No Kid Hungry - Roll Up Your Sleeves And Put An End To Childhood Hunger

How we all can get involved to stop childhood hunger and starvation . . . .

Roll Up Your Sleeves And Put An End To Childhood Hunger

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO GET INVOLVED IN ENDING CHILDHOOD HUNGER

Share Our Strength prides itself on its renowned platforms to end childhood hunger for the nearly 17 million American children facing this invisible hunger.

Participate in One of Our Events or Programs

• Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation launches with a sold out event in DC! Join the nation’s hottest chefs and mixologists at more than 40 Taste of the Nation events across the country. Events are volunteer-run and 100% of ticket sales help fight childhood hunger in America. For more information or to buy a ticket .
• Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale, presented by Domino Sugar and C&H, is a national campaign that mobilizes Americans to end childhood hunger by holding bake sales in their communities. This year’s campaign runs until July 31. Join us and hold a bake sale.
• Share Our Strength’s A Tasteful Pursuit^® is a national touring dinner series that features some of the nation’s best chefs who take their talents to the nation’s top culinary cities to create delicious, multi-course dinners paired with ultra-premium wines. Nearly a dozen dinners this year. All benefit Share Our Strength’s work to end childhood hunger in America. Attend an event.
• Share Our Strength’s Great American Dine Out is a new national campaign that mobilizes thousands of restaurants and millions of consumers to dine out and help fight childhood hunger. Participate in the Great American Dine Out, September 20-26, 2009, and help end childhood hunger in America.
• Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters™ is a nutrition education program that teaches low-income families how to get the most nutrition out of a limited budget. Volunteer.

Make a Donation

A little show of strength from your checkbook will go a long way for America’s nearly 17 million children who face hunger. Donate Now.

Volunteer

Having the strength to give a little of your time is one of the greatest gifts these kids will ever receive. Choose your favorite way to volunteer with a Share Our Strength event or program.

Hold a Food Drive

Food drives are essential sources of food for community food banks. They rely heavily on food donations to distribute much needed food to struggling people. Learn more about how you can hold a food drive, but remember to take pictures and then tell us about your experiences via email or on facebook.

Become a Sponsor

We’ve earned the reputation for being one of America’s most effective nonprofits and won acclaim for our enterprising corporate partnerships. If you’re interested becoming a corporate sponsor with Share Our Strength and our efforts to end childhood hunger, learn more.

Involve your organization

Workplaces, social and professional groups, parent groups, places of worship, charities and more can hold a Great American Bake Sale, buy tickets to our culinary events or donate services, product or dollars. If you’re a restaurant, we have even more ways you can help.

Tags: No Kid Hungry, Get involved, Roll Up Your Sleeves, Put An End To Childhood Hunger, children, hunger, participate, Share Our Strength, bake sale, dine out, hunger, starvation, society, socially engaged, volunteer

Feeding the Hungry

[This image has haunted me since the first time I saw it.]

There was well-intentioned post over at the I-I pod at Zaadz that referenced an online educational game that provides free rice to starving children just for playing the game. Seems like a great idea on the surface.

Except that rice is not the answer.

These were my replies (presented here as one post):

I hate to diss any organization trying to help feed people, but rice is not the answer.

Doctors Without Borders has been advocating and distributing plumpynut (60 Minutes story here), which is a fortified peanut butter with extra vitamins and milk protein. It's literally saving lives that could not have been saved before – best of all, it can be produced locally by the people who need it most.

Because it is so calorie dense, especially when compared to rice, it takes up much less space to store, costs less to make, and can be stored for much longer without fear of it going bad.

This may be the single greatest breakthrough in feeding the hungry, especially malnourished children. Lots of research supports the idea that increased protein and healthy fats in the diets of these children has a powerful impact on intelligence, with as much as a 20 point increase over those who do not get adequate protein and fats.

The body needs fats and proteins (plumpynut), but it does not need carbohydrates (rice) – in the absence of carbs, the body uses protein and fat to produce ketones, a kind of carbohydrate that the body uses to create glycogen (gluconeogenesis).

Peanut allergies seem not to exist in African nations, so there is no issue with possible allergic reactions

The choice seems obvious.

The WHO is getting behind plumpynut, so there is hope for wider adoption.

I think part of the reliance on rice has been due to lobbyists pushing rice, not nutritionists saying rice is best (although nutritionists are notoriously behind the curve on what actually constitutes good nutrition). I know that there were efforts to make rice a staple crop in Africa, but the lack of reliable water made that idea rather misguided from day one. Plus, who wants to use water to grow rice when people are dying from lack of clean water?

Peanuts, however don't need nearly as much water to be a viable crop, not to mention the greater harvest per acre of land.

I grew up thinking that rice was the answer to starvation because that is what I saw on the news so often. But it's BS. To get as much nutrition from rice as a child can get from one bottle of plumpynut would take pounds of rice. And rice has very little protein in comparison, and it's not a complete protein (all ten essential amino acids).

Watch the 60 Minutes story I linked to above -- this stuff is nothing short of a miracle for starving children.

Tags: Plumpynut, Feeding the Hungry, rice, Health, nutrition, starvation, Africa, WHO, Doctors Without Borders