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Often, when I serve watermelon in a program or workshop, there is at least one African American person who looks askance at this fruit. On many occasions, people have declared definitively, "I don't eat watermelon." I have always known that this food has a racially-charged meaning for the African American community so I never try to convince them to try it. This essay, gets to the difficult and painful history of watermelon and its use, like so many things, in the oppression of African...

In the 21st century, food is seen as medicine — and a tool to cut health care costs. The California Legislature last year became the first in the nation to fund a large-scale pilot project to test food is medicine. The three-year, $6 million project launched in April will serve about a thousand patients with congestive heart failure in seven counties. Food is medicine goes beyond traditional advice to eat more fruits and vegetables. Projects pay for people to purchase produce and offer...

It is traumatic when your family does not share the food they have. Not because it is in short supply rather it is done out of meanness of spirit. However, as a child, you conclude you are not good enough, you do not belong. It is painful to be excluded.

The following story is the seventh installment in a new series we’re calling "10 Stories of Transition in the US." Throughout 2018, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Transition Movement here in the United States, we will explore 10 diverse and resilient Transition projects from all over the country, in the hope that they will inspire you to take similar actions in your local community. During the first two world wars, governments in the US, Europe, and Australia promoted the...

"There’s a perception in the black community that eating healthy means eating like white people, but it doesn’t have to be that way. " This article discusses the complexity that race, class, and history, bring to how nutrition practitioners address the diet and health of African Americans: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-people-food_us_5b75c270e4b0df9b093dadbb?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_source=women_fb&utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000046

Over the past decade, there has been a push for ecological conservation within the Christian faith , motivated by concerns over how climate change might impact human welfare. That movement has coincided with an uptick in the number of faith-based farms , many of which equate divinity with sweat equity and its bountiful results. Where those two movements intersect sits Plainsong Farm & Ministry , a community-supported agriculture farm and ministry, located outside of Rockford, Michigan.

Primary school students are more likely to eat a nutritional breakfast when given 10 extra minutes to do so, according to a new study by researchers at Virginia Tech and Georgia Southern University. The study, which is the first of its kind to analyze school breakfast programs, evaluated how students change their breakfast consumption when given extra time to eat in a school cafeteria. The study also compared results of these cafeteria breakfasts to results of serving in-classroom breakfasts...

Amid the litany of education reforms that emphasize innovation and new methods, school gardens stand out as a low-tech change. In an era where kids' lives are more sedentary, and where childhood obesity has risen dramatically, gardens support and encourage healthful eating as a key component of children's physical wellbeing, which can aid their academic and social success, too. And as the consequences of food deserts and poor nutrition on life outcomes become starker, advocates say that...

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Conversations about weight can be particularly challenging for parents with adolescent kids, and insight into the characteristics of parent-adolescent communication about body weight is limited. Published in Childhood Obesity, this study from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity interviewed 148 adolescents enrolled in a weight loss camp, asking them what words their parents typically use to talk about their weight, how those words make them feel, and what words they would most want...

A nutritionist of Trinidadian heritage writes of the harm done to people by failing to include a deep understanding of cultural diversity in nutrition and dietetics training: "We were often being taught to perpetuate idea that Eurocentric eating patterns were the only paths to healthy eating, that healthy eating means one thing and one thing only. But teaching someone healthier eating isn’t about making swaps here and there to fit a patient’s culture into a Eurocentric diet. It should be...

What a powerful articulation of cooks, chefs and communities attempting to reclaim lost sustenance, identity, and connection to food and place-- lost because of colonization. Marginalized and oppressed communities around the world are trying to reclaim their power, often through food. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/t-magazine/polynesian-cuisine.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news