Free Republic

ELKHART, Ind. - In this job-starved city where President Barack Obama last month made a public appeal for his economic stimulus plan, hundreds of volunteers — and an agency that specializes in handing out food — worked together Tuesday to feed 5,200 hungry families. Roughly 300 local volunteers worked with Feed the Children to distribute more than $2.1 million worth of food at Concord Mall as part of the nonprofit relief organization’s “Feeding Americans Emergency Caravan.” The caravan of semi-trailers is visiting small cities and towns across America hit hard by the economic crisis. No area in Indiana has been...

After a week of rough economic news, President Obama on Saturday gave a pep talk to America, using his weekly radio address to tell them he understands their hardships and to tick off the steps he's prodded government to take. "We will continue to face difficult days in the months ahead," Mr. Obama said. "But I also believe that we will get through this — that if we act swiftly and boldly and responsibly, the United States of America will emerge stronger and more prosperous than it was before." Mr. Obama also bragged about what he said were the brakes...

The Upper Midwest's leading food-shelf organization in the state revealed today just how many meals that Minnesotans are missing every year -- 125 million. In concert with release of that study this afternoon by Maplewood-based Second Harvest Heartland, Target also presented 600,000 pounds of non-perishable food items to Minnesota FoodShare's March Campaign. The "Missing Meals" study is a collection of secondary data that pinpoints exactly how many meals Minnesotans in need are missing. This breaks from the pattern of hunger-relief organizations simply identifying the number of individuals seeking meal assistance. Among the report's other key findings: • On average, low-income...

I have decided to start a thread focusing on edible weeds. Many of the common plants we see everyday are edible, and while most are not hugely palatable or nutritious, a few are truly very good. If you would like to post a recipe, please post recipes related to these plants only. As always, an extreme amount of caution is advised. It's probably true that 90 percent or so of plants are actually edible, there is a small percentage that if you eat them, you WON'T have to worry about eating again! Oleander comes to mind, it would take less...

President Obama seems to have a pretty low opinion of the resiliency of his fellow Americans. He opened his press conference this evening by claiming that the unemployed of Elkhart, Indiana have “no idea what to do or who to turn to.” What’s more, he claimed that the food banks there “don’t have enough to meet the demand.” Does Pres. Obama really believe they’re clueless and starving in Elkhart, or was this just a pretext for the claim he made a bit later that at least for now, “only government” can solve the problems facing America? BARACK OBAMA: I took...

Targeting Obesity Alongside Hunger Obama Administration May Look to Tie Food Assistance to Improved Nutrition In many areas where lots of people receive aid, good, nutritious food can be scarce. The District's Ward 8 went nine years without a full-service grocer. By Jane Black Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, December 24, 2008; Page A02 The worsening economic crunch is causing the tab for food assistance programs to balloon, and with the rising costs has come an intensifying debate over whether -- and how -- the U.S. government can tackle simultaneously the paradoxically linked problems of hunger and obesity. The statistics...

About a week ago, I read that seniors are under-represented at food banks, meal services and other help outlets. This was certainly not the first time I have read or heard this. One reason that is repeatedly advanced for the under-representation is that many seniors lived through The Great Depression of the 1930s, an era when people thought several times before spending even one of their hard-earned pennies. They also learned how to get the most out of what they bought. The people of that era just automatically recycled. Once expired, Eaton’s and Simpson Sears catalogues (each referred to as...

House Hubbie's Joins "Blogging Out Hunger" Campaign My fellow foodie and blogging buddy, Deborah of Jersey Bites is coordinating a bloging campaign on behalf of The Community Food Bank of New Jersey. The "This Bank Can't Fail" blogging campaign is scheduled to launch December 15th. The goal is to get 100 New Jersey bloggers spreading the word about the desperate need that The Community Food Bank of New Jersey is in due to the increased demands being put on New Jersey food pantries.

Confused? Various local governments have declared obesity a crisis, fast food chains are being sued, school lunches are now abstaining from all fried foods, But last week the USDA release their report stating more children are hungry than before the downturn. Who is responsible for the food that these poor, hungry, obese children are given? Surely not Heather Mills.

The young man, wearing a shirt and a tie, turned up just as the pantry operated by an Iowa food bank was closing for the night. He knew it was after-hours. That’s why he was there. He kept his gaze downward as he told the woman from the food bank that he had lost his job, had a wife and kids and was too embarrassed and ashamed to stand in line to receive a bag of groceries that hopefully would feed his family for a week. I have a master’s degree. I shouldn’t have to do this, he said. I...

Since the election I've been asked a number of times to comment on the likelihood that Mr. Obama could be the anti-Christ. Let me begin by saying that having been elected President he's Mr. Obama now, not just Obama. As for him being the anti-Christ I've discouraged that thought because I don't believe it's time for the anti-Christ to be revealed yet. But apart from that there's no Biblical reason I can find that would absolutely disqualify him. And based on the things we know about the anti-Christ there's a fit in several important places. The anti-Christ will have to...

N Korea 'develops special noodle' North Korean scientists have developed a new kind of noodle that delays feelings of hunger, a Japan-based pro-Pyongyang newspaper has reported. The noodles were made from corn and soybeans, the Choson Shinbo said. They left people feeling fuller longer and represented a technological breakthrough, the newspaper said. North Korea is dependent on foreign food aid. Last month the UN warned that residents were experiencing their worst food shortages in a decade. But the communist country remains reluctant to allow experts to fully assess the scale of the problem or give them adequate access to deliver...

Juxtaposed on opposite pages of the BBC International newspaper were two stories: "..thousands of people (in Seoul, South Korea) protesting against resumption of U.S. Beef imports..." and "The U.S. announced that it will send half a million tons of food aid to North Korea." How can two so closely connected groups of people hold such strong opposite opinions about the safety of U.S. food exports? Easy. It's the haves vs. the have-nots. South Korea is a strong democratic nation, our ally, who owes its existence to the U.S. and the United Nations. It has the luxury to be choosey. Its...

If you had a spare $10 billion over the next four years, how would you spend it to achieve the most for humanity? This is a small amount compared to rich-government budgets. But if we could set aside an extra $10 billion, we could achieve an awful lot. Would you spend your money tackling diseases like malaria, HIV and tuberculosis, which claim millions of lives each year? Would you battle hunger and malnutrition? What about climate change, which many believe is the biggest challenge facing the planet? ....more

rising prices and a global shortage of provisions. But yesterday the Prime Minister and other world leaders sat down to an 18-course gastronomic extravaganza at a G8 summit in Japan, which is focusing on the food crisis. The dinner, and a six-course lunch, at the summit of leading industrialised nations on the island of Hokkaido, included delicacies such as caviar, milkfed lamb, sea urchin and tuna, with champagne and wines flown in from Europe and the U.S.

Five million face hunger in Zimbabwe, UN says Last Updated: 3:39PM BST 18/06/2008 The United Nations has warned that more than five million Zimbabweans could be threatened by hunger next year due to a steady drop in food production coupled with the world's highest rate of inflation. Robert Mugabe's seizure of land continues to take its toll The Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Program said in a joint report that an estimated two million people in Zimbabwe will not have enough to eat in the summer months. That figure is projected to rise to 3.8 million people...

'India's GDP to grow at 9.5% in FY 09' Mumbai, June 16: India's real GDP is expected to grow at an impressive 9.5 per cent in FY 09, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said in its monthly review in Mumbai. The Indian Economy is heading towards the fourth consecutive year of an over-9 per cent growth and like in the last five years, growth this year too was expected to be driven by capital investments happening in India, CMIE said. As per CMIE CapEx Service, projects worth Rs 3.4 lakh-crore are scheduled for commissioning in FY 09. This...

Food riots. Scores of panicked people protesting, burning effigies and chanting. Shops being ransacked, supplies running out as soon as they come in, and stricken communities stockpiling rice, bread and water for fear of going without. These have happened in Haiti and Egypt in recent months as the price of scarce food has soared. But what if they happened on the streets of Bromley? Or Newcastle? Or Bath? As bizarre as this might seem, the prospect of UK food shortages has started to be taken seriously by food manufacturers and retailers. The global food shortage has raced to the top...

RomeThe Summit on soaring food prices, convened by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has concluded with the adoption by acclamation of a declaration calling on the international community to increase assistance for developing countries, in particular the least developed countries and those that are most negatively affected by high food prices."There is an urgent need to help developing countries and countries in transition expand agriculture and food production, and to increase investment in agriculture, agribusiness and rural development, from both public and private sources," according to the declaration. Donors and international financial institutions are urged to provide "balance...

No one has to starve in Africa. Hunger there results from the failures of unscrupulous rulers -- and their friends in the West. Paradoxically, it is the aid workers who are standing in the way of progress. If you follow the reasoning of the United Nation's World Food Program, then Kenya is a unique region when it comes to hunger catastrophes. In this east African country, a popular vacation destination with 32 million inhabitants, UN workers hand out more food on an annual basis than they do in southern Sudan, which civil wars have ravaged for decades. But is Kenya...