FDA's ‘terrible policy error' blocks simple step to prevent fatal birth defects

Farmobile allows people to pick seasonal produce and have it grown for them on leased land and receive shipments of the crop once it starts producing. Farmobile makes safe, healthy, freshly grown produce more accessible to those without a means to farm.

A no-cost meal program allows high-poverty schools to offer all enrolled students free lunch, which consequently addresses child nutrition problems and meal debt. The program, however, has pivoted and expanded during the coronavirus pandemic to ensure that schools can still act as a food distribution hub.

Mobile delivery increases the accessibility of summer meal programs for children who rely on food assistance during the school year. Across the country, multiple initiatives by local governments, schools, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations are working to extend participation in summer meal programs. Many of these programs receive support from the USDA, but additional grants have allowed organizations to extend their range of delivery, as have partnerships with food trucks and transportation services.

Food trucks have taken much of the United States by storm, but now the concept is being applied to helping keep children well nourished during summer months when school is out. Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, trucks are now roaming the streets in St. Paul, Minnesota serving nutritional meals to children in the local school district.

Funded by a grant from the Colorado Health Foundation, several nonprofits are working to fill the summer food security gap for children who rely on school meals. Several groups, including Pine River Shares and Friends with Food, have partnered with the Education Literacy Health and Inspiration Community Center to provide free lunches to needy schoolchildren. When the school district ceased operating the meal program, ELHI took over the operations, serving the children of families who already come to the center for other activities.

Individuals, churches, and nonprofits are joining together in North Carolina's food deserts to help address childhood hunger throughout the state. In one particularly food-insecure county, an alliance between three community churches as well as pop-up markets has helped to more equitably distribute produce to neighborhoods and communities where resources are scarce.

Leftover food from publicly-funded school meals is not simply an issue of wasted tax dollars and environmental concern, it is a detrimental misallocation of much needed food for many students who still go hungry in schools across the country each day. The Share Tables program is helping to more equitably distribute food by providing a space where unopened items from one student's lunch may be deposited on a designated table (or tub, or shelf) for hungry peers to take - not only reducing food waste and child hunger, but helping students develop empathy and healthier eating habits.

One in three children in Peru are stunted by a lack of nutritious foods in their diet. In 2005, the government gave cash hand-outs to poor mothers, but only on the condition that they had regular health check-ups and their children went to school. By 2014 the number of children growing up too small had halved.

Asian cities are over-crowded and many residences are kitchenless, causing families with children to consume unhealthy food from the street vendors. Mercy Corps, a non-profit organization that advocates nutrition, has initiated some for-profit businesses in Jakarta that provide healthy food to underserved neighborhoods. The food carts are marketed at serving poor children a healthy meal.

In 2016, Chile implemented warning labels on food packaging to alert consumers when a product was high in sugar, salt, saturated fat or artificial sweeteners as a way to warn and deter them from purchasing unhealthy foods. After implementing these labels, locals bought less unhealthy products, and manufacturers began using less unhealthy ingredients, inspiring other countries, like South Africa, to implement similar practices.