Phys .org: Researchers examine food supply chain resiliency in the Pacific during COVID-19 pandemic. “The COVID-19 pandemic exposes weaknesses in the supply chain when countries go into lockdown. Some are small, such as the toilet paper shortages early on, that, while annoying, were eventually resolved. But what happens when the effects of the pandemic reach the food systems of countries highly reliant on food imports and income from abroad, and commerce slows to a halt?”
food
USDA: Cook Healthy at Home with Nutrition. gov’s New Recipe Page
USDA .gov: Cook Healthy at Home with Nutrition. gov’s New Recipe Page. “Have you been cooking at home more since the coronavirus pandemic started? Nutrition.gov’s new Recipe page can help you prepare nutritious meals that support health and taste great. With recipes from federal and Cooperative Extension sites, this curated resource offers a variety of healthy recipes from trusted sources all in one place. Plus, Nutrition.gov’s recipe library continues to grow with new recipes being added regularly.”
Bloomberg: Almost 30 Million in U.S. Didn’t Have Enough to Eat Last Week
Bloomberg: Almost 30 Million in U.S. Didn’t Have Enough to Eat Last Week. “Food insecurity for U.S. households last week reached its highest reported level since the Census Bureau started tracking the data in May, with almost 30 million Americans reporting that they’d not had enough to eat at some point in the seven days through July 21. In the bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey, roughly 23.9 million of 249 million respondents indicated they had ‘sometimes not enough to eat’ for the week ended July 21, while about 5.42 million indicated they had ‘often not enough to eat.’ The survey, which began with the week ended May 5, was published Wednesday.”
New York Times: Are You Eligible for Food Stamps Now? Maybe, but It’s Complex
New York Times: Are You Eligible for Food Stamps Now? Maybe, but It’s Complex. “SNAP is overseen by the Department of Agriculture, which lays out the rules. States handle applications and administration, and they have some leeway with the federal regulations. (And with the terms: Missouri still uses the older ‘food stamp’ phrasing.) As a result, it’s possible to offer some general guidelines for understanding how the program works, but your state has the final word. The rules are numerous and complicated, but there are exceptions and waivers that might apply to you — so don’t be deterred.”
British Baker: Ashers Bakery launches Covid-19 Scottish face mask biscuits
British Baker: Ashers Bakery launches Covid-19 Scottish face mask biscuits. “Nairn-based Ashers Bakery has rolled out masked shortbread biscuits that highlight life during the coronavirus pandemic. The Law Abiding Scots biscuits are shortbread people with pink and blue sugar paste masks and kilts. Available at an rsp of £1.29 from Ashers stores and retailers including Scotmid and Spar, they are a ‘coronavirus twist’ on Ashers’ MacGinger biscuits, with gingerbread people wearing kilts.”
CNN: What did our food look like hundreds of years ago? Art history may have the answers
CNN: What did our food look like hundreds of years ago? Art history may have the answers. “For a few decades, plant geneticists have studied the historical genetic composition of modern foods in several ways, highlighting certain genetic mutations that were responsible for transformations in appearance. These approaches haven’t offered many answers for what some plant-based foods actually looked like, according to an article published Tuesday in the journal Trends in Plant Science. So worldwide art collections, the old-time equivalents of the modern-day photograph, might serve as a massive historical database of how modern plant foods have fluctuated in their looks. And they’re asking the public to send in what they find.”
Core77: Salad Bars, Killed by COVID, Now Replaced With Custom-Salad-Making Robots
Core77: Salad Bars, Killed by COVID, Now Replaced With Custom-Salad-Making Robots. “Salad bars are big business. According to Bloomberg, they’re lucrative, have high profit margins, drive store visits and more than 90% of supermarkets have them. On the downside they take up a lot of floor space. More importantly, ever since COVID-19 hit no one wants to use them anymore. A California-based company called Chowbotics may just be in the right place at the right time. They’ve been working on Sally the Fresh Food Robot, a sort of vending-machine-plus that workers load up with individual ingredients.”
Honolulu Civil Beat: The Pandemic Is Changing How Hawaii Gets Its Food
Honolulu Civil Beat: The Pandemic Is Changing How Hawaii Gets Its Food. “As Hawaii residents scramble to ride out the financial storm of COVID-19, a staggering number of people now find themselves facing food insecurity. As a result, many residents are acquiring food differently — trading and bartering for groceries, fishing or hunting more, planting gardens, scoring food giveaways from farms and buying produce from roadside tents or on Instagram and Facebook Marketplace.”
Coronavirus: Records broken at socially distanced hot dog contest (BBC)
BBC: Coronavirus: Records broken at socially distanced hot dog contest. “Coney Island in the US has hosted a special socially-distanced version of an annual hot dog eating contest amid the coronavirus pandemic. New records were set in both the men’s and women’s categories at the climate-controlled indoor event in Brooklyn, New York City, on Saturday.”
BuzzFeed News: Hundreds Of Workers May Have Contracted Covid-19 To Get You The Food On Your Plate This July 4th.
BuzzFeed News: Hundreds Of Workers May Have Contracted Covid-19 To Get You The Food On Your Plate This July 4th.. “After months of stress, Americans have been looking forward to the pre–COVID-19 pleasures of a (socially distanced) 4th of July. How about a cookout? It’s a traditional, low-key summer celebration — but amid the nation’s growing outbreak, even a simple home-cooked meal comes at an exorbitant price. A BuzzFeed News investigation reveals the extent to which the virus — and the nation’s inadequate response to it — has infected, sickened, and even killed workers up and down the nation’s food supply chains as they work to keep our refrigerators full.”
New York Times: European Workers Draw Paychecks. American Workers Scrounge for Food.
New York Times: European Workers Draw Paychecks. American Workers Scrounge for Food.. “The pandemic has ravaged Europeans and Americans alike, but the economic pain has played out in starkly different fashion. The United States has relied on a significant expansion of unemployment insurance, cushioning the blow for tens of millions of people who have lost their jobs, with the assumption that they will be swiftly rehired once normality returns. European countries — among them Denmark, Ireland, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Austria — have prevented joblessness by effectively nationalizing payrolls, heavily subsidizing wages and enabling paychecks to continue uninterrupted.”
‘A mask is not a symbol’: Restaurants take a stand amid coronavirus pandemic (USA Today)
USA Today: ‘A mask is not a symbol’: Restaurants take a stand amid coronavirus pandemic. “#NoMaskNoTaco. It’s a hashtag on social media that a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles used to announce Sunday that it was temporarily closing its two taco stands because some customers had refused to wear face masks amid a surge in coronavirus cases in California. It’s not the only restaurant that has experienced similar incidents and decided to shut down at some capacity.”
Study: Crowdsourced data could help map urban food deserts (EurekAlert)
EurekAlert: Study: Crowdsourced data could help map urban food deserts. “In a feasibility study published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, scholars found that the methods used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to identify areas with low access to healthy food are often outdated and narrow in scope. Their findings indicate that crowdsourced information gathered from mobile apps such as Yelp could help provide more accurate real-time representation of food deserts in impoverished communities.”
Phys .org: COVID-19 leaving some Americans sick and hungry
Phys .org: COVID-19 leaving some Americans sick and hungry. “The COVID-19 pandemic is not just making Americans sick, it’s leaving many hungry as well, and experts who gathered for a Harvard Chan School forum on the problem said that legislation to relieve the pandemic’s economic burden may be able to help.”
Washington Post: She was furloughed from her job. So she became ‘Lasagna Lady’ and made 1,200 pans of free lasagna for those in need.
Washington Post: She was furloughed from her job. So she became ‘Lasagna Lady’ and made 1,200 pans of free lasagna for those in need.. “First a retired neighbor showed up at her house, then an out-of-work friend came for a pan. After that, so many people started showing up, including strangers, that [Michelle] Brenner lost track. Nearly three months and 1,200 pans later, Brenner is still at it, boiling noodles, cooking ground beef, mixing up tomato sauce and layering mozzarella, ricotta and Parmesan. About eight hours a day, seven days a week, she helps feed people in her community — from hospital workers and first responders to single parents struggling without paychecks.”
