Watching What They Mete

Tag : woman clothing

"Are you trying to kill me?" the woman asked Ted Pringle,director of food and clothing for Bread for the City, theDistrict's largest food pantry. "I'm a diabetic. I can't havethese."
The jar -- a contribution from a well-meaning donor -- had beenaccidentally packed into the woman's monthly food bag. But theincident crystallized a disconnect that had long troubled Pringle.
Upstairs, doctors at Bread for the City's medical clinic weretreating people with hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes.They were telling clients to eat less salt and cut down on refinedsugars. But the same folks were getting food bags that containedsoup packed with sodium and cereals with high-fructose corn syrup.
Something wasn't right.
Such occurrences are prompting Bread for the City and food pantriesacross the country to rethink how they stock their shelves. Pringleno longer orders soup unless he can get a low-sodium variety. Brownrice, which is more nutritious and has more fiber, is sometimesgiven out instead of white. These days, clients might open theirbags to find that whole wheat pasta has replaced the familiar boxesof neon orange macaroni and cheese.
His and other agencies have brought on nutritionists to teachclients how to prepare healthier food or educate them about readingfood labels. In Vermont, food pantries are trying to control theamount of sodium and additives in the foods they distribute bycooking from scratch, said Ross Fraser, spokesman for America's Second Harvest , a national network of food banks. Workers there make stews fromfresh meat and vegetables and flash-freeze them for distribution.
Manna Food Center in Montgomery County has a nutritionist on loan from food service contractor Sodexhowho helps ensure that the baskets given out are healthy, said TimLanigan, the nonprofit organization's director of food collection.
The Capital Area Food Bank , the largest in the Washington region, has hired a full-timenutritionist and offers a six- to eight-week course on healthygrocery shopping and cooking. Almost one-third of the 20 millionpounds of food it gives away annually is fresh produce. "A lotof people don't tie food and nutrition and health together, andthey're very interrelated,'' said Lynn Brantley, the food bank'spresident and chief executive.
"It requires a shift in thinking," said Sharon Gruber, anutritionist recently hired by Bread for the City to help revampits offerings and help clients think more carefully about what theyeat. "We want to give people the calories they need tosurvive, but we also want the food to be nutritious andtasty."
The shift is fueled largely by concerns about the growing number ofAmericans who are overweight, a condition that can lead to suchchronic diseases as hypertension and diabetes. According to surveysby the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the prevalence of obesity among adults between 20 and 74 has morethan doubled, from 15 percent in a 1976-80 survey to 32.9 percentin 2003-04. The percentage of children who are obese has tripledsince 1980.
Add to that the fact that obesity rates tend to be higher amongminorities and low-income people -- a significant percentage of thepopulation served by such groups as Bread for the City -- andGruber said it's clear agencies such as hers must act.