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When Women Make Decisions, They're Usually Wrong.
Every day is a struggle for most women to make decisions and fight the uphill battle of living with choices. Why don't you help save the world by sponsoring some woman's uterus?
05.31.12
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Hunger is still an urgent crisis despite signs of economic recovery. In the months following the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, headlines report that the nation’s economic health is bouncing back after years of hardship. However, a big chunk of our population is experiencing a different reality. Recovery has been uneven nationwide, and grocery prices are still higher than normal despite easing supply chain issues. With the end of the federal support offered throughout the pandemic, child poverty rates have shot up, and families like Donnette McManus’ are feeling the squeeze.
“Even though you have your list, you have your budget, things are changing so quickly. Your salary can’t keep up. So, you get to the store with the same exact list, the same 10 items can cost you 50% more,” said McManus, who lives in Massachusetts.
Feeding America Insights Report
People facing hunger say that ending food insecurity is about more than just food. Ending hunger may sound like a simple task: make sure everyone, regardless of who they are and where they live, has access to the food they need. However, as neighbor-advocate Jennifer Estrada of Wisconsin pointed out, the reality is a bit more complex, especially considering that hunger is only a symptom of bigger economic challenges.
“As much as you work, the system is set up for you to continue in a cycle of food insecurity,” said Estrada. “Your whole check goes to a rent payment if you’re not fortunate enough to own a house, with nothing leftover. But you get kicked off if you make $2 more. There needs to be some security, there needs to be a revamping of the whole system ... It seems like instead of creating less barriers to help the families in our community, it seems like policies and procedures continue to make more barriers.”
One of the biggest takeaways from the 2023Insights Report is that housing is unaffordable. Working 40+ hours a week still isn’t enough to get by for many folks. Stopping hunger in its tracks is as much about strengthening economic well-being as it is about providing equitable access to enough nourishing food.
Hunger is an issue that intersects with more than what we put on our plates. Hunger strikes without discrimination, affecting anyone, anywhere, at any time. Millions of people in the U.S. are just one job loss, missed paycheck, or medical emergency away from experiencing food insecurity. Due to a long history of racism, discrimination, and oppression in our country, hunger impacts some communities more than others, including communities of color and communities in rural areas.
While the impact of hunger is widespread, people facing it note that the stigma associated with it can strip people of their dignity or deter them from accessing the food assistance programs they’re eligible for and need. There are also inequitable systems in place that do not work for everyone.
“Your basic clerk at your local DHS [Department of Human Services] office is only employed to input information and output information back to you. A lot of times, you feel like you’re not even a human. You’re just a number to them. And if I’m just going to be a number to you, I have a mental meltdown,” said Kimberly Harris, a resident of Washington, D.C.
Feeding America Insights Report
Ending food insecurity requires a catalyzing movement. While hunger remains a widespread and persistent problem, our country already has the tools to eradicate it forever—they just need to be utilized. Most people facing hunger said that federal and local governments should treat hunger as an urgent crisis—signaling that it will take all of us to bring hunger to a halt.
So how can you take action right now? Do your part and visit FeedingAmerica.org/ElevatingVoices to read the 2023 Elevating Voices: Insights Report and sign a petition to encourage Congress to pass legislation that will help ensure no one in America goes hungry. Let’s all pitch in to make the wealthiest nation become the happiest and most prosperous—for all.
Photo by Long Truong on Unsplash
woman in white sleeveless dress kissing man in blue dress shirt
Now he and his team have finally compiled five years of intense research that asks the question, "What do young people really think about sex and love?"
And maybe just as important: "How should we be preparing them?"
Here are three major takeaways from the groundbreaking new report:
1. Hookup culture might just be a big ol' myth.
Everybody's hooking up with everybody these days, right? Not so fast.
The Harvard report presents a startling statistic from a related study in 2008. A group of college students in the U.S. were asked what percentage of guys on campus they thought had sex on any given weekend. They guessed about 80%. The reality? As low as 5%.
Weissbourd notes that because hookups are so culturally visible (especially in college) and gossiped about, it creates a perception that they're a lot more common than they actually are.
The Harvard study itself found, in fact, that most young people are a lot more interested in sex within a committed relationship or, shockingly(!), things that don't involve sex at all.
What it means for parents: We as adults, unfortunately, play a big role in this pervasive and harmful myth. "In every era there've been complaints about how sexually out of control kids are," Weissbourd says. "It's a story adults really love to tell."
When we play up this stereotype, the study finds it can actually make young people less likely to seek advice or to talk about sex and relationships because they may feel inadequate or embarrassed about their lack of experience.
silver tabby cat lying on white textilePhoto by Laura Chouette on Unsplash2. Sexual harassment and assault, however, remain huge, unaddressed problems.
"There are a significant number of young men out there who think that all they can't do is rape someone," Weissbourd says. "They can't drag someone in an alley to rape them."
What many of them have very little concept of, he says, is how harmful and dangerous behaviors like catcalling, pressuring, and coercion can be.
The study cites endless instances of girls being harassed at school, complaining to administration, staging walkouts; anything to get the problem addressed. But the "boys will be boys" attitude persists, and problems are often swept under the rug rather than tackled head-on.
A culture of sexual violence is harmful for obvious reasons, but the report also found these kinds of attitudes can bleed over into relationships that can "disproportionately involve females servicing males."
What it means for parents: Talk. to. your. kids. about. consent.
"I was really surprised how many parents had not had basic conversations with their kids about things like consent, or how to avoid sexually harassing a person," Weissbourd says.
We have to make it crystal clear to young people what kinds of behavior are and aren't acceptable, and follow up those lines with real consequences. It's the only way things are ever going to change.
3. Teens and young adults want more guidance than we're giving them.
Most parents aren't thrilled about having "the talk," and admittedly, bringing up the topic of sex with a teen is no easy task.
But with all this dread and hand-wringing over how to talk about the birds and the bees, the Harvard report notes that many parents are overlooking a much bigger topic: love and relationships.
Roughly 70% of surveyed young adults reported wishing they had received more or better guidance on the emotional aspects of relationships, both from parents or from health class. But it's not just a hindsight thing.
Many parents are overlooking a much bigger topic: love and relationships.
"The percentage of young people who want guidance on romantic relationships was encouraging," Weissbourd says. "Kids light up when they are talking about love and what love is and what does it mean. That was surprising and really encouraging."
What it means for parents: When you're done teaching your teenager how to put a condom on a banana, make sure to spend some time talking about the day-to-day work that goes into building a healthy relationship.
That means going beyond platitudes. The Harvard team suggests diving into more complex questions like, What's the difference between attraction, infatuation, and love? How can we be more attracted to people the less interested they are in us? Why can we be attracted to people who are unhealthy for us?
Those are questions some of us might not even have the answer to, but having the honest conversation with our kids is a major step in helping them learn how to love and be loved.
As Weissbourd says, it's one of the most important things we'll ever do.
The full report tackles even more and is jam-packed with must-know findings and statistics. It's definitely worth a read.
This article originally appeared on 05.18.17
When founder Zack Gazzaniga decided to start his own tortilla chip company, Zack's Mighty, his mission was to create a delicious chip that didn’t break in guacamole.
His quest to create the perfect chip took him to Italy, where he acquired Otto File flint corn (a very flavorful variety of flint corn now mostly grown in Italy for polenta), and then back to the U.S. to plant and grow it.
When connecting with farms to partner with to grow the corn, Zack began learning about regenerative agriculture and its benefits for the soil and climate. “Regenerative agriculture made so much sense to me that I decided then that this would be a pillar of our business and a mandate that everyone who grows our corn follows regenerative practices,” he says.
Regenerative agriculture combines conservation and rehabilitation practices to improve farmland soil and combat climate change. These practices include less tillage, crop rotation, cover cropping, and composting.
One of the farmers Zack connected with to grow organic and regenerative corn was Bryce Irlbeck in Manning, Iowa. “We began [fully] regenerative farming in 2019, but have been doing different aspects such as cover cropping and crop rotation for 10 years.”
Bryce’s farm in Iowa was one of Zack’s Mighty’s partner farms that spent two years in partnership with A Greener World, evaluating farm standards, plans, and auditing procedures to receive Certified Regenerative certification. This certification provides a whole-farm assurance of regeneration and sustainability, measuring benefits for soil, water, air, biodiversity, infrastructure, animal welfare, and social responsibility. As of August 2022, all of Zack’s Mighty partner farms were officially certified.
Bryce’s advice to farmers looking to begin regenerative practices is to first “focus on figuring out a [crop] rotation since each area of the country will be different due to markets and weather patterns.”
Zack’s Mighty is thrilled to have cultivated a supply chain that uses organic ingredients and Certified Regenerative corn — ensuring its customers can be proud to align their values with their purchase.
“Our mission to make the best tortilla chip on the market starts with our ingredients and how they are produced. We want to assure our customers that we value transparency and source only high-quality ingredients to create delicious products that are truly good for the planet,” says Zack.