Free Republic

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — With the economy taking a toll on many food banks across the Southland, donations are desperately needed before the Thanksgiving holiday. If you would like to help families in need, contact one of the following food banks: Los Angeles Regional Food Bank World Harvest Food Bank Project Angel Food San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission Orange County Rescue Mission

Trapping Feral Pigs and Other Parables of Modern Life by Matt Bracken Professional trappers don't catch fast-breeding and destructive feral pigs using hunting dogs and guns, or in little traps one or two at a time. The wily pigs quickly learn to evade humans after such fleeting contacts. So how do the pros trap entire feral pig herds, eliminating them all, from granddads to piglets, in one go? They feed them, most generously. They kill them with kindness. First, in a clearing in the woods, the trappers build an enclosure about twenty feet on a side and four feet high,...

According to the United Nations, world grain reserves are so dangerously low that severe weather in the United States or other food-exporting countries could trigger a major hunger crisis next year.Check the labels on the food you buy the next time youÂ’re in the supermarket; youÂ’ll see that it has traveled a long way to get to you. The sad truth is that the majority of food products we buy are not produced locally. They came from countries such as China, Taiwan, Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Italy. This has significant consequences for us because it makes us dependent on these...

Children and parents across the country are fed up with the restrictive new school meal regulations implemented by the Department of Agriculture under the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010,” which has long been touted by first lady Michelle Obama. The standards — which cap meal calories at 650 for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, at 700 calories for middle school students and 850 for high school students — also dictate the number of breads, proteins, vegetables and fruits children are allowed per meal. A spokeswoman for Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, who earlier this month introduced legislation to...

Welcome Hunger is a reality in Missouri. One in eight Missourians receive emergency food assistance every year. The food banks of the Missouri Food Bank Association are the solution to hunger statewide. Through our network of over 2,000 agencies, we provided 68 million meals to your friends, neighbors, and children’s classmates last year. The need is increasing and your support feeds hungry Missourians.

Going hungry in America: ‘Distressing,’ ‘humbling’ and ‘scary’ By Tim Skillern The Lookout Dave Krepcho, director of the Second Harvest Food Bank, checks inventory at the food bank warehouse in Orlando, Fla. In the past four years, food distribution to 500 pantries, shelters, and other relief agencies in the six-county area has jumped about 60 percent. In the last year alone, that amounted to 36 million pounds of food. Krepcho estimates about 30 percent of those seeking help are first-timers. They're blue-collar and white-collar, many middle class, even some upper middle class. They include college-educated couples and professionals. (John Raoux/AP)...

ScienceDaily (July 23, 2012) — With widespread hunger continuing to haunt developing nations, and obesity fast becoming a global epidemic, any number of efforts on the parts of governments, scientists, non-profit organizations and the business world have taken aim at these twin nutrition-related crises. But all of these efforts have failed to make a large dent in the problems, and now an unusual international collaboration of researchers is explaining why. Publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers argue that while hunger and obesity are caused by a perfect storm of multiple factors acting in concert,...

a full hour and a half before the store would open, about two dozen people were already in line shortages of staples like milk, meat and toilet paper are a chronic part of life here The shortages affect both the poor and the well-off “I’m wasting my day here standing in line to buy one chicken and some rice.” Venezuela was long one of the most prosperous countries in the region, with sophisticated manufacturing, vibrant agriculture and strong businesses, making it hard for many residents to accept such widespread scarcities. many economists call it a classic case of a government...

Sesame Street has joined the Class warfare battle choosing to work for the dark side. They are introducing a new character, "Lily" to explore the issues of poverty? hunger in America. The show comes out on 10/9/2011 and I would like some help in countering the propaganda. Done right this could be hilarious. We could go in many directions however I was thinking of a Tea Party Tammy(Tammy Bruce? or Dolly Madison) or richy kid Chris the capitalist. Better than attacking Lily is to educate or demonstrate to her how Obama libs got her family dependent and want her more...

Sesame Street has a new muppet who is hungry for more than just cookies. The iconic kids show is set to unveil a new impoverished puppet named Lily, whose family faces an ongoing struggle with hunger issues. Lily will be revealed in a one-hour Sesame Street primetime special, Growing Hope Against Hunger, which is being sponsored by Walmart. The special will star country singer Brad Paisley and his wife Kimberly Williams Paisley, as well as the Sesame Street Muppets. “Food insecurity is a growing and difficult issue for adults to discuss, much less children,” said the Paisleys in a statement....

Dan Rather opened a CBS Evening News broadcast in 1991 by declaring, “One in eight American children is going hungry tonight.” Newsweek, the Associated Press, and the Boston Globe repeated this statistic, and many others joined the media chorus, with or without that unsubstantiated statistic. When the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Agriculture examined people from a variety of income levels, however, they found no evidence of malnutrition among those in the lowest income brackets. Nor was there any significant difference in the intake of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients from one income level to another. That...

Twenty years ago, hysteria swept through the media over "hunger in America." Dan Rather opened a CBS Evening News broadcast in 1991 declaring, "one in eight American children is going hungry tonight." Newsweek, the Associated Press and the Boston Globe repeated this statistic, and many others joined the media chorus, with or without that unsubstantiated statistic. When the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Agriculture examined people from a variety of income levels, however, they found no evidence of malnutrition among those in the lowest income brackets. Nor was there any significant difference in the intake of...

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Thousands of sacks of food aid meant for Somalia's famine victims have been stolen and are being sold at markets in the same neighborhoods where skeletal children in filthy refugee camps can't find enough to eat, an Associated Press investigation has found. The U.N.'s World Food Program for the first time acknowledged it has been investigating food theft in Somalia for two months. The WFP said that the "scale and intensity" of the famine crisis does not allow for a suspension of assistance, saying that doing so would lead to "many unnecessary deaths." And the aid...

Hamas announced Sunday that all its members currently sitting in Israeli prisons will launch a hunger strike on Monday, after Israel transferred senior Hamas officials to solitary confinement. A Hamas spokesman said Sunday that the purpose of the hunger strike was to demand the release of Yihyeh Sanwar, who is considered the most senior Hamas official in prison, and his brother Mohammad, who was among those responsible for the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. According to the Hamas spokesman, Sanwar suffers from serious health problems.

Editor: The popular revolutions we are witnessing in the Middle East, while inspired by a desire for personal freedom and self-determination, are certainly sustained by a pervasive hunger pan-demic, particularly among the world’s less privileged populations. Since last December, skyrocketing demand for food and dwindling supplies have driven the global Food Price Index to new records. Supplies have suffered from catastrophic floods and droughts linked to global warming and from gradual depletion of groundwater aquifers. Demand has been fueled by unchecked population growth and by diversion of massive amounts of grains into biofuel and meat production. Hunger afflicts nearly one...

The World Bank projects that the number of chronically hungry people around the world will reach 1 billion by the end of this year, due to a relentless rise in food prices. “The trends towards the 1bn are worrisome,” World Bank President Robert Zoellick said. “Global food prices are rising to dangerous levels. The price hike is already pushing millions of people into poverty and putting stress on the most vulnerable, who spend more than half of their income on food.” The Financial Times reports: The number of chronically hungry people surpassed 1bn – about one in six people on...

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the “lame duck” Congress, another law was passed that didn’t quite get the same media coverage as the Bush tax extension “package,” the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the new START treaty. The Food Safety Modernization Act was not steeped in the same level of popular controversy as these other pieces of legislation. Nevertheless, its passage may affect our daily lives even more than these, and in a rather stealth manner. Yes, the week before Christmas, the 111th Congress of the United States gave Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services...

t is getting hard to keep track. One minute the government tells us American children are suffering from record levels of obesity. The next, children are facing a hunger epidemic. Which horror story should you believe? Neither. The truth is, 94.3 percent of American households are able to put enough food on the table every day to feed their families, and the vast majority of children living in these households are healthy and well-fed. Given the food shortages facing people in other countries, Americans are the envy of the world. According to the United Nations, 98 percent of undernourished people...

Environmentalism: Fresno, Calif., stands as the de facto capital of California's mighty Central Valley, the breadbasket of America. So why is that city preoccupied with winning a $1 million prize to stave off hunger? Local newspapers and Fresno County officials are trying to rally Facebook users to vote for Fresno in a corporate contest sponsored by Wal-Mart for $1 million in charity food donations for the hungry. Fresno, a city of 505,000, has taken the national lead because 24.1% of Fresno's families are going hungry. Civic spirit is good, but something big is wrong here. Fresno is the agricultural capital...

An average of 17.7 percent of all Americans were at times unable to feed themselves in the 12 months prior to September of this year. That's according to an analysis of data from the Gallup-Healthways Index, conducted and newly released by the Food Resource and Action Center (FRAC), an advocacy group. You may be wondering: In what universe does a 17.7 percent hunger rate qualify as good news? In this one, actually. That figure, after all, represents a slight drop from the average 18.5 percent rate recorded at the end of 2009. But even the smaller figure is hardly reassuring,...