PEAK OIL - EPOCHAL EVENT OF OUR LIVES

[HowardHughs]

The money printing is working and the dollar is in good shape so we are not going to plunge into a depression.Yes there is pain but not enough damage being done to bring the system down.Food issues will improve as checks are being issued and the Biden/Harris team will likely address food deserts and expand food stamps.There may even be a Secretary of Food. Secretary of Food article by José Andrés: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/opinion/covid-pandemic-food-crisis.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap I am a chef who believes in feeding the many, not just the few. So when quarantines were first introduced around the United States earlier this year, my team at World Central Kitchen, a network of chefs and community organizers stationed around the globe, looked for places where we could feed the masses affected by the combined crises of the pandemic and the recession that it has caused.

You didn’t need to be a genius to find them. The communities suffering most from the effects of Covid-19 are those suffering most from the effects of poverty and economic injustice — places like the Navajo Nation in the American West, which is larger in area than 10 of our states but often remains forgotten when we tell the American story.

For a fraction of the cost of an industry bailout, we can upgrade public school kitchens across the United States and pay the real cost of a free and nutritious school lunch. In times of disaster, our schools can become community kitchens; there are still food deserts in this country, but there are few school deserts. We can dramatically improve the health of our most vulnerable families by improving the food supplies in our corner stores and in our classrooms.

Rather than relying on private donors to fund charities and nonprofits, we can spend federal funds to get our cafes and restaurants back on their feet while the Federal Emergency Management Agency pays for real food programs. We can target our subsidies toward smaller farms and farmers selling healthier foods to their local markets. More than a century after Upton Sinclair’s revelations about the squalid conditions of meatpacking plants in Chicago, we can improve life for our essential workers not only in the fields but in those same plants today.Above all, we can prioritize and streamline food policy under a new cabinet-level Secretary of Food and Agriculture, with a seat on the National Security Council and a mission to improve our nation’s sustenance. We know that a poor diet leads to poor health, so while we wait for new coronavirus vaccines and therapies, improving the quality of our nourishment is the best way to improve our health. We need to prepare not just for recovery but for the next pandemic and the catastrophic threats represented by the climate crisis. By doing so, we can heal much more than hunger.

In central California, in the middle of the pandemic, my team was preparing meals for some members of the United Farm Workers, who pick America’s crops. “We work so hard so that people can get food on their tables. And yet we are the ones who do not have food for ourselves,” said Carolina Elston, who picks blueberries and table grapes. “Receiving this food is a recognition of how hard we work and contribute to the well-being of the country.”

Food is the fastest way to rebuild our sense of community. We can put people back to work preparing it, and we can put lives back together by fighting hunger. We need to hope for a better world in 2021, and there’s nothing more hopeful than the thought of sharing our food, and feeding a nation.

José Andrés is a chef and the founder of World Central Kitchen.