Hunger

Cathy Barrow over at Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen sent out an email last week to all of the Charcutepalooza-ers asking us to join bloggers across the country in writing about hunger in America today. I have been fortunate enough to have always had access to food. And the irony of writing about hunger hours after I participated in butchering enough beef to fill two chest freezers and the entire freezer portion of a side-by-side refrigerator is not lost on me.

The goal is to get people talking and encourage people to see the documentary A Place At The Table. I haven't seen the film but it will be screened locally (6:30, April 10th at the Spectrum and 7:00, April 18th at the WAMC Performing Arts Center). Unfortunately I will not be able to attend either local screening. I'm out of town on the 10th and have already accepted another invitation on the 18th.

One statistic that gets thrown around a lot in the media is that 1 in 5 children live in a home that is "food insecure." I've worked with enough statistics to know how they can be manipulated to make a case for most anything. Sadly, even if this statistic is reduced to 1 of 7 children or even 1 of 10 children, it's still too high. Plus, the problem of hungry children is completely avoidable in the US. It's not like we don't have the food. For me personally, the most disturbing part of this kind of data is that when I go into one of my children's classrooms, statistically a few of the kids in the room are hungry. 

While I will not be able to see A Place at the Table this month, I plan to see it and encourage you to do the same.  Poke around the food blogs today to see what others have to say. And if you have 10 minutes to spare, I recommend watching this presentation.