Liberalchurch is collecting food for the food shelves this month because when school lets out, the food shelves empty. This article in today's Pioneer Press highlights the problems volunteers at the foodshelves have when trying to serve ethnic tastes. What strikes me is that is it important both physically and emotionally for recent immigrants to have foods that they are familiar with culturally--at least initially! So perhaps money is better than boxes and can this instance because local food shelves know where to find the specific foods that the people coming to their food shelf want--I mean need!
Same hunger, different diets
From fish sauce to fufu, Minnesota food shelves need more donations for recent immigrants. They're encouraging contributors to think beyond the basics while homesick taste buds adjust.
BY MARY BAUER
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 06/12/2007 06:41:58 AM CDT
Move over, mac and cheese. The local food shelf could use a little fufu.
Twin Cities' food banks and food shelves are racing to stock more ethnic foods to keep up with the area's growing number of new immigrants.
"Not all rice is created equal," said Renae Oswald-Anderson, vice president of community building at Neighborhood House, a community center on St. Paul's West Side that includes a food shelf.
"The vast majority of our participants do not speak English as a first language," she said. "They're immigrants and refugees."
But getting enough fufu, an African porridge, to go around is proving no easy task. Although the Midwest is growing more culturally diverse - 11.8 percent of Minnesotans say they're from a nonwhite ethnic group - food donations are not.
Food shelf organizers say they don't have enough ethnic items to go around, which means they have to buy them. They're launching a variety of efforts to diversify donations and to teach newcomers how to love Spam and Cheerios.
Providing culturally specific food is essential to feeding recent immigrants for nutritional and emotional reasons, food shelf organizers say.
Over time, newcomers assimilate and learn to incorporate new foods into their diet. But in the beginning, people can go hungry despite a cupboard full of items from a food shelf, said Mustafa Sundiata, food shelf coordinator for NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center Inc. in North Minneapolis.
They don't know how to prepare the foods or eat them, he said.
"For the average person, mac and cheese is not a problem - unless you just came from Laos and you're used to cooking in a pot over an open fire," Sundiata said.
And don't underestimate the power of comfort food. Many of their clients have endured suffering and loss to come to the United States, food shelf workers said. When you're homesick, you want food just the way Mom made it, with basmati rice.
"It's what you are used to in your diet," said Annette Bauer, public relations director for the northern division of the Salvation Army, which operates five food shelves in the Twin Cities. "And at the beginning, when they first get here, it's what we can do to make them comfortable."
The glitch lies in how the food chain filters down to the needy. About 70 percent of the food for Second Harvest Heartland, the largest food bank in the Midwest, comes from donations, said Heidi Stennes, director of communications for the bank. The organization distributes food to 950 agencies and food shelves.
Shelves at its Maplewood warehouse are packed with misprinted labels, product line overruns and flavors that didn't pan out. Those foods come through established relationships with large food manufacturers like Hormel and Nestle, Stennes said.
While they're making inroads, banks have fewer partnerships with ethnic food manufacturers and specialty grocery stores, she said.
"Here in the Midwest, there aren't large producers of ethnic foods," Stennes said. "Most of the ethnic food, we have to buy."
A lot of ethnic foods are imports. Specialty importers are often small family businesses that can't afford to give away food on the same scale as Kraft, said Oswald-Anderson.
"African-style foods like plantain or fufu are not hard to find," said Sundiata, who manages the largest standalone food shelf in Minnesota. "We have importers who import that kind of thing. But it's difficult getting them to donate to the food bank because these foods are very, very expensive."
On the small-donor side, people give what they eat, Bauer said. And food shelves are not well connected in ethnic populations.
"We're beginning to ask, 'How do we reach out to donors who are diverse?' " she said.
Neighborhood House recently organized a workshop on culturally sound food shelf practices and produced a workbook for donors that lists ethnic items found at any large chain grocery. The reception has been positive, she said.
"You can go to Cub Foods and Rainbow and find fish sauce on the shelves," Oswald-Anderson said. "So we can encourage donors to purchase those things for families."
Sundiata said he believes that eventually, the supply side will catch up. Meanwhile, food banks and food shelves must buy ethnic foods themselves. Second Harvest Heartland is applying for grants to buy ethnic foods. The Salvation Army gives out food vouchers its clients can use at neighborhood groceries. Neighborhood House buys in bulk, repackaging 100-pound bags of specialty rice into 2-pound bags.
The long-term solution is education, Sundiata and others said. The larger food shelves have education programs designed to teach nutrition, menu planning and food preparation. Neighborhood House offers recipes that incorporate typical food-shelf fare into ethnic dishes.
"We need to take what we have and teach everybody how to use it," Sundiata said. "If we'd spend our money that way, we'd come out better than trying to import these culturally specific expensive foods."
Mary Bauer can be reached at mbauer@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5311.
OLD STANDBYS
Food items on the typical food bank want list:
Macaroni and cheese mixes
Pasta
Soup
Peanut butter
Fresh fruits and vegetables
Cereal
Bread
100 percent fruit juices
NEW FAVORITES
Culturally specific items sought at food banks and food shelves:
Different kinds of rice: basmati, jasmine, saffron and brown rice
Beans of all kinds
Meat that is halal, certified for the Muslim community
Fufu, an African porridge
Plantains
Fresh fruits and vegetables
Guilin rice noodles
Bean thread
Soy milk or beverages
White gourd juice
Corn meal, corn flour and corn oil
Fish sauce
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