An Introduction to the US Food System: Perspectives from Public Health – The Rest of the Story

I’m going to briefly wrap this up because the course is closing and I won’t be able to go back and review the material for much longer.

Week 2 discussed food systems and food security. For those of you that don’t know food security is defined as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life” according to WHO. Being food secure depends on availability, access, and also appropriate use.

Here you can read the American Public Health Association’s Policy Statement on a Healthy, Sustainable Food System.

Week 3 covered public health considerations of our current industrialized food animal production system. I encourage you to read this paper on US meat production. It covers not only why our system currently is the way it is but also leads into the consequences on public health, environmental risks, animal welfare, and rural America. 

Week 4 explained the Farm Bill, which in actuality is much more than just a farm bill. It encompasses so much more including SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) previously known as food stamps, as well as conservation programs, research, the agricultural disaster relief fund (remember when tons of farms along the Mississippi were flooded?). The list goes on and on.

Week 5 explored alternative approaches to food production and highlighted some great videos that I will share with you. The first is called Out to Pasture and the second is a series of two on The Future of Agriculture (Part 1, Part 2). As you can imagine organic farming was a focus here.

Lastly, week 6 wrapped up with movements towards better health and a better food system. If you haven’t heard of the Meatless Monday campaign already I’d be surprised. Take a look at their website. Basically this explores the benefits on personal health with going meatless 1 day a week as well as a collaborative effect this can have on the environment.  Other “mondays” have even sprung up and are now collectively titled “The Monday Campaigns”, including “Move it Monday” to focus on physical activity, “Quit and Stay Quit Monday” to help those trying to quit smoking, and even “Man up Monday” for men’s health!

So take a look at all of the resources I’ve provided. It’s not nearly as complete as the course but I hope it enlightens you to a little bit of what I was able to get out of the class.

Now I’m going to sign up for another – Economic Issues, Food, and You! I feel like it will give me a lot to take back to the low-income parents of our Head Start program.

Signing off now – hope everyone had a great National Nutrition Month!

—-Christina Molinski, MS, RD

An Introduction to the US Food System: Perspectives from Public Health – PART 1

I don’t even remember where I stumbled upon the information but somehow I found the link to a system of free online classes called Coursera and more specifically, I found the link for a course offered by Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.  The 6-week course was taught by faculty and staff from the Center for a Livable Future.

In the next couple of posts I will briefly review some of the valuable information I obtained throughout the course.  I will also link many of the resources they provided.

Week 1: Diet, Food Production, Public Health, and the Environment

In our introductory lecture, we learned that out of the almost 7 billion people in the world, approximately 1 million of those people are undernourished.  For a brief visual of the world’s hunger problem, visit here.  I also need to point out that there are people who are hungry, undernourished, and overweight. It’s possible when you live in a world where maybe you are working two minimum wage jobs just to pay the rent, fast food is cheaper (and faster) than fruits and vegetables, and you have no idea when your next meal is going to even be.

We learned that we are using up our resources faster than they can be replenished.  This is coined as living above biocapacity.  Did you know that in fact agriculture accounts for 70% of water usage worldwide? And that nearly ¾ of the land used for food production is actually used for solely for producing meat? Or that red meat (cattle and hogs) produces more greenhouse emissions than any other food group?  How about this statistic: If everyone ate a primarily plant based diet (I’m not saying completely meat free, just less meat than we do now) we would have enough food to the feed everyone in the world, plus some.

This week’s lectures really opened your eyes to the pitfalls of food production.  Why does anyone think it is a good idea to plant corn on 96 million acres of US soil and other vegetables and fruits on only 10 million? Especially given the fact that the majority of that corn is then being fed to our livestock (another fun fact – they are not designed to eat corn, that’s just one of the things we give them to fatten them up faster so they can get more meat to market).

We also had the opportunity to partake in an Ecological Footprint Exercise which you can take by clicking here. When I completed it, I was only a little surprised at my results. My lifestyle as it was in January required about 4.1 Earths. Since then, I have decided to go vegan (for Lent) to see how it would affect my results. Taking the quiz after changing just that one thing resulted in 3.6 Earths. What are your results?

Stay tuned for more from weeks 2 – 6.