The Huffington Post • Feb. 24, 2012
Three years ago, I went to work undercover in America’s food system. To the extent that I was motivated by journalistic intrigue, I wanted to see how the country’s vast industrial food system worked. But more than that, I had a bone to pick with foodies.
Slate • Feb. 20, 2012
It’s hard to avoid the occasional personal attack when you’re a journalist—especially when you write about an issue as fraught as poverty. And I’ve been called plenty of names before. But in the last week I’ve gained some new ones: “Elitist.” “Poverty pimp.” “Precious little snowflake.” Most of these came in the comments below three excerpts from my new book, The American Way of Eating, describing my experience going “undercover” to work in the kitchen at an Applebee’s, published here at Slate.
I don’t have much in the way of fact to add to Jane Black’s summary of this interesting new study from UC-Davis researchers showing that it’s not America’s poor who are eating fast food, but our middle class. But I think this is interesting: Figuring out how to make healthier food rival the drive-through for … Read more
City Limits Weekly • Jan. 28, 2008
Flushing— The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook, edited by Scott Stringer, Jones Books, $17.95 in stores, free at community events.
It’s difficult to take critical aim at a community cookbook. Rarely intended as just a repository of cooking advice, the recipe collections of neighborhood associations, houses of worship, immigrant clubs and tenants’ groups are often aimed more at raising funds and morale than actually generating whole, good meals. Any true culinary skill gleaned from them is a result of luck as much as intention.
HuffingtonPost.com • Dec. 6, 2007
A brighter note sounded in the obesity epidemic battles this week: Federal Women, Infants and Children vouchers are being overhauled to include fresh fruits and vegetables. But does that mean folks will drop the white bread and American cheese for greens?
In a word: Yes.
Contribute • November/December 2007
Helping the homeless has never been considered a luxurious calling, but for Ralph Nunez, it’s been surprisingly remunerative. As head of Homes for the Homeless, a Manhattan-based social services nonprofit, Nunez brings home $352,381 a year, one-third of it for part-time work for the organization’s policy arm and an additional $53,598 in benefits. There’s also ready access to a company vehicle and an apartment atop one of the group’s homeless shelters in the gentrifying neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen.
The American Prospect • May 17, 2007
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, with Camille Kingsolver and Steven L. Hopp (HarperCollins, 384 pages)
On a spring morning several years ago, I made a final visit to a politicized cooking class for New York City public high school students. During earlier visits, I had watched teachers promulgate a body of then-eccentric ideas about food: the benefits of local and organic produce; the dangers of a diet based on McDonald’s; the environmental destruction wrought by conventional agriculture. During those initial visits, the teens handily dismissed their lessons. One young man, after declaring his love for daily visits to McDonald’s, declared simply, “I’m not going to change what I eat.”
Daily Intelligencer • April 18, 2007
New York State has a new record-low welfare enrollment. There were 541,503 on the dole at the end of February, the lowest number since 1963, as state welfare officials announced neatly in sync with tax day. While the city has been posting similar trends for the last several years, this marks the state’s first big milestone. The state secret? In addition to benefiting from welfare shrinkage in the five boroughs — the city makes up the bulk of the state’s welfare cases — state officials are pointing to $665 million paid out via the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, which is available to working poor filing federal or state taxes, plus a new state credit for low-income, non-custodial parents up-to-date on child support.
The Huffington Post • April 17, 2007
It’s common knowledge that tax day inspires a nationwide grumble, but it’s beginning to be known for bringing annual cheers from the country’s working poor. In recent years, the Earned Income Tax Credit–a stealth antipoverty program with broad bipartisan support–has become one of the country’s most successful efforts to help the poor: Last tax year, the EITC put $41.4 billion into the pockets of workers who earn too little to get by, more than we ever spent on welfare. That work-first hook has made the program a bipartisan favorite, but a closer look suggests that the EITC isn’t the panacea its often touted to be.
Daily Intelligencer • April 2, 2007
The Alice Watersization of New York cuisine is continuing apace, and now it’s spreading to decidedly un-haute cuisine. Now that the budget is done, Albany leaders are finalizing a deal to give New York its first statewide Food Policy Council, charged with spreading the local-and-organic movement to corner bodegas and other places where lower-income New Yorkers shop. A Friday announcement by state Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker explained that the new body will coordinate the mind-numbing minutiae involved in favorite sustainable-food efforts like getting New York State apples to the neighborhood deli and ensuring that community-supported agriculture-buying clubs are affordable to the poor.
Follow Tracie
