hunger, immigration, and food (in)security

Illegal immigrants are critical to harvesting the country’s fruit and vegetables, working in meat-processing plants, and supporting the dairy industry. But that doesn’t prevent them from suffering some of the nation’s highest hunger and poverty rates.

Although national statistics are scarce, regional studies show that ffood insecurity surpasses 50 percent in some rural immigrant communities (compared to the U.S. national rate of 16 percent). A 2006 study in North Carolina found that 73 percent of the immigrant Latinos surveyed said they “worried whether our food would run out before we got money to buy more.”

Illegal immigrants and their children also suffer from high rates of poverty. More than one in five (21 percent) of all illegal immigrants live in poverty, and one-third of the children of illegal immigrants—most of whom are citizens—are impoverished.

http://www.bread.org/what-we-do/resources/newsletter/september-2010/hunger-and-immigrants.html

http://www.bread.org/institute/research/immigration/

So many resources, so little time

for learning about the impact of our food choices on our planet.

I just discovered this site on water footprints.

Turns out tea is a better choice than coffee and beer a better choice than wine if you are concerned about the water used. But hey, wine is better than apple juice.

http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/productgallery

What season is it anyway?

It seems strange to be surfing the last-rose-of-summer recipes on the web, when it feels like summer has just arrived here. We're just having our second real heat wave, having had none until the last part of August. This brings home the fact that seasons really do vary from one part of the country to another, and the media fix on East Coast temperate seasons just doesn't work for West Coast Mediterranean and mild.

My tomatoes still are not ripening wholesale, though I am getting a few each day (from six assorted plants).

So if I want to waste a little time looking at recipes on the web I am going to peruse this feature on the Los Angeles Times site. I'm a sucker for stories like this - 25 years of top ten recipes.
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-best-recipe-sg,0,4692361.storygallery