyramid available. There are Asian, Indian, Mexican, Mediterranean, and Arabic food pyramids available online (http://www.semda.org/info/). There are also vegetarian food pyramids, vegan pyramids, special variations for diabetics and young children. There are pyramids based on body types; it seems there is a pyramid for every twist and turn. But what I am not seeing is income-based food pyramids. Thus I present to you...the American "food bank" and "dumpster diving" food pyramids.

OCAP | OCAP List | July 24, 2005

Less than two weeks ago, top Toronto welfare bureaucrats informed us that they were implementing immediately, two devastating changes to the City's Special Diet Policy.  All those who had obtained the Supplement would be required to get it approved all over again on a new municipal form. Moreover, only doctors would now be able to fill this in.  Nurse Practitioners, dieticians and midwifes would be banned from doing this.

On Friday, July 22, OCAP received a letter from Social Services Division General Manager, Heather MacVicar, announcing the City's decision to retreat and call off the attack.

OCAP | Email Communication | July 14, 2005

Toronto's top welfare bureaucrats have quietly changed their Special
Diet policy.  The Special Diet Supplement provides up to $250 a month per
person on top of regular welfare, as long as a medical provider deems it
necessary.  Over the last months,as a result of a campaign initiated by
OCAP, thousands of those facing poverty and hunger in this City have
obtained the Supplement.  Through OCAP's Special Diet clinics alone close
to 2000 people have gotten the supplement.  Now an edict from welfare
officialdom seeks to deny access to it and to take it from families who
are benefiting from it.

By Karthika Thampan | 04 June, 2005 | Countercurrents.org

In an unprecedented judgement Division Bench of the Kerala High Court directed Perumatty gramapanchayath (local council) to renew within one week from Wednesday, the licence granted by the panchayat to Hindustan CocaCola Beverages Ltd to run its plant at Plachimada in Palakkad district, in the south Indian state of Kerala. The court ordered that if a formal licence is not issued by the panchayat within the time prescribed, it should be deemed that the company possesses the renewed licence, and the company will have the right to carry on its functions for a period of two years with effect from June 10, 2004.direction was issued by the Bench consisting of Justice M. Ramachandran and Justice Balachandran while allowing a writ petition filed by the company praying to direct the panchayat to comply with the court's judgment on April 7, 2005, declaring that the company was entitled to function, drawing half a million litres of ground water per day.

The Dominion - Dru Oja Jay

"Canada is giving away its ability to set health and safety standards on food that crosses the border, say several US and Canadian scientists. They refer to Bill C-27, which Parliament will vote on in the coming months if an election is not called."

"[A] delegation [of American students] visited a protest camp [in Nicaragua] of several thousand banana and sugar cane farmers who have been lethally infected by the chemical Nemagon. Nemagon is a virulent pesticide used in banana and sugar cane plantations in Central America, the Caribbean, and the Philippines. Approximately 5000 protesters, who are living in makeshift tents of black plastic and sticks across the street from the National Assembly, say that they will not leave until their government has acted justly by recognizing the horrible conditions in which they've been left to die, covering their burgeoning medical costs, and discontinuing the use of all pesticides that contain Nemagon."

"More than 70 environmental, consumer, farmer, human
rights groups and unions from six Central American and Caribbean countries held simultaneous press conferences today to denounce the presence of unauthorized genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food aid distributed by the UN World Food Programme (WFP), and in commercial imports of food
originating mostly from the United States."

"Perched atop the Arctic food chain, the people of the Far North face an impossible choice: abandon their traditional foods, or ingest the rest of the world's poisons with every bite."

All-out push for commercialisation of Sterile Seed Technology

"A confidential document leaked today to ETC Group reveals that the Canadian government, at a United Nations meeting in Bangkok (Feb 7-11), will attempt to overturn an international moratorium on genetic seed sterilisation technology (known universally as Terminator). Even worse, the Canadian government has instructed its negotiators to 'block consensus' on any other option."

"[T]he Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly [is] to hold committee hearings into the pros and cons of genetically engineered (GE) products.

The committee will set the dates for hearings today. This landmark discussion could inform a decision that would establish PEI as Canada's first GE-free province."

"As part of sweeping 'economic restructuring' implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds, which include seeds the Iraqis themselves have developed over hundreds of years. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo: Pay Monsanto, or starve."

Left-wing political movements, as Petrini has acknowledged, tend to be
uncomfortable with the idea of pleasure. In the past, he has written, "people
on the left, no matter how sophisticated and modern they might be, had an odd
relationship to gastronomy". This remains broadly true today. Environmentalists
find it hard to rid themselves of their earnest, do-gooding image. And there
is something horribly joyless and negative about the approach of many
anti-globalisation protesters.

Hippocrates, the person the Hippocratic Oath that doctors take is named after, said, "Let food be your medicine, and medicine be your food." There is profound wisdom in that simple phrase. Modern Americans do not eat enough whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, even amidst the cheap abundance of such foods. But added to that, is the eating of foods that actually tax the system and lessen immunity, such as fast foods with little to no nutritional content. These foods take energy from the body to digest and give little back in return, depleting vitamins, not building them up. We also have a problematic, profit-driven health care crisis in America. From scheduled C-section births in conveyor belt succession, to doctors receiving drug company kickbacks, American health care is often lacking integrity.

If you want to understand poverty in America, start with food privilege. Go to your local food bank. Who is there? In virtually all food banks across the country, you will find a predominance of women with children, and the elderly. What does that say about American society to you? Go to any restaurant, and look at their clientele. They will not even allow the homeless or poor in their doors, but look through the windows. Do restaurants reflect the same clientele as the food banks? Why or why not? Does this not show you the fault line of privilege based solely on food privilege? (I use the term restaurants as differentiated from fast food establishments, which are often the only hot food homeless folks can afford, but which are even more egregious corporate offenders than restaurants often.)