A few dozen Ohioans will meet Wednesday evening in a community room at a Panera Bread outside of Columbus for tea, cake and conversation over an unusual shared curiosity.

For two hours, split between small circles and a larger group discussion, they'll talk about death. A facilitator may throw out questions to spark the conversation: How do they want to die? In their sleep? In the hospital? Of what cause? When do they want die? Is 105 too old? Are they scared? What kind of funerals do they want, if any? Is cremation better than burial? And what do they need accomplish before life is over?

This is the Death Cafe, an anything-goes, frank conversation on death that's been hosted at dozens of coffee shops and community centers in American cities from Arizona to Maine since beginning in the Columbus area in July....

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • * Theology • Eschatology

The Bishop of Wakefield, the Rt Rev Stephen Platten, has called on people to pray for the whole food production chain from struggling farmers, in the UK and elsewhere, to those that do not have enough to eat.

Backing the Enough Food For Everyone If campaign, the Bishop emphasised the call for governments, companies and individuals to work together to take the necessary steps to reduce the millions currently going hungry and the amount of food wasted.

At the other end of the food chain, he added, those who produce food also need prayers. Farmers in the UK, for example, are facing cuts in their income of up to 50 per cent due to weather damage, according to latest estimates from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Read it all and see what you make of the prayers.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty

My question for you, kind GetReligion readers, is this: Did the newspaper reports bury the lede? Rather than sales figures and charity donations, is the bigger story here that two humans got together and found common ground? Or am I naive to expect that such dialogue might make headlines?

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Marriage & Family • Media • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • * Religion News & Commentary • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

Watch it all and you can find out more at their website there..

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Marriage & Family • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Most inventors strive for weeks, months, or years to perfect their products. (Thomas Edison tried thousands of different light bulb filaments before arriving at the ideal mixture of tungsten.) But sometimes, brilliance strikes by accident. Here's a salute to the scientists, chefs, and everyday folk who stumbled upon greatness – and, more important, shared their mistakes with the world....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • History • Science & Technology

The Beefsteak chapel hardly sounds like a place where vegetarians would be welcome, but more than 200 years ago, this tiny chapel in Salford was the British birthplace of the meat-free diet.

In an even greater twist, the cleric who preached the moral virtues of vegetarianism was the Reverend William Cowherd. His Beefsteak Chapel was the country's first vegetarian church.

Cowherd, born almost 250 years ago on Sunday 16 December, demanded his congregation eat a meat free diet.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

The humanitarian crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was top of Pope Benedict XVI’s concerns this Wednesday as he began his greetings in Italian with another appeal for aid for the people of the nation, the scene of armed clashes and violence. Emer McCarthy reports:

“A large part of the population lacks the primary means of subsistence” said the Pope, adding that “thousands of residents have been forced to flee their homes to seek refuge elsewhere”.

Read and listen to it all and there is more here.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Republic of Congo • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Among the many disconcerting leaps of logic taken by the federal government is the omission of food and fuel prices from its measures of the consumer price index — inflation. Somehow that doesn’t ease the bottom-line purchasing pain at the grocery store and the gas pump.

OK, so as of Friday, the average price of a gallon of regular had fallen by more than 30 cents over the last month.

Still, that was more than 6 cents higher than it was on that date a year ago — and nearly double what it was in early 2008.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • The U.S. Government • Energy, Natural Resources

Filed under: * By Kendall • Harmon Family • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition

The Ontario Medical Association’s call to slap hot fudge and French fries with a so-called fat tax is a regressive measure that will hurt consumers without any provable benefit. The association is also off-base with its proposal to put graphic photos of diseased organs and limbs on junk food packaging. While the association’s aim of raising awareness is laudable, food is not tobacco and shouldn’t be treated as an inherently harmful substance....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Taxes • * International News & Commentary • Canada

Dr Charles Reed the Church of England's International and Development Affairs adviser said:
"World Food Day's "fight hunger to reduce poverty" campaign reminds us of the continuing need for emergency supplies faced by many in our own country as well as abroad. Our churches support those in need in the developing world as well as in our own communities....

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • Poverty

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, the United Nations has warned.

Failing harvests in the US, Ukraine and other countries this year have eroded reserves to their lowest level since 1974. The US, which has experienced record heatwaves and droughts in 2012, now holds in reserve a historically low 6.5% of the maize that it expects to consume in the next year, says the UN.

"We've not been producing as much as we are consuming. That is why stocks are being run down. Supplies are now very tight across the world and reserves are at a very low level, leaving no room for unexpected events next year," said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • Poverty

Speaking after a meeting with the Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail, Bishop of Kadugli in the Nuba Mountains, the Archbishop urged attention to be given to the plight of the affected population of these areas, both Muslim and Christian alike.

“Food and basic essentials are urgently needed by the displaced population. The international community needs to wake up to the gravity of the situation. All parties need to work together to find practical ways to get help to those most in need.”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • --Rowan Williams • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • --North Sudan • --South Sudan

JUDY VALENTE, correspondent: Community activist Nat Turner is surveying a site people rarely see in the battered Ninth Ward of New Orleans. His community garden provides fruits and vegetables to people hard pressed to find fresh produce in these parts.

[NAT] TURNER: Anybody in the neighborhood can come by and some time this morning somebody’s going to stop by and say, “You got any okra? You got any Creole tomatoes? You got some bell peppers? You got whatever?” And some people just come by the garden and if they want to pick it themselves, they can pick it themselves.

VALENTE: New Orleans’ Ninth Ward is what the U.S. Department of Agriculture calls a “food desert.” Food deserts are communities with little or no access to healthy food. For the urban poor, here and elsewhere, grocery shopping is often limited to places like this: higher-priced local convenience stores that are short on fresh healthy food and long on snacks and liquor. The problem extends well beyond New Orleans.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • Religion & Culture • Urban/City Life and Issues

The accolades continue to pile up for Charleston area restaurants.

Esquire magazine has named two local dining establishments to its 2012 list of “Best New Restaurants.” Only 20 establishments nationwide made the list.

The Macintosh on King Street, opened by the Indigo Road restaurant group in September 2011, and Carter’s Kitchen in Mount Pleasant, which opened in February, landed on the annual list compiled by food critic John Mariani.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * South Carolina

Several hundred retired military leaders are raising red flags about childhood obesity in the USA and its impact on finding qualified recruits. They want junk food to be booted out of schools.

Mission: Readiness, a group of more than 300 retired generals and admirals, says in a report out today that the 40% of students who buy high-calorie, low-nutrient junk food from school vending machines and cafeteria a la carte lines consume an average of 130 calories a day from those types of foods (candy, chips, cookies, pastries). That's roughly 5% to 10% of the calories kids and teens should eat in a day.

Three-quarters of those ages 17 to 24, or about 26 million young people, cannot serve in the military, a quarter of them because they are overweight or obese, says retired Air Force lieutenant general Norman Seip, a spokesman for Mission: Readiness.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • Teens / Youth • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life

(Please note that you can find a map of all New Jersey counties here. You may know that I grew up in Lawrenceville, which is in Mercer County--KSH).

Just 30 minutes outside Philadelphia, amid the rolling farmland that produces some of the nation's largest peach and bell pepper crops, more Gloucester County parents are seeking help to feed their children, while others live in tents in the wooded areas near major shopping centers.

From 2010 to 2011, the rate of child poverty in Gloucester County more than doubled, a shocking statistic in a county where the median income is more than $72,000, according to census data. In 2011, 7,395 children in Gloucester County were living in families earning about $22,000 a year or less, up from 4,687 children in 2010, according to census figures.

"Gloucester County is a distinctly middle-class place," said Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D., Gloucester). "When you see those kind of numbers, it's a reflection of what's happening with the national economy."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Marriage & Family • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • City Government

An Anglican bishop from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is urging the world to focus its attention to the “neglected” humanitarian crisis in northeastern Congo, where nearly half a million people have been displaced by armed conflict.

Bishop Bahati Bali-Busane Sylvestre, of the diocese of Bukavu, recently visited refugees from North Kivu and described their situation as “pitiful.” Thousands of refugees have sought temporary shelter at a refugee camp and in Anglican schools and church buildings.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Congo/Province de L'Eglise Anglicane Du Congo • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Republic of Congo

After decades of grinding poverty under successive military dictatorships, Myanmar’s rice farmers have a chance at a better future through rural reforms ushered in by the country’s quasi-civilian government. Microfinance is at the root of it.

The guarantees of small, low-interest loans to this least developed country’s debt-ridden farmers turn a page in the ledger of rural credit, which had virtually dried up within the small agriculture banking system during the 50 years of military rule, forcing farmers to borrow from money lenders at usurious interest rates.

Small loans ranging from 60 to 600 dollars are being offered to the agriculture sector by organisations like the Livelihood and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT), a Western donor-backed microfinance initiative facilitated by the introduction last November of a microfinance law in Myanmar (also known as Burma).

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Rural/Town Life • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Personal Finance • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Myanmar/Burma

Shoppers are not the only ones feeling the squeeze of rising food prices.

Shelves are going bare in food banks and pantries as more market demand for food means the federal government is buying less produce, meat and dairy products to give to the needy.

As a result, food banks and pantries nationwide say they are giving out less food, even as record numbers of families turn to them.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Personal Finance • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007--

The way food prices are these days, Sheanna Caban and her family have had to adjust to a life of meatless Mondays and a whole lot of pasta on the dinner menu.

The 32-year-old mother of two and her husband work behind the scenes at local television stations. But even with two incomes, they struggle to keep pace with the ever-rising cost of living and raising a family.

With staples like milk going for $3.50 or more per gallon, just putting food on the table leaves a big dent in the budget of middle-class families like the Cabans.

“It’s a big concern,” she said. “Our grocery bills are second on the list of expenses, right after rent.”

Read it all from the local paper.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Personal Finance • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Americans are throwing out nearly every other bite of food, wasting up to 40% of the country’s supply each year – a mass of uneaten provisions worth $165 billion, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

An average family of four squanders $2,275 in food each year, or 20 pounds per person per month, according to the nonprofit and nonpartisan environmental advocacy group.

Food waste is the largest single portion of solid waste cramming American landfills. Since the 1970s, the amount of uneaten fare that is dumped has jumped 50%. The average American trashes 10 times as much food as a consumer in Southeast Asia, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Marriage & Family • Psychology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending

One in four Mississippi residents report there was at least one time in the past 12 months when they did not have enough money to buy the food they or their families needed -- more than in any other state in the first half of 2012. Residents in Alabama and Delaware are also among the most likely to struggle to afford food. Residents of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont are among the least likely to have this problem.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • State Government

Simple and to the point--watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • Health & Medicine • Women

On any given day between 11am and 7pm, locals can watch Nikki Heckmann ply her craft at Bistro To Go, the eclectic café the chef launched in 2007 in the North Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Just peer over the glass cases into the open kitchen, and you'll find her stirring her famous tomato basil soup or coaching a young employee on how to make salmon croquettes. Both scenes would reflect Heckmann's motivation behind opening the café in 2007: her heart for sharing the gospel with those outside the church, and her desire to bring revitalization to a community she has come to call home. And simply, she says, "I love to cook."

Chef Nikki was loved into the faith by an urban congregation, Allegheny Center Alliance Church (ACAC), which welcomed her probing questions and didn't turn her away for running a bar and living with her boyfriend. Five years at ACAC, including volunteering with the youth group, finally brought the message of Jesus home to her. Having received mercy, Heckmann now has a heart for seekers. At Bistro—which one Pittsburgh food critic described as furnished "by the International House of Whimsy"—Heckmann says she's creating "a missional lab" outside the church walls where everyone from the homeless guy to the downtown businessman can connect. To entice folks in, she deliberately offers pan-global cuisine.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Religion & Culture • Urban/City Life and Issues

In short, dietetics was a matter of virtue as well as of bodily health. The medical profession doled out advice about how one should eat in the same breath as instructions about how one should live -- and about what sort of person one should be.

Traditional dietetic advice now seems banal, with its almost exclusive focus on moderation. For example, dietetic counsel would recommend that patients eat neither too much nor too little; sleep when necessary, but not excessively; exercise, but not violently; and control anger and stress. The Temple of Apollo at Delphi bore the inscription, "Nothing in excess," while Aristotelian philosophy held that the golden mean was the path to the good.

Given the current frenzy of fad diets and the eternal search for simple remedies for complex conditions, moderation in all things may seem like shabby medicine. But dietetics' conviction that health and morality are two sides of the same coin is a deep-rooted notion. After all, Christianity lists gluttony as one of the seven deadly sins, while temperance is one of the cardinal virtues.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

Yet again the grim title of “world’s greatest humanitarian crisis” goes to Sudan – this time for developments in the border regions between Sudan and the newly independent country of South Sudan. The crisis is exploding as the rainy season descends fully upon this area, and humanitarian resources are overwhelmed.

Khartoum’s denial of all humanitarian access to rebel-controlled areas within its border, along with a relentless campaign of aerial bombardment, is generating a continuous flow of tens of thousands of refugees – up to 4,000 per day according to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). But even that June figure is being quickly overtaken, according to reports.

And no wonder. The regime faces no significant international condemnation or consequences for its role in creating this crisis. That must change.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Sudan • --North Sudan • --South Sudan

The world is facing a new food crisis as the worst US drought in more than 50 years pushes agricultural commodity prices to record highs.

Corn and soyabean prices surged to record highs on Thursday, surpassing the peaks of the 2007-08 crisis that sparked food riots in more than 30 countries. Wheat prices are not yet at record levels but have rallied more than 50 per cent in five weeks, exceeding prices reached in the wake of Russia’s 2010 export ban.

The drought in the US, which supplies nearly half the world’s exports of corn and much of its soyabeans and wheat, will reverberate well beyond its borders, affecting consumers from Egypt to China.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • Weather

Is the world on the brink of another food crisis?

It has become a distressingly familiar question. With the price of agricultural staples such as corn, soyabeans and wheat soaring for the third summer in five years, the prospect of another price shock is once again becoming a prominent concern for investors and politicians alike.

The debate marks a dramatic shift from just a few weeks ago, when traders were expecting bumper crops and policy makers were comforting themselves that – if nothing else – falling commodity prices would offer some relief to the troubled global economy.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • * General Interest • Weather

Jesus ate local.

He walked everywhere. He loved grilled fish dinners with friends. And even if drive-thrus existed in the first century, he wouldn’t have gulped down a value meal on his way to the office.

That’s the message Tennessee’s obesity fighters want pastors to convey to their flocks, captive audiences with a built-in support system — one another. And while the deadly sin of gluttony slipped out of church lingo decades ago, a gentler approach that emphasizes eating as a spiritual issue can work, they say.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

High level actions to challenge world hunger, climate change and urban violence have been planned for Anglicans at Rio +20 – the UN’s sustainable development conference.

Rights for landless people will also be on the Anglican agenda at the conference where the Church’s programme has been drawn together by the Alliance’s Latin American and Caribbean facilitator and will be spearheaded by the Anglican Archbishop of Brazil, Most Revd Mauricio Andrade.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • Poverty

Months of warnings have failed to prevent a serious malnutrition crisis in Niger, Save the Children has said.

The charity says more than six million people are affected there, and about 18 million across West Africa.

It says a rising number of children now need medical treatment for the condition, as the crisis is reaching a new level of seriousness.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • Poverty • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Niger

When Red Robin Gourmet Burgers introduced its new Tavern Double burger line last month, the company had to get everything right. So it turned to social media.

The 460-restaurant chain used an internal social network that resembles Facebook to teach its managers everything from the recipes to the best, fastest way to make them. Instead of mailing out spiral-bound books, getting feedback during executives' sporadic store visits and taking six months to act on advice from the trenches, the network's freewheeling discussion and video produced results in days. Red Robin is already kitchen-testing recipe tweaks based on customer feedback — and the four new sandwiches just hit the table April 30.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life

A national survey of more than 12,000 students in grades 5 to 10 has found that television viewing is associated not only with unhealthy snacking while watching, but also with unhealthy eating at all times.

Researchers asked the children how much TV they watched; how often they snacked while watching; how often they ate fruits, vegetables and candy and drank soda; and how often they skipped breakfast.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Movies & Television

The new storehouse, which opened in January, is the centerpiece of the LDS Church's intricate network for taking care of its members and lending a hand to others in times of natural disasters, putting scriptural encouragements into action in the aftermath of hardship, hurricanes, floods, fires and earthquakes across the nation and around the world.

"As I walk through, I [don't] think, 'What a beautiful building' but how the Lord must truly love the poor to provide this building to take care of their needs," [Richard] Humpherys said during a tour of the facility, built with members' donations.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • Religion & Culture • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Mormons

Because of the cultural whiplash I experienced in regularly attending two remarkably different family meals, I have always been fascinated by the range of conversations that pass for normal at other people’s homes at mealtime: what rituals and rules of discourse do parents invent, to what conventions do they default or aspire?....

Amy Chua, the Yale Law professor who wrote “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” the controversial chronicle of her own overambitious parenting technique, said her immigrant parents imparted to her a passion for academics — but not over dinner. “We did not say one word,” she recalled. Eating and television news dominated the meal.

In her own home, she said, she and her husband, the law professor Jed Rubenfeld, try to devote about half the meal to catching up on their children’s lives and the other half to “bringing up interesting cases with moral dilemmas.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Marriage & Family • Philosophy • Psychology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Politics in General

The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. It said the number of people receiving the benefits, commonly known as food stamps, would continue growing until 2014.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Personal Finance • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government

As our Eureka science magazine notes today, we waste 100 million tonnes of food a year. To throw away so much at a time when 925 million people are classed as hungry, and a further one billion are thought to be suffering from malnutrition, is as senselessly profligate as running a bath without inserting the bath plug. But eliminating the waste will never be enough to fill the world’s bellies.

Yes, selective breeding is starting to boost crop yields and improve food security in sub-Saharan Africa, just as it has been so successfully doing across Asia and the Americas over the past four decades. But without increased use of genetically modified crop varieties it seems inconceivable that food production will ever be abundant enough to keep pace with population growth.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • Science & Technology

With Passover just a month away a new app aims to help consumers keep kosher throughout the eight-day Jewish festival and to stay up to date on kosher products throughout the rest of the year.

Released by the Orthodox Union (OU), which promotes the values of the Orthodox Jewish community, the app called OU Kosher provides consumers with updates on products that have been certified by the OU, which is the world’s largest kosher certification agency.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

The notion that we could mend some of the tatters in the modern social fabric through an initiative as modest as a communal meal may seem offensive to those who trust in the power of legislative and political solutions to cure society's ills. But these restaurants would not be an alternative to traditional political methods. They would be a prior step, taken to humanize one another in our imaginations.

Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism have made significant contributions to political life, but their relevance to the problems of community are arguably never greater than when they depart from the modern political script and remind us that there is also value to be had in standing in a big hall singing a hymn or in ceremoniously washing a stranger's feet or in sitting at a table with neighbors and partaking of lamb stew and conversation. These rituals, as much as the deliberations inside parliaments and law courts, are what help to hold our fractious and fragile societies together.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • History • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths

Try this: place a forkful of food in your mouth. It doesn’t matter what the food is, but make it something you love — let’s say it’s that first nibble from three hot, fragrant, perfectly cooked ravioli.

Now comes the hard part. Put the fork down. This could be a lot more challenging than you imagine, because that first bite was very good and another immediately beckons. You’re hungry....

The concept has roots in Buddhist teachings. Just as there are forms of meditation that involve sitting, breathing, standing and walking, many Buddhist teachers encourage their students to meditate with food, expanding consciousness by paying close attention to the sensation and purpose of each morsel.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Buddhism

At Cappuccio’s Meats in the Italian Market, the cuts of beef are cutting into the profits.

“Every week when I talk to my suppliers, I’m amazed by how much it’s going up,” said owner Domenick Crimi.

Beef prices soared more than 10 percent last year according to the Department of Agriculture, and they will likely go up at least another 5 percent this year.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Personal Finance • * General Interest • Weather

The epiphany occurred at a baptism.

With more than 800 people waiting, Pastor Rick Warren took them one by one and immersed them in the church's baptism pool. During this spiritual rite at Saddleback Church, the pastors hold the people briefly underwater, and then pull them out.

"On that particular day, I was baptizing 858 people," Warren told his congregation last fall. "That took me literally four hours."

"As I'm baptizing 858 people, along around 500, I thought this ... 'We're all fat.' "

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

Through some basic analysis of census data, we can see what adopting the 180 percent [of the Federal poverty] line as the definition of poverty in North Carolina would have meant over the last nine years.

In every year since 2003, the number of North Carolinians under a 180 percent line hovers around 35 percent of the population, while the number of people falling below current poverty standards averages about 15 percent.

That is, the current poverty definitions show that approximately one in six people in North Carolina are in poverty. Using the more accurate 180 percent line would increase that proportion to one in three.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Marriage & Family • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • State Government

The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture, which administers the meals program. Eleven states, including Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee, had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth.

The Agriculture Department has not yet released data for September and October.

“These are very large increases and a direct reflection of the hardships American families are facing,” said Benjamin Senauer, a University of Minnesota economist who studies the meals program, adding that the surge had happened so quickly “that people like myself who do research are struggling to keep up with it.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Education • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Personal Finance • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007--

BOB ABERNETHY: One important lobby is the Christian group Bread for the World, which fights hunger here and abroad. Reverend David Beckmann, a Lutheran pastor, is president of Bread for the World. David welcome.

DAVID BECKMANN (President, Bread for the World): Thank you.

ABERNETHY: Bring us up to date, how many hungry people are there in the United States?

BECKMANN: It’s now 1 in 7 Americans who lives in a household that runs out of food.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology

In what has become a pre-Thanksgiving tradition in the Charleston area, thousands came together for the annual "Feeding the Multitude" event to share fellowship and their cultures on Johns Island on Saturday.

Nearly 1,000 volunteers from more than 30 churches on Johns and Wadmalaw islands pulled together this week to provide a free Thanksgiving-style feast for nearly 2,000 in the fourth annual event at St. John's Parish (Episcopal) Church. Volunteers also took meals to 200 people who are unable to leave homes and leftovers to Crisis Ministries.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * South Carolina

He's 96 and drives an Olds Cutlass. She's 90 and carries pre-cooked meals to the doors of those in need, stopping to chat as long as she can.

Together, they've put in more than 5,500 hours of volunteering.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Aging / the Elderly • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • * South Carolina

John C. Green's intellect has earned him a reputation as one of the nation's experts on the political landscape.

His heart has moved him to be a faithful volunteer in the food pantry at an inner-city ministry that is dedicated to feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, nurturing children and strengthening families.

"I've always been interested in helping the hungry," said Green, director of the University of Akron's Bliss Institute of Applied Politics. "My religious values teach me that we are to provide for those without the basics in life, and food is one of those essentials."

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • Religion & Culture

Irom Sharmila's mother has a simple dream: sitting down to a meal with her daughter.

Irom hasn't willingly ingested food or water for 11 years, in protest of a law granting legal immunity to the armed forces for human rights abuses. As the anniversary of her hunger strike nears, her mother imagines what might be.

"I'm still waiting for her to come home," said Shakhi Devi, 78, holding an album of her daughter's photos. She rarely visits the 39-year-old, the world's longest-serving hunger striker, because it's too painful.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • * International News & Commentary • Asia • India

How rich is too rich for food stamps? The answer depends on where you live.

In Michigan, if you have $5,000 in liquid assets or a car or truck worth more than $15,000, you're probably out of luck under new rules launched this month.

Earlier this month, the state of Michigan began asking residents about their assets — homes, cars, stocks, bonds, even lottery winnings — in addition to income when they receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the formal name for food stamps.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • State Government

Members of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh are in a race where the winners are people who otherwise would be hungry.

Twenty-two of the 31 parishes in the diocese, assigned to one of two teams, have been competing in the diocese's Race Against Hunger. The teams earn points as they host food drives, educate the public about hunger and food sources, cook at soup kitchens and repack food at the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank in Duquesne. The points are symbolic, serving only to spur volunteers on in a friendly competition.

"It's outreach. We're reaching out beyond the walls of our own church, our own parish, so we are taking care of people within the Western Pennsylvania diocesan area," said Judy Rosensteel of North Versailles, a member of All Souls Episcopal Church.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • Urban/City Life and Issues • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

The theme chosen for the Day: "Food Prices: From Crisis to Stability," invites us to reflect on the importance of the different factors that can give people and communities essential resources, beginning with agricultural work, which must not be considered as a secondary activity, but as the objective of every strategy of growth and integral development. This is still more important if we keep in mind that the availability of foods is increasingly conditioned by the volatility of prices and sudden climatic changes. We observe at the same time a continuous abandonment of rural areas with a global decline in agricultural production and, hence, in food reserves. Moreover, spreading everywhere, unfortunately, is the idea that food is just one more merchandise and, hence, also subject to speculative movements.

It cannot be ignored that -- despite the progress achieved up to now and the hopes based on an economy that increasingly respects the dignity of every person -- the future of the human family is in need of a new impulse to overcome present fragilities and uncertainties. Although we live in a global dimension, there are evident signs of the profound division between those who lack daily sustenance and those who have many resources, using them often for ends other than food and even destroying them. Confirmed thus is that globalization makes us feel closer but not brothers (cf. Caritas in Veritate, 19). Because of this, those Christian values inscribed in the heart of every person and which have always inspired his action must be rediscovered: the feeling of compassion and humanity toward others and the duty of solidarity and commitment to justice, must again be the basis of every activity, including those carried out by the international community.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • Poverty • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

The crisis is deepening for some of the 13m East Africans worst-hit by one of the most devastating droughts in 60 years, aid agencies have warned.

World Food Day is being marked nearly three months since the UN declared a famine in parts of the Horn of Africa.

But people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and the newly-formed Republic of South Sudan remain in desperate need of food, water and emergency healthcare.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • Weather • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Somalia

The Vatican is calling particular attention to the dire circumstances of the peoples of the Horn of Africa, in particular Somalia, who have been facing a severe drought and food crisis since July.

The press office published an informative noted on the "Efforts and Commitment of the Catholic Church in the Horn of Africa," which is issued in conjunction with a press conference held today by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum on the plight of several East African countries.

Presented in a question-and-answer format, the note summarized the situation in countries such as Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia: "A severe drought, conflict and lack of governments have led to massive numbers of people going hungry.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • Weather • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Somalia • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

A decision by Ohio officials to remove all pork products from prison menus in response to a lawsuit by Muslim inmates is not sitting well with the state's pork producers and processors.

Both promise action of their own, including a possible counter lawsuit, to address what they consider an unfair and illogical decision.

"We really think it's not in the best interest, frankly, of the whole prison system," said Dick Isler, executive director of the Ohio Pork Producers Council. "It seems like we're letting a small group make the rules when it really isn't in the best interest of the rest of prisoners."

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Law & Legal Issues • Prison/Prison Ministry • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

Pope Benedict XVI asked the international community to continue aid to the drought- and famine-stricken Horn of Africa and asked individuals to offer prayers and donate money to help save the millions facing death.

"I invited everyone to offer prayers and concrete aid for their many brothers and sisters so harshly tried, and particularly for the children, who die in that region each day because of sickness and a lack of water and food," the pope said Oct. 5 at the end of his weekly general audience.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Africa • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

... in recent years, the break-fast party has become part of the Jewish social calendar. From Los Angeles to Chicago to New York, many are attending large, crowded break-fasts, where the spirit of the High Holy Days can get lost in the mixing, and where the day’s solemnity quickly abates, smothered by large quantities of cream cheese and hummus.

Vanessa Ochs, who teaches religion at the University of Virginia, says the new, bigger break-fast raises theological questions. Even before the day of repentance is over, many people are forced to think about the meal they will be serving.

“In the last 25 years, the break-fast has, in some friendship groups, become such a moment for gratitude and coming together that people will stay home from services to cook and prepare,” Dr. Ochs said. “That isn’t what they’re supposed to be doing, but from a non-halakhic” — extra-legal — “perspective, if this meal marks who is in your friendship circle, and who is going to be there for you, then this is a holy communal feast.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

Muffins costing $16 (£10) and biscuits at $10 were among the "extravagant and wasteful" conference spending by the US justice department, a report has found.

Critics voiced outrage at the spending shown in the internal audit, including $8 coffees and $32-per-person snacks.

The justice department said it accepted the findings, adding that it had taken steps since 2009 "to ensure that these problems do not occur again".

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The U.S. Government

In June, 14.6% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps. Food stamp rolls have risen 9.5% in the past year, though recent months show the pace of growth is slowing.

Mississippi reported the largest share of its population relying on food stamps, more than 21%, though that included some disaster assistance. One in five residents in New Mexico, Tennessee and Oregon were also food stamp recipients.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • State Government

Beginning Sept. 1, Hungarians will have to pay a 10 forint (€ 0.37) tax on foods with high fat, sugar and salt content, as well as increased tariffs on soda and alcohol. The expected annual proceeds of €70 million will go toward state health care costs, including those associated with addressing the country's 18.8 percent obesity rate, which is more than 3 percent higher than the European Union average of 15.5 percent according to a 2010 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In Germany, by comparison, 13.6 percent of adults are obese, with Romania at the bottom of the list with 7.9 percent.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said, "Those who live unhealthily have to contribute more." In other words, the new law is based on the idea that those whose diets land them in the hospital should help foot the bill, particularly in a country with a health care deficit of €370 million.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Taxes • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Hungary

For over a decade from his pulpit here at Oak Hill Baptist in North Mississippi, the Rev. Michael O. Minor has waged war against obesity and bad health. In the Delta this may seem akin to waging war against humidity, but Mr. Minor has the air of the salesman he once was, and the animated persistence to match.

Years into his war, he is beginning to claim victories.

The National Baptist Convention, which represents some seven million people in nearly 10,000 churches, is ramping up a far-reaching health campaign devised by Mr. Minor, which aims to have a “health ambassador” in every member church by September 2012. The goals of the program, the most ambitious of its kind, will be demanding but concrete, said the Rev. George W. Waddles Sr., the president of the convention’s Congress of Christian Education.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Baptists

Genna Saucedo supervises cashiers at a Wal-Mart in Pico Rivera, California, but her wages aren't enough to feed herself and her 12-year-old son.

Saucedo, who earns $9.70 an hour for about 26 hours a week and lives with her mother, is one of the many Americans who survive because of government handouts in what has rapidly become a food stamp nation.

Altogether, there are now almost 46 million people in the United States on food stamps, roughly 15 percent of the population. That's an increase of 74 percent since 2007, just before the financial crisis and a deep recession led to mass job losses.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007--

(The figures are from May, the most recent available).

No fair clicking until you make your answer.

We discussed this in yesterday's Adult Sunday school--KSH.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • State Government

Religious leaders say they are exploring short and long term strategies for communities to end reliance on food aid in Africa, as relief organizations continue to minister to thousands suffering from drought and famine in the Horn of Africa.

The worst drought in 60 years is affecting more than 12 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia. Its epicentre is Somalia, where tens of thousands are fleeing to refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia.

"We would not only want to work on the immediate needs, but we are thinking, because this is becoming a chronic problem, we have got to see the root causes and fight it," Archbishop Ian Ernest of the Indian Ocean Province and the chairman of the Council of Anglican Province of Africa told a news conference on Aug. 10 in Nairobi after a meeting of Anglican archbishops.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Africa • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

Kathy had been out of the job market for about 25 years—instead staying home with her three children—when everything fell apart....

Kathy isn't alone. In some communities surrounding Edison, 27 percent of the population lives below the national poverty level.

For Kathy and many others, a church in nearby Highland Park offers a unique solution. A Better World Café, one of a handful of "pay-as-you-can" restaurants in the United States, provides clients with good meals and job training, among other things. Hosted at the Reformed Church of Highland Park, the idea for the restaurant was hatched in 2009 in a group working to meet local needs.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

“Every day we are seeing more and more heartbreaking news about the drought and famine in Somalia and the eastern parts of Africa. We see millions of people being forced from their homes, leaving behind what meager possessions they had, and walking for days over rough terrain,” wrote Archbishop Dolan and Bishop Kicanas.

“There are parents whose little children have died, and children who have been orphaned. They are suffering from hunger, thirst, disease, and drought,” they said. “It is a humanitarian crisis that cries out for help to Christians throughout the world. The Holy Father, on several occasions, has asked Catholics to respond generously to the desperate needs of our brothers and sisters in East Africa.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Somalia • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

In Somalia, 3.2 million people -- by some estimates almost half the East African country's population -- are in need of "immediate life-saving assistance" and another 11 million in the Horn of Africa have been affected by the region’s worst drought in 60 years, according to news reports and the United Nations.

Famine and conflict have driven hundreds of thousands of Somalis across the nation’s borders in search of asylum and assistance, with some 400,000 inhabitants at Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world, located in northeastern Kenya, according the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • Religion & Culture • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Africa

From here:

God, our refuge and strength,

we pray for the people of Somalia and the Horn of Africa

as they face drought, famine and hardship.

Bring near the day when wars shall cease

and poverty and pain shall end,

that earth may know the peace of heaven

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Somalia

Ecumenical faith leaders in Africa today launched a Call to Action and Appeal for the people affected by famine in the Horn of Africa.

The move came after a two day meeting in Nairobi led by the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa and involving the All Africa Council of Churches the Lutheran World Federation, WCC-EHAIA, FECCLAHA, LWF, OAIC, WSCF, EAA, ACT Alliance and World Vision, brought together by the Anglican Alliance for development relief and advocacy.

As the first Africa regional ecumenical and interdenominational gathering in response to the food insecurity and humanitarian crisis, the group paid tribute to the heroic work of the humanitarian agencies, churches and others who had saved millions of lives working in difficult circumstances to meet the needs of people fleeing drought, famine and war.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Africa

Anglicans are to meet in Nairobi next week to launch an appeal and advocacy campaign on the food crisis sweeping East Africa.

The meeting which will bring together primates and bishops from the worst hit areas, comes as the UN announced a deepening of the famine in southern Somalia.

The meeting is being organised jointly by the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa and the Anglican Alliance for development, relief and advocacy, through its Africa facilitator, Emmanuel Olatunji.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • Poverty • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • Weather • * International News & Commentary • Africa

- It took 32 days for Fatima Mohammed to make it from her drought-racked farm in Somalia to the relative safety of a sprawling refugee settlement in northeastern Kenya. There were days, she recalled, when her children were so thirsty that they could not walk and the men in her family would ferry them ahead, returning to carry two more children in their arms.

Fatima Mohammed told Catholic News Service that her family had lived through drought before, but that support from aid agencies helped them survive until the rains returned.

"This time, al-Shabaab won't let them in," she said, referring to the Islamist group that controls portions of Somalia. "So when our animals started dying, our only choice was to stay and die ourselves, or else start walking for Kenya."

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Kenya • Somalia

The Shabab Islamist insurgent group, which controls much of southern Somalia, is blocking starving people from fleeing the country and setting up a cantonment camp where it is imprisoning displaced people who were trying to escape Shabab territory.

The group is widely blamed for causing a famine in Somalia by forcing out many Western aid organizations, depriving drought victims of desperately needed food. The situation is growing bleaker by the day, with tens of thousands of Somalis already dead and more than 500,000 children on the brink of starvation.

Every morning, emaciated parents with emaciated children stagger into Banadir Hospital, a shell of a building with floors that stink of diesel fuel because that is all the nurses have to fight off the flies. Babies are dying because of the lack of equipment and medicine. Some get hooked up to adult-size intravenous drips — pediatric versions are hard to find — and their compromised bodies cannot handle the volume of fluid.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Somalia

Speaking at Kamusinga in Bungoma county, the Archbishop said raging famine in Northern and Eastern Kenya "was the result of government's failure to plan" and the buck stops with the grand coalition government's top leadership.

Archbishop Wabukala observed that occurrence of drought was cyclical and government ought to have put in place emergency measures to counter its negative effects on populations in arid and semi arid areas early enough, but did nothing instead leading to the massive starvation being witnessed in the country.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Kenya • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Kenya

All too often the international community, or more specifically the former colonial powers, get blamed for interference, and for the destabilisation and disincentivisation of local initiative in these regions. And yet when children are dying, food and water need to be provided fast, it is often the international community which is best equipped for a rapid response. In Britain, we can be encouraged by the swift response from the Department for International Development, and it is my hope that governments of other nations respond as generously – especially countries of the African Union. They cannot vicariously leave it to Kenya and Ethiopia.

But this is not the only response, and not, ultimately, what is needed to secure a better future for the region. In Eastern Kenya, the people living in the most desperate need are often those outside of the refugee camps. They see the refugees inside benefiting from World Food Programme handouts, while outside they struggle to feed themselves and keep their goats and cattle alive. Despite the horrors of life inside the camps, there is real security there - the promise of food, water, and some medical care. Capacity to provide such shelter should be encouraged but we should not forget there is a real need to ensure for those living on the edge, who year after year must eke out an existence in those dry and barren landscapes, are not forgotten. It is also crucial that people get the support locally so that they don’t have to make such perilous journeys to get aid.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of York John Sentamu • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * General Interest • Weather • * International News & Commentary • Africa

The segment description is as follows:

The U.N. will airlift emergency rations this week to parts of drought-ravaged Somalia that militants banned it from more than two years ago. The foray into the famine zone is a desperate attempt to reach at least 175,000 of the 2.2 million Somalis whom aid workers have not yet been able to help.

Tens of thousands already have trekked to neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia, hoping to get aid in refugee camps. Responding to the Horn of Africa crisis, the Jesuit Refugee Service has also announced plans to step up ongoing work for Somalis in Ethiopia and Kenya.

Lydia O’Kane sat down with Father Peter Balleis SJ, International Director of JRS and Communications Co-ordinator James Stapleton.

Speaking about severity of the situation Father Balleis says, “ The crisis or so it looks like a new crisis is a chronic crisis. For years and years Somalia is at war, not all parts but a central part and the Somali population are leaving the country as refugees”.

James Stapleton adds that some aid agencies are reporting that they have never seen a crisis on this scale before.

Listen to it all (a little over 14 minutes).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Climate Change, Weather • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty • * International News & Commentary • Africa

“This study shows that conventional wisdom — to eat everything in moderation, eat fewer calories and avoid fatty foods — isn’t the best approach,” Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of the study, said in an interview. “What you eat makes quite a difference. Just counting calories won’t matter much unless you look at the kinds of calories you’re eating.”

Dr. Frank B. Hu, a nutrition expert at the Harvard School of Public Health and a co-author of the new analysis, said: “In the past, too much emphasis has been put on single factors in the diet. But looking for a magic bullet hasn’t solved the problem of obesity.”

Also untrue, Dr. Mozaffarian said, is the food industry’s claim that there’s no such thing as a bad food.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • Psychology • Science & Technology

A group of Hindus can sue an Edison restaurant for money to travel to India, where they say they must purify their souls after eating meat, a state appellate court panel ruled Monday (July 18).

The decision reinstates a lawsuit filed against Moghul Express, the restaurant that admitted it accidentally served meat-filled pastries to 16 Hindus whose religion forbids them from eating nonvegetarian food.

The diners said the mix-up has harmed them spiritually and monetarily, and that to cleanse themselves of their sin—even though it was committed unknowingly—they must participate in a purification ritual in the Ganges River.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Asia • India

Baby boomers say their biggest health fear is cancer. Given their waistlines, heart disease and diabetes should be atop that list, too.

Boomers are more obese than other generations, a new poll finds, setting them up for unhealthy senior years.

And for all the talk of "60 is the new 50" and active aging, even those who aren't obese need to do more to stay fit, according to the Associated Press-LifeGoes Strong.com poll.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • Middle Age • Psychology

Your grocery bill isn't catching much of a break this summer.

The Consumer Price Index for food at home ticked up 0.2 percent from May to June. Although the rise was the smallest of the year, the food-at-home index has jumped 4.7 percent over the past 12 months.

Friday's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was a mixed bag. Prices for meat, poultry, fish, eggs, fruit and vegetables fell slightly from May to June. But other major food groups, including cereal and dairy products, continued to inch up.

Read it all from the front page of the local paper.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Personal Finance • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • * South Carolina

(ENS) As agriculture ministers from the Group of 20 (G20) nations meet in Paris, France, this week to discuss how to combat food shortage and soaring prices, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has written to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, urging "consideration of the needs of people in developing countries most affected by food insecurity."

Jefferts Schori, noting that most of the Anglican Communion's 80 million members live in developing countries, said: "The focus on food at this year's G20 represents an important recognition by the world's leaders that rising food prices present a potential crisis for areas of the world most affected by hunger and malnutrition, especially Africa and South and Southeast Asia."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization

The café was started after Hurricane Katrina to feed those without kitchens, said the Rev. Jim Quigley, pastor of St. George’s.

Soon, it was serving up to 10,000 meals a year — mostly on Thursday and Friday nights — but as funding dried up, the church cut back to one day a week.

Quigley said St. George’s opted to make that meal breakfast, to give those in need a hearty start to their day.

“No one leaves hungry,” he said. “They can stay for seconds as well, and we treat everyone with dignity and respect.”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Poverty

Fill in the blank: Just one short decade ago, about 10 percent of America's corn went to ethanol. Now, the number is closer to _____ percent....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • History • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • The U.S. Government • Energy, Natural Resources • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

Anglican church leaders have written to G20 agriculture ministers to press for measures to combat high food prices ahead of the ministers’ meeting next week.

Control of the speculation in commodity trading that has pushed up food prices for the poorest people in the world, and more support for women farmers who form the majority of subsistence farmers are some of the measures that archbishops from G20 countries have urged their agriculture ministers to support.

The moves have come amidst mounting concern over the price spikes and food insecurity that have left 900 million people around the world hungry. The French President has put food on the agenda for the G20 meeting in November, and next week’s agriculture ministers meeting will seek an agreement on the way forward.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy

The Anglican Alliance launches a food campaign targeting G20 and African governments in the run-up to this month’s meetings on the global food crisis.

Support for women farmers will be a focal point for the campaign which will also call for action to control speculation, improve market access for developing country farmers, and increase spending on agriculture.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Politics in General

Every year during the 40 days of Lent, millions of Catholics honor Jesus's crucifixion by foregoing meat in their Friday meals. But starting this September, if the bishops of England and Wales have their way, Catholics there will abstain from meat every Friday, year-round. This change marks the revival of a practice that the church abandoned a half-century ago—and it's the latest of several in recent years.

Catholic tradition calls for acts of penance every Friday, the day of Jesus's death, but observance of that tradition has changed dramatically since the modernizing reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Bishops in most countries eliminated abstinence from meat or limited it to Lent alone, and each Catholic became free to choose his own form of Friday penance: skipping television, perhaps, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. This effectively meant the disappearance of Friday penance altogether. In my 11 years of Catholic schooling, I don't recall hearing it mentioned once.

That's why the announcement by the bishops of England and Wales is so significant....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Looking beyond poor eating habits and a couch-potato lifestyle, a group of researchers has found a new culprit in the obesity epidemic: the American workplace.

A sweeping review of shifts in the labor force since 1960 suggests that a sizable portion of the national weight gain can be explained by declining physical activity during the workday. Jobs requiring moderate physical activity, which accounted for 50 percent of the labor market in 1960, have plummeted to just 20 percent.

The remaining 80 percent of jobs, the researchers report, are sedentary or require only light activity. The shift translates to an average decline of about 120 to 140 calories a day in physical activity, closely matching the nation’s steady weight gain over the past five decades, according to the report, published Wednesday in the journal PLoS One.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • History • Psychology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market

Pension funds and other institutional investors that have poured billions of pounds into commodity index funds could be unwittingly fuelling a rise in global hunger, says a new report from Christian Aid.

Such investments in indices of commodities bundled together have become increasingly popular in recent years following deregulation and the bursting of the dot.com bubble.

Food price rises led World Bank President Robert Zoellick last month to warn: ‘We are one shock away from a full blown crisis.’ Cereal prices, which are of crucial importance to the world’s poorest people, hit a record high in recent weeks on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s price index. Even with inflation taken into account, the rate was 5.5 points above the previous record in mid-2008, when food riots broke out in more than 30 countries.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Stock Market

The word "cafeteria" just doesn't cut it. The Bear's Den in the South 40 dorm complex at Washington University is really more like a collection of high-end mini-restaurants, serving everything from fresh seafood to vegetarian.

And like the student body it serves, the Bear's Den has become increasingly diverse, a place that needs to please more palates and ideologies.

So, early this year, when the campus' Muslim Student Association approached the school's food service provider, Bon Appetit, and asked it to provide halal options — food prepared in accordance with Islamic law — the company agreed. In April, with the Student Union's support, the Bear's Den launched a halal food service, making Washington University the first school in the state to offer halal food, according to organizers.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Education • Religion & Culture • Young Adults • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

Calories may count, but most people aren't counting them.

Only 9% of people in the USA can accurately estimate the number of calories they should eat in a day, and 9% keep track of their calories every day.

People have plenty of excuses for not tracking: They say it's extremely difficult, and they lack the interest, knowledge and focus. Some say they're not convinced that it matters all that much.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • Psychology

... if we’ve avoided rerunning the 1930s only to end up with a repeat of the 1970s, the public will judge... [Ben Bernanke] to have failed.

To this, the Fed has a stock response. It points to the all-urban consumer price index (CPI-U) and notes that it was up only 2.7 percent in March relative to the same month a year earlier. Strip out the costs of food and energy, and “core CPI”—the Fed’s preferred measure—is just 1.2 percent. When Google unveils its new index of online prices, it’s likely to tell a similar story.

To ordinary Americans, however, it’s not the online price of an iPad that matters; it’s prices of food on the shelf and gasoline at the pump. These, after all, are the costs they encounter most frequently. And with average gas prices hitting $3.88 a gallon last week, filling up is now twice as painful as when President Obama took office.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • Energy, Natural Resources • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

Distraction and extraction. These are the skills, timeless, of thousands of thieves who work in New York, without a weapon and without attracting notice.

Where in the city can such a thief visit dozens of happy hunting spots on an afternoon’s walk, finding rooms crowded with people staring at laptops or iPads, or texting or talking on phones, and ignoring their purses? A place so comfortable and familiar, with its jazz, leather chairs and Wi-Fi, that customers, otherwise savvy to the city’s dangers, do not think twice about saving a round blond-wood table with a bag or a laptop while they stand in line?

You may be there now, with a grande caffè mocha....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Law & Legal Issues • Science & Technology • Urban/City Life and Issues • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

....[Rabbi Tuvia Geffen] of the long beard and wire-rim glasses and Yiddish-inflected English, a man by all outward appearances belonging to the Old World... was the person who by geographical coincidence and unexpected perspicacity adapted Coca-Cola’s secret formula to make the iconic soft drink kosher in one version for Passover and in another for the rest of the year. To this day, his 1935 rabbinical ruling, known in Hebrew as a teshuva, remains the standard.

That ruling, in turn, did much more than solve a dietary problem. A generation after Frank’s lynching, a decade after Congress barred the Golden Door, amid the early stages of Hitler’s genocide, kosher Coke formed a powerful symbol of American Jewry’s place in the mainstream.

“Rabbi Geffen really got the importance of it,” said Marcie Cohen Ferris, a professor of American studies at the University of North Carolina, who specializes in Jewish life in the South. “You couldn’t live in any better place than the South to get it. To not drink Coca-Cola was certainly to be considered un-American.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • History • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

...[James Levine, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic]'s initial question — which he first posed in a 1999 study — was simple: Why do some people who consume the same amount of food as others gain more weight? After assessing how much food each of his subjects needed to maintain their current weight, Dr. Levine then began to ply them with an extra 1,000 calories per day. Sure enough, some of his subjects packed on the pounds, while others gained little to no weight.

“We measured everything, thinking we were going to find some magic metabolic factor that would explain why some people didn’t gain weight,” explains Dr. Michael Jensen, a Mayo Clinic researcher who collaborated with Dr. Levine on the studies. But that wasn’t the case. Then six years later, with the help of the motion-tracking underwear, they discovered the answer. “The people who didn’t gain weight were unconsciously moving around more,” Dr. Jensen says. They hadn’t started exercising more — that was prohibited by the study. Their bodies simply responded naturally by making more little movements than they had before the overfeeding began, like taking the stairs, trotting down the hall to the office water cooler, bustling about with chores at home or simply fidgeting. On average, the subjects who gained weight sat two hours more per day than those who hadn’t.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker Thursday said U.S. firms are increasingly looking for an opportunity to raise prices as more expensive commodities squeeze profit margins, raising the risk of inflation.

"In the absence of further energy-price increases, most forecasters do not foresee a significant acceleration in prices this year. We should not take that outcome for granted," Lacker said at the University of Baltimore.

Earlier Thursday, the Labor Department said prices U.S. manufacturers and wholesalers pay for goods and materials rose a seasonally adjusted 0.7% in March as gasoline prices jumped and food prices fell.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • Energy, Natural Resources

Here’s another good reason to lose weight: It may improve your memory and concentration, new research suggests.

Scientists know that overweight and obese people are at a greater risk for memory problems and other cognitive disabilities, but the latest study is one of the first to indicate that substantial weight loss improves brain health.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Health & Medicine • Psychology • Science & Technology

In the large and growing Orthodox Jewish communities around New York and elsewhere, rabbinic leaders are sounding an alarm about an unexpected problem: a wave of anorexia and other eating disorders among teenage girls.

While no one knows whether such disorders are more prevalent among Orthodox Jews than in society at large, they may be more baffling to outsiders. Orthodox women are famously expected to dress modestly, yet matchmakers feel no qualms in asking about a prospective bride’s dress size — and her mother’s — and the preferred answer is 0 to 4, extra small.

Rabbis say the problem is especially hard to treat because of the shame that has long surrounded mental illness among Orthodox Jews.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Religion & Culture • Teens / Youth • Women • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

BOB ABERNETHY, host: For Eastern Orthodox Christians this is Great Lent, the 40-day period of strict fasting leading up to Easter. The Orthodox are supposed to observe fasts of one kind or another nearly all year; no meat on some days, no dairy or oil on others. Their calendars serve as reminders. The discipline of fasting is supposed to help focus the mind on God and bring the person fasting closer to God. Catherine Mandell of Clearfield, Pennsylvania talked with us about her family’s fasts.

CATHERINE MANDELL: The church generally gives us a calendar to help us track those days that we are to fast and which days we’re allowed not to fast. We have several others fasting periods during the year. If you take all those days together you are fasting for more than half the year....

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Orthodox Church

Mary Seabrook joked that she won't have to go to Weight Watchers if food prices keep climbing.

"They are awful," the Ladson resident said while shopping in a downtown Charleston grocery store. "I just shop for the stuff that's on sale. I just won't eat as much."

Overall food prices will climb 3 percent to 4 percent this year as world demand in an economic recovery drives up the cost of fuel as well as basic commodities such as corn, wheat, soybeans and sugar, agricultural economist Chris Hurt of Purdue University said Monday during the Food Media Seminar at Charleston Place Hotel.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • * South Carolina

With unemployment still high, companies in recent months have tried to camouflage price increases by selling their products in tiny and tinier packages. So far, the changes are most visible at the grocery store, where shoppers are paying the same amount, but getting less.

For Lisa Stauber, stretching her budget to feed her nine children in Houston often requires careful monitoring at the store. Recently, when she cooked her usual three boxes of pasta for a big family dinner, she was surprised by a smaller yield, and she began to suspect something was up.

“Whole wheat pasta had gone from 16 ounces to 13.25 ounces,” she said. “I bought three boxes and it wasn’t enough — that was a little embarrassing. I bought the same amount I always buy, I just didn’t realize it, because who reads the sizes all the time?”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Energy, Natural Resources