The United States is making meaningful progress on issues of food access, food is medicine, and food loss and waste, according to U.S. Congressmembers and food policy experts. During a recent event hosted by Food Tank, Germeshausen Foundation, and Oatly, these leaders discussed recent achievements to improve food and nutrition security and opportunities for further improvement.
One in eight Americans are food insecure, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “But it doesn’t have to be this way. No one should know hunger,” says U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley. “It is a humanitarian crisis, it is a moral failing, and it is a policy choice.”
Fortunately, ppolicymakers are taking steps to address this. Since September of 2022, when the White House released its National Strategy to end hunger, reduce diet-related diseases, and improve public health by 2030, “we have made so much progress,” says Catherine Oakar, Special Assistant to the President for Community Public Health and Disparities at the White House. “A movement has started.”
This year, the federal government implemented SUN Bucks, a permanent program that helps access healthy and nutritious food. “That is huge. That is such a huge accomplishment,” Oakar says. In participating states, families with eligible school-aged children can now receive US$120 per child to buy groceries during the summer months when school isn’t in session.
The U.S. government has also “made incredible, unprecedented investment” in school meals, which feed 30 million children, says Alberto Gonzalez, Jr., Senior Policy Advisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). He explains that updated nutrition standards help to ensure that young eaters can access healthy food during the academic year.
National efforts are also being made to reduce food loss and waste, ensuring that more food that is safe for consumption goes to those in need.
Roughly one third of food produced in the United States goes uneaten, the USDA reports. “It’s immoral and unconscionable that we should be wasting so much food” when so many go hungry, U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree says.
To change this, the White House recently released the National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics, explains Jean Buzby, Food Loss and Waste Liaison at the USDA Office of the Chief Economist.
“This was a deliverable of the National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health,” says Buzby. “It’s really a roadmap for the EPA, USDA, and FDA, to pull together and meet many commitments.”
This kind of interagency collaboration is essential, says Admiral Rachel Levine, Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—and more is needed to meet everyone’s needs. “We do have to take this holistic approach, looking at the whole person, the whole family, the community, and our nation as a whole.”
U.S. Representative Jim McGovern also urges eaters to demand change: “We need to be impatient,” he says. “We need to be pushing every lever and every which way.”
Listen to this week’s episode of “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” to hear all of the conversations from Food Tank’s recent event on Capitol Hill by clicking HERE.
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Photo courtesy of Joy Asico-Smith / Asico Photo
