It’s the rare celebrity chef who is also a policy wonk, but that at least partly describes Michel Nischan, a three-time James Beard Award winning chef who’s as conversant as anyone in Congress on the nuances of the farm bill. Nischan is also a food activist and innovator who figured…
Food Bank News
Three Square Food Bank is taking food rescue to the next level with a cool tool — the blast chiller. Common in commercial kitchens, blast chillers are not widely used in food rescue, though they are well-suited to the task. The fast-acting freezers can take food from thoroughly hot to…
In Catherine D’Amato’s vision of the future, doctors will ask patients whether they have enough food in their household just as routinely as they inquire about smoking or alcohol consumption. Hunger will increasingly be viewed as a matter of public health, and public and private entities will work together to…
With attention focused on whether some able-bodied adults may be restricted from receiving SNAP (today is the last day to submit comments on this Trump Administration proposal*), it’s a good time to consider the many positive provisions tucked away the recently passed farm bill. While the protection of SNAP was…
Should SNAP participants be allowed to use their benefits to purchase sugary beverages? This enduring question got put to the test again this week when two prominent health organizations recommended that recipients of federal nutrition assistance be dissuaded from buying sugary drinks. The advice was part of a policy statement…
It didn’t take long for John Whitaker to confirm that his idea for diverting food headed for the landfill was a keeper. After investing only $10,000, Whitaker accepted his first load of perfectly good food saved from the dump. It was worth $33,000. Following a nearly 30-year career in the…
Everybody understands the appeal of a sliced apple over a whole one. For Foodlink of Rochester, NY, that appeal has translated into a way to get kids to eat healthier food, a boost for the local economy, and an annual revenue stream for the food bank of more than $200,000.…
At just over one million meals served, the federal after-school meals program, largely funded through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), does not have near the reach of school lunch or breakfast, but diligence and creativity on the part of some food banks is helping to raise its…
Food banks, which have already risen to the challenge of assisting furloughed federal workers, now face a potentially much bigger shutdown-induced problem: extra demand for food from people facing longer-than-usual gaps between their monthly SNAP payments. When the government resolved a potential disruption in SNAP by issuing February benefits early,…