Over the last year, a subcommittee of the Detroit Food & Fitness Collaborative (DFFC) Food Systems Work Group has been working on a list of priorities for the federal farm bill which will be reauthorized this year. The group firmly believes that a major component of developing healthy communities is informing and engaging policy leaders around issues critical to our work. The farm bill is just one piece of legislation that DFFC considers critical to ensuring our work is successful, and we spent the last year working with metro Detroit organizations and residents to develop four priorities to be included in the next farm bill.

Please take a few moments to read the priorities and sign the online petition to show your support for a fair farm bill. The petition will be submitted to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, as they are in the process of drafting the new legislation.

Sincerely,

Food Systems Work Group of the Detroit Food & Fitness Collaborative

This is part two of a two-part blog from Dorothy Hernandez on the Share Our Strength study: “It’s Dinnertime: A Report on Low-Income Families’ Efforts to Plan, Shop for and Cook Healthy Meals.”

Another important aspect of the national study, “It’s Dinnertime: A Report on Low-Income Families’ Efforts to Plan, Shop for and Cook Healthy Meals,” was grocery shopping.

Sixty percent of the families reported satisfaction with their grocery stores when it comes to providing quality, variety and healthy groceries. However, when adding “price” to the mix, satisfaction was only 30 percent, and one in five families are extremely dissatisfied with price.

As part of our Cooking Matters classes, we take our participants on a grocery store trip during the fifth week of our classes, and I’m always amazed to see how expensive the foods are in city stores. A box of barley that I can get at Meijer is half the price than the same box at a store in the city. Produce can also be questionable.

Families reported most commonly shopping at discount retailers and traditional grocery stores. At least 87 percent of respondents had shopped at a discount retailer (such as Super Walmart or Target) or a traditional grocery store at least once in the past month and at least one-third visited these retailers four or more times in the month.

This made me think about the grocery store options in Detroit, where there is no Walmart or Target or any major grocery chain—at least not at the moment. There are plans for a Whole Foods in Midtown and rumors of Meijer coming to Detroit.

About half the respondents reported shopping at convenience stores, drug stores or dollar stores for groceries in the past month, according to the report. This is more representative of the options for Detroiters.

Researchers of another report, “Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Detroit,” drove up and down every major Detroit street and visited more than 200 different stores that sell groceries, saying “the preponderance of fringe food is stark.” Only eight percent of all the Detroit food stamp retailers were considered grocery stores or supermarkets. The rest were made up of fringe locations that specialized in alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets and/or a small selection of prepackaged and canned food products with high salt, fat and sugar content.

So what can be done? There is a lot of talk about taxing “bad foods,” such as sugar, similar to an alcohol or tobacco tax. I think that doesn’t truly address the problem in helping people to make small, healthy changes that can lead to permanent results. The need and demand for public nutrition programs has never been higher.

For example, in the “It’s Dinnertime” report, there was a telling statistic about the perceptions of frozen and canned produce. Thirty-two percent of respondents rated frozen fruits and vegetables as extremely healthy but only 12 percent rated canned fruits and vegetables as extremely healthy.

In our classes we talk a lot about the nutritional benefits of canned and frozen produce. Frozen and canned produce are processed and flash frozen at the peak of nutritional quality, making it just as and even more nutritious than fresh produce, especially when the produce is trucked in from across the country or flown in from a different continent. Such products are also a much more economical buy oftentimes, especially when produce is out of season. Our participants are surprised to find out that frozen and canned are excellent alternatives in terms of cost and nutrition.

For more information on the report, go to www.strength.org. While you’re there, check out some of our top recipes; my personal favorite is The Works Pizza with whole wheat crust—if you put pineapple, you can get all five food groups in!

Links

http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-studies/map-the-meal-gap.aspx

http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/oldredfordmeijerdetroit121311.aspx

http://marigallagher.com/site_media/dynamic/project_files/2_Det-FullExecBriefing.pdf

http://strength.org/cmstudy/

http://cookingmatters.org

This is part one of a two-part blog from Dorothy Hernandez on the Share Our Strength study: “It’s Dinnertime: A Report on Low-Income Families’ Efforts to Plan, Shop for and Cook Healthy Meals.” Part two will appear next week.

Growing up, I was lucky enough to eat food prepared from scratch every night with my family, even though my mom worked a full-time job (sometimes two). We sat down together and ate together. And we ate everything that was on our plates. I attribute my attitude and perceptions of food to the early days of family dinnertime.

As coordinator of Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters (a series of cooking-based nutrition classes for low-income families administered locally by Gleaners Community Food Bank), I’ve noticed that family dinnertime is almost an anomaly among our participants; many times I hear that there just isn’t time to sit down for dinner as a family.

A new Share Our Strength study funded by ConAgra Foods Foundation, “It’s Dinnertime: A Report on Low-Income Families’ Efforts to Plan, Shop for and Cook Healthy Meals,” reflects what I often see locally around shopping and eating patterns of families.

The study’s good news? Many low-income families are eating dinner at home together most nights of the week.

The bad news? Those meals oftentimes aren’t healthy enough.

Made-from-Scratch vs. Processed Food

According to the study, nearly 80 percent of families report eating at home five or more times a week, but only 53 percent say those meals are healthy; even fewer are making dinner from scratch.

While 76 percent of families say making dinner from scratch is important, only 46 percent are actually providing made-from-scratch dinners most days or every day. Meals for most families are easy, quick, filling, inexpensive, and often consist of boxed or processed foods.

Many said they used easy-to-prepare packaged foods to get dinner on the table. The study reported, “Time deficits mean parents are more likely to prepare easy to cook meals that can be unhealthy. Participants’ journals reveal that meals like hamburgers or hot dogs and frozen French fries, frozen pizza or ‘TV dinners,’ or spaghetti with jar sauce and frozen garlic bread are commonly eaten at home.” If you look at the food label for these processed products, it is usually high in sodium, sugar or fat—or maybe all of the above.

Not only was time a commonly cited barrier but also cost. Twenty-six percent of families skip healthy purchases because they feel they cannot afford them.

Parents often forego purchasing healthier items such as fruit and yogurt when money is especially tight. The items are sacrificed for basic foods like eggs, bread, milk and chicken. Interestingly, many of the “junk food” items, such as potato chips, frozen pizzas and desserts are also eliminated.

Here are some responses from the study:

“(Forgoing) fruit. The price has gotten higher so if I have to choose between a meal and fruit I will go with the meal.”

“Budget [is the challenge]. By the time you pay utilities and insurance, it doesn’t leave much left.”

Links

http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-studies/map-the-meal-gap.aspx

http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/oldredfordmeijerdetroit121311.aspx

http://marigallagher.com/site_media/dynamic/project_files/2_Det-FullExecBriefing.pdf

http://strength.org/cmstudy/

http://cookingmatters.org

When I joined the Detroit Food & Fitness Collaborative Food System Work Group this past year, I think I heard some snickers when I described my work. As the Healthy Food in Health Care Program Director at the Ecology Center, I try to build a healthier food system with the help of the hospitals. While everyone understood the purchasing power of the health-care sector, more than 17 percent of GDP, I could imagine what folks were thinking: “Healthy, good food in hospitals? No way.”

That’s when I knew I was in the right place at the right time. While Detroit’s food movement has exploded, not many know that health-care facilities, in Detroit and across the country, are recognizing that the modern, industrialized, commodified food system is misaligned with healthy eating, and is an environmental catastrophe, too.

But in the last two to three years, we have seen hospitals scrapping their deep fryers, launching farmers’ markets and even their own farms, and buying tons of fresh, local and sustainable food.

Here in Michigan, an initiative launched by the Michigan Health & Hospital Association has gotten nearly universal buy-in among hospitals to a commitment to buy 20 percent of their food from Michigan growers and producers. These hospitals include major local players like the Detroit Medical Center and Henry Ford Health System.

Last week, a physician from the DMC told me about some of the progress they’ve made. Among other initiatives, DMC held picnics every Friday during the summer, offering veggie burgers and water at a lower price than the standard burger and pop. The hospital also partnered with Detroit’s Eastern Market to sell fresh produce at their facilities, a win-win-win: farmers had a new market to sell their produce, hospital staff members had readily accessible fresh produce to buy, and hospital management was able to support a project that promoted healthier eating among employees.

Henry Ford is also partnering with Eastern Market to host a monthly traveling farm stand at each hospital in the health system. It also offered the Green Ribbon Collaborative’s Fresh Food Share for employees, supporting local farmers and promoting seasonal buying and environmentally responsible farm management.

Both hospitals are also working with Wayne State University on a “buy Detroit” strategy. Combined, they spend $1.6 billion a year, and small shifts in purchasing could mean millions of dollars for local businesses to expand and create jobs.

So don’t snicker anymore when someone mentions that you might find good, healthy food in a hospital. This is good news for patients, for visitors and for the more than 30,000 employees of these health systems in the Detroit area alone. Health care is emerging as a major factor in supporting a local, sustainable food system, boosting both economic development and public health.

And that’s no joke.

The Detroit Complete Streets Coalition is continuing to grow. Current members include the following city departments: Department of Public Works (DPW), City Planning Commission (CPC), Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT), Detroit Police Department (DPD), Planning and Development Department (PDD); community members; Wayne State University; and organizations such as the AARP, City Connect Detroit, Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance, Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG), Transit Riders United (TRU), and Warriors on Wheels (WOW). The coalition has met monthly since May 2010 and shows no signs of slowing down.

Thus far, the coalition has held three community events and has participated in several others. The first event held back in March (2011) was attended by over 150 people and sponsored in part by Slow’s BBQ and the Gaelic League. The most recent events sponsored in part by the AARP and Detroit Food and Fitness Collaborative, held in early November (2011) were attended by approximately 100 people from various organizations and members of the community. The three events have educated residents on complete streets, highlighted local complete streets infrastructure, and allowed participants to give a glimpse of what improvements they wish to see.

The Detroit Complete Streets Coalition worked together to draft an ordinance to require complete streets planning for appropriate street projects. The ordinance when passed will be a big step for the city of Detroit to affirm its commitment to pedestrian and bicycle safety through infrastructure improvements for its residents and users. Currently, the ordinance is in the Law Department and following the official legal review the ordinance will be introduced by City Council and voted on for approval.

It is our hope that though the city of Detroit is undergoing finance difficulties that this ordinance is not lost in the shuffle; improving health, safety, and community cohesiveness is a necessity in any economic time.

To learn more about the Detroit Complete Coalition or its work please contact us via email at info@detroitcompletestreets.org, visit us on the web at www.detroitcompletestreets.org, or like us on Facebook at the Complete Streets in Detroit page.

This piece was first published on the Michigan Complete Streets website on November 29, 2011.