A recent New York Times article on Downeast poverty quoted a Milbridge woman who described her economic dire straits this way: “I cook a lot of pea soup and baked beans and buy flour to make biscuits.”
So does Islesboro writer and food historian Sandy Oliver, but she doesn’t consider it a deprivation. She may be in the minority. Oliver said many Americans now believe eating out at restaurants or eating already-prepared foods shows higher social status.
“It’s a way to participate in the popular culture,” Oliver said.
But there’s growing evidence that coastal Mainers can’t afford to eat this way, and they are going hungry because they no longer know how to cook. Twenty-two percent of Portland households experienced “food insecurity” in 2006 and 10.7 percent of those families sometimes went hungry, according to a study by Portland’s Partners in Ending Hunger coalition. Families with children in the study fared the worst, with 27.3 percent food insecurity and 12.5 percent going hungry.
Those figures were higher than the state average, but not enough to be a local anomaly. Overall, more than nine percent of Mainers experienced food insecurity and nearly three percent went hungry between 2001 and 2003.
Recent economic shifts have caused hunger rates to rise, said Partners in Ending Hunger executive director Dianne Holcomb. Many young adults were raised in homes where working parents no longer had the time to cook. These young Mainers now are heading households without having learned cooking skills, food budgeting or basic nutritional concepts, Holcomb said. At the same time, advertisements marketing expensive and unhealthy food to children have increased, she said.
“Kids are programmed from birth by media,” Holcomb said.
Mainers also receive less government food assistance than in the past, as food stamp benefits have not kept up with inflation, said Holcomb. Coastal Mainers already facing increased fuel costs must find ways to do more with less with their food budgets.
Often, Holcomb said, they end up choosing calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods, which can hurt their budget and cause long-term health problems. Holcomb said she can understand how she might choose a bag of potato chips over a bag of carrots in such circumstances.
“My child is going to feel full,” she said.
To complicate matters, many Mainers don’t take advantage of the resources available to help them fill their cupboards. Only one in ten eligible Maine children are enrolled in free summer lunch programs, for example. And few Mainers know of 211, a hotline that connects callers with local assistance programs.
Many advocates for the hungry feel the best way to combat rising hunger rates is to reconnect Mainers to fresh, local, affordable produce.
“You can make a giant squash last for weeks,” said Holcomb.
Both food stamps and WIC food programs offer funds for buying farmer’s market produce, and new WIC rules will allow recipients to spend even more on fruits and vegetables. But many WIC and food stamp recipients have never prepared fresh produce and need cooking tips. Deanne Herman, market development specialist for the Maine Department of Agriculture, said farmers often are the frontline for nutrition education in the state.
“They are actually doing a lot of education at the market,” Herman said.
Herman’s program also runs a senior farm share program, which provides 16,000 low-income Maine seniors with $50 vouchers to spend at local farms.
“Seniors in Maine still do know how to cook,” Herman said.
Meanwhile, several grassroots organizations throughout the state are using tobacco-lawsuit settlement money to connect local schools with local produce. These programs help bring nutritious food to the schools, get children excited about local agriculture and teach them necessary cooking skills (WWF June 2007).
Organizations like Kitchen Gardeners International, in Brunswick, help to do the same with adults. Kitchen Gardeners International director Roger Dolron uses online cooking competitions, YouTube.com presentations, and local classes to get people cooking with local garden produce.
“It’s one thing to tell people to grow chard,” but another to give them the confidence to cook with it, Dolron said.
Advocates admit that such programs will have to work small-scale to combat a large-scale problem.
“It’s going to be little by little, person by person,” Dolron said.
But such efforts are poorly funded, and the recent economic downturn might hamper future efforts. Federal rules recently forced the Senior Farm Share program to cut benefits in half, and Herman’s position at the Department of Agriculture most likely will be eliminated with the newest round of state budget cuts. Food banks, likewise, are receiving half the federal dollars they did a few years ago, at a time when food prices are skyrocketing. Meanwhile, the shift from a paper to an electronic food stamp system essentially cut off local farmers from food stamp dollars.
“It’s a national travesty,” said Partners’ Holcomb.
Maine currently suffers lower hunger rates than much of the United States in part because of the state’s rural character, where restaurants and take-out options are few and far between.
This is especially true on the islands, according to Sandy Oliver.
“You don’t see McDonalds on islands,” she said. “There’s no fast-food alternative.”
But advocates for the hungry warn that if the state continues to urbanize and food assistance benefits continue to decrease, hunger increasingly will stalk Maine’s coast.