Food Security Begins At Home

I've been in avidly reading what my fellow agents have been doing in terms of acting to create food security this past week.

Michelle Kim and her neighbor Amelia Baker are submitting a project description to Pepsi Refresh to fund a community garden project. Read up and then go vote to give this project a real chance!

Hannah Kohn started her own garden in Whitestone, NY.

Shakwei Mbindyo started a great debate on whether her fellow Kenyans should be growing food for themselves or the global market.

Reid Falconer went out to visit the Abalimi community garden site in Cape Flats (Cape Town, South Africa) and came back with lots of knowledge about how to improve food security in his backyard. He's also now the school rep for the project at his high school.

Sylvain Ratelle planted fruit trees in his Montreal, Quebec backyard.

Claire Moylan helped out another family with their food security - one that doesn't have much but is giving to others in need.


Truly, you all have done fantastic stuff. If you haven't read their blog posts please do and bump up their points.


So, what did I do? Food security is one of those issues I work on. In fact, today I read two really interesting papers on social and environmental factors contributing to famine. The author used the Irish Potato Famine (appropriate for St. Patrick's Day), late 19th century famines caused by El Nino events in South and Southeast Asia, and more recent famines in 1970s Ethiopia. As part of my work, my postdoc mentor and I are looking at slowly changing variables that contribute to household poverty.

Anyway, my point is that I work on food security all day and when I get home I'm mentally exhausted. If I'm in the field, I'm also physically exhausted from the walking between homesteads, helping people out on their farms, etc. So what does this have to do with acting and creating food security for at least one person? In order to do my job well and help others, I need to make sure that I have the energy and good health to do so.

More often than not, I am too exhausted when I get home from work to eat properly. Sure, I could go out to a restaurant but personally the food is too salty and greasy for me. Often I have trouble finding good, balanced vegetarian choices without going to the same place time and again. Also, I know for a fact that I can cook healthier and cheaper at home from scratch. But I don't and I haven't for a long time. Following my divorce I just gave up on cooking because cooking for one just seemed too much trouble. So I end up eating microwave popcorn, a piece of fruit, maybe some carrot sticks and hummus, yogurt with fruit, peanut butter and jelly or banana, oatmeal, frozen vegetarian potsickers, a bean and frozen veggie burrito, or other similar simple finger foods for dinner.

This weekend I sat down and planned and shopped and cooked. I made lentil spaghetti sauce. I made potato and white bean soup. I made tofu, broccoli, and black fungus (Asian stores have interesting ingredients) stir fry. I froze half the spaghetti sauce and soup. This way I can have foods that have little processing, no added sugar/HFCS, low salt, low fat (olive oil and canola oil but not huge amounts), high fiber, and lots of nutritious vitamins and minerals. I'm not saying that my simple, finger foods aren't healthy but many are just snacks. I plan to make this a weekly event - planning out my meals, cooking lots on the weekend, and then eating well during the week. I remember my mom doing this when I was a kid. She and my dad taught school. Between the low pay and exhaustion/stress of work, mom needed to plan ahead to make sure that we had decent, nutritious meals. I don't face the same pressures as my parents and, unlike many of my fellow agents, I don't have children so I should have more time and energy for all of this. However, I think that while an embarrassingly small act my investment in my own food security is important.