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Report: Pandemic Food Benefits Work To Address Food Insecurity - Forbes

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Report: Pandemic Food Benefits Work To Address Food Insecurity - Forbes

Report: Pandemic Food Benefits Work To Address Food Insecurity - Forbes

Posted: 10 Aug 2020 07:30 AM PDT

In March 2020, Congress created a pandemic food benefit program called Pandemic-EBT (P-EBT) to provide food assistance to school-age children during school closures. On July 30, the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project reported that the P-EBT program helped 2.7–3.9 million children avoid going hungry. As the beginning of the school year nears, the report's findings demonstrate the ongoing importance of the P-EBT program in helping families put food on the table.

The economic consequences of COVID-19 have left many adults unemployed and struggling with increased food insecurity. Data from Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research shows that nearly one in three families with children reported food insecurity between April and June 2020.

During the school year, free or reduced-priced school meal programs are available to millions of students. During school closures, the access to these meals is constrained, and already tight family food budgets must stretch that much further to cover the additional meals students would normally receive at school.

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P-EBT benefits provide about $114 per child per month in benefits to families. To obtain these benefits, families must live in a state that has received USDA approval to administer P-EBT benefits. So far, 49 out of the 50 states have received USDA approval to issue P-EBT benefits, with Idaho being the only holdout as that state has not submitted a plan to the agency.

Children are eligible for P-EBT if they receive free or reduced-price school meals at school or if the school offers free school meals to all of its students. In February 2020, approximately 30 million children received free or reduced-priced meals. This means many American families with two children on free or reduced-priced meals could see an extra $228 to cover food costs while schools are closed during the pandemic.

Many schools and school districts have adopted programs to get food to children remotely, but such programs face inherent logistical challenges, including transportation to and from the site, shortages, and long lines. The P-EBT program supplements grab-and-go meal sites and was intended to provide the cash equivalent of the free or reduced-price meals eligible children would otherwise receive at school.

The Hamilton Project's study, "The Effect of Pandemic EBT on Measures of Food Hardship," tracked P-EBT's effect on food hardship as measured by food insecurity, the share of households sometimes or often reporting not having enough to eat, and the share of households with very low food insecurity among children.

Researchers found that the P-EBT benefits reduced food hardship by 30 percent within the first week of benefits being distributed, and that these effects were particularly pronounced for those in the lowest income tier. They concluded that the P-EBT program is "hitting its target" though food assistance payments and reducing food hardship experienced by the lowest-income households during the COVID-19 crisis.

The P-EBT program is helping millions of children avoid going without, but the P-EBT program is authorized only until the end of the federal government's fiscal year in September 2020. This means that when school begins for many families, the program will end on its own terms. The Hamilton Project's researchers recommend extending the program at least through the 2020-21 school year. Others have called for an expansion through the length of the declared public emergency to make the program more effective in addressing the economic challenges facing America's children.

The Hamilton Project's findings are particularly timely as Congress debates further funding for the food safety net, including P-EBT. According to Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, one of the report's authors, "Families need this ongoing support to help put food on the table now, especially with high rates of food hardship, schools across America starting remotely, high unemployment rates, and the federal unemployment insurance benefit boost no longer in place."

13 Iconic Restaurant Foods That Ship Nationwide - Food & Wine

Posted: 10 Aug 2020 12:26 PM PDT

13 Iconic Restaurant Foods You Can Order Online | Food & Wine

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When Bugs Crawl Up the Food Chain - The New York Times

Posted: 10 Aug 2020 09:11 AM PDT

Epomis beetle larvae look delicious to frogs. They're snack-size, like little protein packs. If a frog is nearby, a larva will even wiggle its antennae and mandibles alluringly.

But when the frog makes its move, the beetle turns the tables. It jumps onto the amphibian's head and bites down. Then it drinks its would-be predator's fluids out like a froggy Capri Sun.

We tend to think of food chains moving in one direction: Bigger eats smaller. But nature is often not so neat. All around the world, and maybe even in your backyard, arthropods are bodying vertebrates and gobbling them up.

Jose Valdez, soon to be a postdoctoral researcher at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, identified hundreds of examples of this phenomenon in the scientific literature, which he detailed in a review published in July in Global Ecology and Biogeography. He and others who study the topic think that once the initial gasp of shock is past, it's important to understand what eats what.

Dr. Valdez became interested in these role reversals during his doctoral research, after watching a gang of water beetles devour a rare tadpole. The larvae were known predators, whereas the adults were widely considered to be scavengers. But Dr. Valdez developed a hunch, borne out by further research, that they were actively hunting vertebrates, too.

He got a similar feeling when, while reading the news or surfing YouTube, he saw other bugs punching above their weight: a huntsman spider savoring a pygmy possum, a praying mantis chewing off a gecko's face.

"Maybe this is not so rare," Dr. Valdez remembered thinking.

Dr. Valdez found 1,300 similar examples, which he gathered into a searchable database. The entries cover 89 countries and involve many types of arthropod predator: storied vertebrate-hunters like scorpions and spiders, along with less well-documented cases such as dragonflies and centipedes.

It is a formidable catalog of invertebrate vengeance: A spider snares a songbird in its web, giant water bugs wrestle snakes into submission, fire ants team up to overrun a baby alligator. "Every time I would read a new one I was like, 'Oh my goodness,'" Dr. Valdez said.

There are few full-fledged studies on the topic; Dr. Valdez built on the work of Martin Nyffeler, a conservation biologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland who has documented spiders eating everything from fish to bats. Another large contribution came from a 1982 literature review by Sharon McCormick and Gary Polis. Many of the matchups that Dr. Valdez added to his database were originally described in brief observational notes by scientists who hadn't set out to study the subject.

After witnessing his water beetle-tadpole smackdown, Dr. Valdez, too, had written it up as a note. But treating these instances as one-offs might be obscuring a larger ecological significance, he said: "We should see what kind of effect this is having on food webs."

There could also be conservation implications, said Dr. Valdez. He points to the case of the Devils Hole pupfish. Scientists had trouble breeding the rare species in a lab to save them until they realized that diving beetles — accidentally imported from the pupfish's habitat — were eating many of the larvae.

It is difficult to investigate what arthropods eat, said Eric Nordberg, a wildlife ecologist at James Cook University in Queensland who has also studied the topic but was not involved with the new paper. If you want to learn more about what a vertebrate eats, "you can flush the stomach contents or look at preserved specimens," he said. But invertebrates lack stomachs, so "you need to be in the right place at the right time."

These moments of serendipity are becoming increasingly common, said Gil Wizen, one of the entomologists who discovered the unique behavior of the Epomis beetles. He credited the prevalence of smartphones, as well as scientists and the public becoming "more alert to these interactions," he said.

Even with the new database, however, he didn't think scientists have seen it all. "Without doubt there are more arthropods out there hunting vertebrates," he said. "Nature is more fluid than we think."

The state of Food Safety News - Food Safety News

Posted: 09 Aug 2020 09:07 PM PDT

Food Safety News was founded in 2009 by the world-recognized food safety expert, attorney Bill Marler.

Since then, FSN has grown into a leading outlet for news about all aspects of the food safety arena — with 40,000 followers on Twitter, 200,000 likes on Facebook, and more than 40,000 subscribers that receive daily email updates with FSN's latest stories. Our articles and social media posts reach and inform tens of thousands of readers everyday. 

Here at Food Safety News, we are determined as ever to bring our readers the latest updates in Food Safety innovation, legislation, food policy and law, recalls, outbreaks, and the stories of those impacted by food poisoning.

This past year we have covered numerous outbreaks, from E.coli in romaine lettuce to Fresh Express's Cyclospora current outbreak. And this week we have been coving the Salmonella outbreak linked to Thomson International Inc. onions. 

We have spotlighted a marine recruit whose life plans were dramatically changed by his fight with E.coli,  a South African woman who's outlook on life was changed by Listeria poisoning, a mother whose heart stopped three times while in the hospital with E.coli poisoning, and many more food poisoning victims.

A bit about us — Food Safety News staff

Bill Marler, Publisher, founder

Marler is the Managing Partner of Marler Clark LLP, a Seattle, WA, law firm that specializes in foodborne illness cases. He began representing victims of foodborne illness in 1993, when he represented Brianne Kiner, the most seriously injured survivor of the Jack in the Box E. coli O157: H7 outbreak traced to burgers from Jack in the Box restaurants in multiple states. She received an unprecedented $15.6 million settlement.

Dan Flynn, Editor in Chief

Flynn is a Northern Colorado-based writer and editor with more than 15 years of food safety experience.  As a public affairs professional, he worked with government and regulatory agencies at the local, state, and federal levels.  Flynn also worked for daily newspapers for a decade.

Coral Beach, Managing Editor

Beach is a print journalist with more than 30 years of experience as a reporter and editor for daily newspapers, trade publications, and freelance clients including the Kansas City Star, the Independence Examiner and Land Line Magazine. Before joining Food Safety News, Beach was a reporter for The Packer newspaper, an online and broadsheet trade publication covering the fresh produce industry in North America.

Joe Whitworth, Writer/Reporter — Europe and World

Whitworth is a food and beverage trade journalist. Prior to reporting for Food Safety News, he worked for William Reed Business Media since 2012 as Editor of Food Quality News before becoming a food safety editor for Food Navigator. He is based in England. 

Jonan Pilet, Writer/Reporter and Social Media Manager

Pilet earned his Bachelor of Arts in writing at Houghton College in New York. He also studied writing at the University of Oxford and received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at Seattle Pacific University. 

Cookson Beecher, Contributing Writer

A journalist by trade, Beecher spent 12 years working as an agriculture and environment reporter for Capital Press, a four-state newspaper that covers agricultural and forestry issues in the Pacific Northwest. Before working at Capital Press, she was the editor of a small-town newspaper, the Courier Times, in Skagit County, WA.

Chuck Jolley, Ad Director

Jolley is president of Jolley & Associates, a marketing and public relations firm that concentrates on the food industry. He's also president of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame, honoring the legendary figures of the industry.

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Barbecue food truck offers preview of American Kitchen rebranding in Bay City - MLive.com

Posted: 10 Aug 2020 06:47 AM PDT

BAY CITY, MI - Those venturing to downtown Bay City's new outdoor seating areas have a variety of cuisines to choose from. A new food truck is adding a flare of smokiness to diners' options.

Downtown Restaurant Investments (DRI), which owns several restaurants in the Great Lakes Bay Region, recently took its first step into the food truck rodeo by opening up Molasses On The Road, a spin-off of their Molasses Smokehouse BBQ restaurant in Midland. The truck visits downtown Bay City's Feet on the Street cafes on Center Avenue on weekends while making stops throughout the region, with one of its weekday mainstay stops being Lifestyle Garment Care at 2706 N. Saginaw Road in Midland.

"Due to the continued demand for Molasses BBQ in Midland we have decided to take the food mobile and make it available throughout the Great Lakes Bay Region," said Kurt Busard, chief operating officer at DRI.

The truck is parked at DRI's American Kitchen location at 207 Center Ave. on Fridays and Saturdays, from 5 p.m. - 9 p.m. to serve as a preview for what's to come at that location. American Kitchen is currently in transition as it is converted to a barbecue-style restaurant.

According to Busard, the plan is to open the new barbecue joint under the name of 'M2′ in late fall.

"It's going to be a counter service style barbecue, so think traditional southern barbecue. You walk in, you walk up to the counter, you order your food and you can take and sit down or you can take it out to go," said Busard.

During the transition period, American Kitchen is not serving food out of the building but is instead serving beer, wine and liquor for customers to enjoy as they try the fare from Molasses On The Road.

The truck's menu ranges from typical smokehouse sandwiches to new spins on barbecue, such as brisket tacos and nachos. All items on the menu are ones that are available from Molasses in Midland.

"For now we are operating it as a kind of an arm of Molasses," said Busard.

The food truck is one of DRI's newest endeavors while working with the City of Bay City's Feet on the Street program, which involves the closure of multiple roads downtown to allow restaurants to install outdoor seating venues for customers to safely enjoy during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Busard, DRI has been seeing success with the changes.

"It's been amazing for us," he said.

DRI's other restaurants downtown, Tavern 101 and Old City Hall, both have extensive outdoor seating areas for the Feet on the Street program. Busard noted that the change has particularly helped Old City Hall shift from wintertime/holiday destination to more of a summertime hangout spot.

"It gave our usual clients and customers who are of an older age the opportunity to still come and enjoy themselves and not feel scared of going inside," he said.

The plan right now is for Molasses On The Road to operate outdoors through September to take advantage of what's left of the warm summer weather.

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