Saturday, March 13, 2010

MWPHA hosts a panel on food policy




On March 3, 2010,  the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association (MWPHA) hosted a panel discussion to raise awareness about nutrition and access to healthy and safe food. Tambra Stevenson, Chair of the MWPHA’s Food & the Environment Committee, convened the panel which included Carl Rollins of Common Good City Farm, and DC Voices for MEAL Choices own advocate Aileen Orlino.


The panel explored a wide range of issues, including the many aspects of our broken factory farm-focused food and the issues around the high supply of low-cost food that is lacking in nutritional value and high in sodium and sugar.  Carl Rollins described the conditions in which chickens and cattle are raised, the overuse of antibiotics and hormones and their impact on public health, and the effects of all of these elements on the environment.  Rollins supported the use of school garden programs and eventually large-scale urban agriculture as part of a multi-pronged solution to these health and food problems.   Aileen urged a paradigm shift in our culture where people spend a little bit greater proportion of their incomes on food (of higher quality) and become less accustomed to cheap food (and its allure, e.g. convenience).  There are ways to check our addiction to sugar and unhealthy foods. Once we have information, such as nutrition contents of food items on restaurant menus, we can start small and begin to make incremental changes in our diets.

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