Month: March 2017

The nation’s salad bowl has a surprising and growing problem.

California’s Central Valley produces almost one-third of the nation’s domestically grown fresh produce. But many of the region’s residents don’t eat much fruit or vegetables ― a fact reflected in the region’s heightened rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other serious health concerns. 

This problem, of course, isn’t unique to the Central Valley — few Americans today eat as much fruit and vegetables as we should.

But the stark contrast between the food many of the farm-heavy region’s residents are harvesting in the fields and what they’re eating in their homes prompted researchers at the University of California, Merced, to ask people what motivates their food purchases.

The answers, UC Merced public health communication professor Susana Ramirez told HuffPost, were surprising. 

“The ‘where I can get it’ concern, at least in this community, is not as big of a concern as ‘how can I pay for it,’” Ramirez said.

Researchers began the study thinking that Central Valley residents’ limited consumption of healthy food was likely because a significant portion of the population live in “food deserts” that are at least 10 miles from a large grocery store.

But researchers soon discovered that access to healthy foods might not be the problem — at least not for the 79 Merced County residents they surveyed. The residents — who, like much of the Central Valley, are predominantly Latino and mostly lower-income — overwhelmingly said that they had “ample” access to fruits and vegetables in their neighborhoods, even if there were no traditional grocery stores.

Instead of supermarkets, the residents said fresh fruits and vegetables were available from farmer stands, farmers markets, mobile vendors and as gifts from neighbors.

“If you live in that community, you learn to adapt,” Ramirez said.

But ingenuity can only go so far in the face of crippling poverty. The latest census data show 25 percent of Merced County residents living below the poverty line.

According to the study, 65 percent of participants said fruits and vegetables were too expensive for them, even though more than 70 percent agreed that they had access to a “large selection” of healthy foods. The findings were in line with responses to the 2014 state health interview survey, the study noted. 

“They’re saying that the [fresh, healthy] food is there, but they can’t buy it — though they would like to buy it,” Ramirez said. “The problem in this particular community is the tremendous level of unemployment and poverty — and these factors can’t be compensated for in other ways.”

Of course, many staple fruits and vegetables aren’t particularly expensive. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s thrifty food plan and other resources outline how affordable foods can be part of a balanced diet.

But the cost for some families goes beyond the sticker price, Ramirez explained. Members of many lower-income families work multiple jobs and don’t have the time to shop without a car, then prepare foods, for example. And fresh foods spoil or might be shunned by children, risking wasting household resources.

“They’re saying that the [fresh, healthy] food is there, but they can’t buy it — though they would like to buy it.”
University of California-Merced professor Susana Ramirez

These factors can push people toward convenience foods like packaged and processed grocery staples and fast-food items to keep their families fed.

“If I can go to McDonald’s and I can get a chicken sandwich for $1 and a salad for $6, I’m going to have to think twice about” choosing the healthy option, one respondent told researchers. 

The study suggests that public health and food-access advocates focused on expanding supermarkets to so-called food deserts may be missing the point. 

While some research links the opening of a supermarket in a former food desert with healthier eating habits, other recent research contradicts that finding, suggesting a new supermarket had little impact on community members’ food purchases. 

Ramirez suggested that affordability is a key component of efforts to increase access to healthy foods in underserved communities, particularly at a time when the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could face cuts. 

Ramirez pointed to examples like Double Up Food Bucks — an initiative that allows customers using SNAP benefits to double their benefits when they buy fresh produce. Previous research shows such programs increase fruit and vegetable consumption among participating families. 

“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” Ramirez said. “We already have really successful assistance programs that put money in peoples’ pockets so they can buy produce, and that’s what they do with it.”

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Joseph Erbentraut covers promising innovations and challenges in the areas of food, water, agriculture and our climate. Follow Erbentraut on Twitter at @robojojo. Tips? Email joseph.erbentraut@huffingtonpost.com.

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A new docuseries titled “Time: The Kalief Browder Story” explores what can happen when systematic inequality, the dismissal of mental health issues, over-policing and a fractured justice system collide. 

Airing Wednesdays on Spike TV, the six-part series is an in-depth look into the life of Kalief Browder, the young Bronx native who served three years on Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime and eventually took his own life in 2015.

Jenner Furst, who directed the series, told The Huffington Post that after reading about Browder’s gripping story in The New Yorker, he felt compelled to tell that story through a longer form visual piece.

“When the spotlights fade out and the evening news is over, [the Browder] family was sitting there and no one was talking to them and no one was following up with them about what they were going through,” he said. “And they were grieving but they were also trying to take over Kalief’s fight for justice. There was something about that chapter that hadn’t really been explored.”

Sixteen-year-old Browder was arrested in 2010 for allegedly stealing a backpack. He was unable to make bail and detained at Rikers Island for three years before the charges were dropped and Browder was freed. Following his release in 2013, Browder’s story started circulating in the media, which documented the abuse he faced in jail. Two years later, Browder killed himself, leaving his family to carry forward with his quest for justice.

Furst said his team spent about five or six months filming interviews and building “a very personal relationship” with the Browder family. They also uncovered surveillance footage from Rikers and combed through hours of outtakes from Browder’s interview with Nightline. Those candid on-camera moments, which included Browder’s “somewhat coy and awkward responses,” helped to accurately represent his character, Furst said. 

“We had to find every single second that had ever been recorded or that existed that was a testimony or was a photograph or was a memory of Kalief that we could because our protagonist, our lead character, is no longer with us,” Furst said.

While the show focuses on Browder, it paints a grim picture of the system at large. The series explores how one allegation of theft and the inability to make the $3,000 bail, set off a domino effect of problems from which Browder was never truly able to recover. As his trial was delayed on 14 separate occasions, Browder was languishing in jail. He was repeatedly thrown into solitary confinement and suffered violence from both correctional officers and inmates. Three years later, his case was dismissed.

“[Browder’s life] had every single example of systematic failure on behalf of poor, powerless and for the most part black and brown people in the United States,” Furst said. He argued that Browder’s situation could ultimately be traced back to poverty and economic inequality.

“I think justice is money, unfortunately, in America. If you have money, you get justice. If you don’t have money, you experience vast amounts of injustice,” he said.

Browder’s story has become a devastating symbol of the criminal justice system can impact America’s most vulnerable citizens. His predicament was complicated and messy, but as the docuseries shows, the systems that should have helped him, ultimately cracked under the pressure. 

“Kalief represents everything,” Furst said. “And that’s what’s powerful about him and what everyone responds to. I’m just lucky to have such a messenger.” 

“Time: The Kalief Browder Story” premiers Wednesday at 10 p.m. 

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National
Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HELLO to 741-741 for free,
24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please
visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database
of resources.

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José Alberto Gutiérrez is known as the “Lord of the Books” to the thousands of book-loving children he’s helped in Bogotá, Colombia.

The garbage collector, featured in an AJ+ video posted Monday, takes discarded books from wealthy neighborhoods and adds them to a makeshift library in his home. The collection of over 20,000 books is open to the kids in the low-income neighborhood where he lives on the weekends. 

“This should be in all neighborhoods, on each corner of every neighborhood, in all the towns, in all departments, and all the rural areas,” Gutiérrez told The Associated Press in 2015. “Books are our salvation and that is what Colombia needs.”

Gutiérrez started salvaging discarded books 20 years ago, according to the AP. He credits his work to his mother, who read to him every night despite not being able to afford keeping him in school. 

“The first book I found was Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and that little book ignited the flame and [set in motion this] ball that has never stopped rolling,” Gutiérrez says in the AJ+ video, which has over 4 million views. 

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A mom of three in northern California has turned a feminist battle cry into a work of art that is speaking to many parents. 

On Feb. 7, while the Senate considered Senator Jeff Sessions’ nomination for U.S. attorney general (which was later confirmed), Senator Elizabeth Warren attempted to read a letter Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986 that condemned Sessions. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell described Warren’s denied attempt with three sentences:

Privett told The Huffington Post she experienced perinatal depression while pregnant with her third child and postpartum depression after giving birth. During this, all of the hurtful remarks she’d heard over the years came flooding back to her. 

“All of those little words I’d heard transitioned into invasive thoughts and it overwhelmed me as it became part of my depression,” she told HuffPost. “I felt disconnected from everything and had trouble working through the steps necessary to do even simple things like change a diaper or make a sandwich.”

With medication and individual and group therapy, Privett was able to recover. She said she is lucky because she knows many moms don’t have the resources to do the same. That personal experience (as well as some suggestions from her Instagram followers) sparked her motivation to create a work of art for moms who persisted, “nevertheless.” She hopes her work can be an encouragement for both moms and dads.

“I’m hoping to encourage parents that it’s OK to do what is right for their specific situations, and also for all people to be more aware of how they speak to others,” she said. “Words matter, especially when directed toward vulnerable people.”

She also stressed the importance of asking for help and practicing self-care.

“There is nothing wrong with asking for help, especially if our mental health is at stake,” she said. “Self-care is as important as caring for our families, and we won’t be able to do the latter without the former.”

See more of Privett’s work on Instagram and Facebook. 

The HuffPost Parents newsletter offers a daily dose of personal stories, helpful advice and comedic takes on what it’s like to raise kids today. Sign up here.

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Just like me in high school, this administration will look back one day and realize that four years has yielded very few presentable or shareable photos.

On Tuesday night, as President Trump made his first address to a joint session of Congress, the cameras were ready once again. These photos are really all you need to know about this night.

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TLC has finally set a release date for their fifth and final album.

On Monday, the group’s longtime manager, Bill Diggins, posted an update on the album’s Kickstarter page thanking fans for their support of the project, which is tentatively set for a late June release.

“I am thrilled to let you know that the album is tentatively scheduled to be released at the end of June and you will receive your advance album prior to that,” Diggins wrote. “We are working out the official date in the next couple of weeks and once it is final we will notify you.”

Launched in 2015 by surviving members Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, the album’s crowdfunding campaign exceeded the group’s 30 day goal of $150,000 and has raised over $430,000 to date. Artists including New Kids on the Block, Katy Perry, and Bette Midler were among the many fans who contributed to the campaign, which will go toward production sessions.

The album was initially scheduled for a September 2015 release and the group received backlash from supporters after postponing the project. According to Diggins, the delay came as a result of the group’s 2015 North American tour.

“I could go on in more detail to explain how TLC’s touring, schedule, writing schedule and producing schedule was delayed,” he wrote. “But the simple fact is that Tboz & Chilli were inspired to make a record that they could be proud of and they would not settle for less and sometimes you just cannot rush art.”

“They demanded of themselves a record that would stand up to the great body of work created in the past and that you would be proud of,” he continued. “Because your belief and support is the greatest form of love and we want you to be proud.”

The as-yet-untitled album will mark the group’s first studio album since their 2002 platinum album, “3D,” which was released seven months following the death of member Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes.

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On the eve of Women’s History Month, President Trump referenced three historical male figures to make a point about America’s potential for greatness.

In his first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, he spoke of the Centennial Exposition of 1876 when thousands of American inventors and artists came together to present. As he read off of a teleprompter:

Alexander Graham Bell displayed his telephone for the first time. Remington unveiled the first typewriter. An early attempt was made at electric light. Thomas Edison showed an automatic telegraph and an electric pen. Imagine the wonders our country could know in America’s 250th year.

These men are indeed worthy of praise and recognition. After all, there’s a reason most American schoolchildren would recognize their names. But if President Trump and his speechwriters did a bit more digging, they would have discovered the women who made history during the Centennial Exposition of 1876, too.

As he faced rows of Democratic women wearing suffragette white, the irony was lost on the president that, during the very Centennial he spoke of, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage presented their Declaration of the Rights of Women.

According to PBS, at the expo, which lasted from May to November in 1876, “some 30,000 exhibits from the ‘Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine’ filled massive exhibit halls spread over 450 acres in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park.”

Women weren’t allowed to exhibit independently, so Elizabeth Duane Gillespie and a committee of 13 women dreamed up the Women’s Pavilion ― a building that showcased inventions only by women. History Professor Sally G. McMillen of Davidson College told HuffPost that Gillespie and her team had to raise money on their own for the Pavilion, and did so in record-breaking time.

Of course there were corsets, heavy dresses and household items displayed, but women also presented work that was relevant outside of the domestic sphere, suggesting a slow but steady shift toward gender equality. According to Harvard’s library page, the American Medical Association admitted its first woman member during the fair.

Women’s Studies Professor Jennifer Scanlon of Bowdoin College told HuffPost that inside the Women’s Pavilion, more than 75 women demonstrated the inventions they had secured patents for.

“Emma Allison was on hand to run a six-horsepower steam engine that powered six looms and a printing press,” she said. “Artists were there as well, from the renowned sculptor Edmonia Lewis, whose work often celebrated the emancipation of slaves, to Caroline Shawk Brooks, a celebrated butter sculptor.”

At the time, Gillespie did not want to be associated with the “radical element in the women’s movement at the time” ― a.k.a. the suffragists.

Professor McMillen told HuffPost that when suffragist Lucy Stone tried to show a taxation without representation exhibition ― which highlighted how unjust it was for women to pay taxes without the right to vote ― her work was basically hidden. 

At first, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted no part of the centennial. They felt their goal of securing women’s right to vote was so far away, there was nothing to celebrate. Professor McMillen says that, eventually, the women realized they had an opportunity to get their message across. 

The suffragists requested to read a new Declaration of Rights they had written at the Centennial Celebration in Philadelphia on July 4, 1876. They were denied, and had to come up with a new plan.

Here’s a page from the National Woman Suffrage Parlors in Philadelphia outlining their plans. Story continues below photo. 

During the reading of the Declaration of Independence on that day, Anthony and four other women stood up and walked through the aisles. She handed their document to the Vice President, and to various audience members. According to Rochester’s library site, she proceeded to read the Declaration to a small crowd in front of Independence Hall. 

The documented ended:

We ask of our rulers, at this hour, no special favors, no special privileges, no special legislation. We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.

Women’s Day at the Centennial was celebrated on November 7, Election Day. “It was argued, men would be at the polls and would not mind missing this event,” according to the Centennial Exhibition Digital Collection. 

This Women’s History Month, remember that we have the power to make history every day. And in 2017, that feels more urgent than ever. Follow along with HuffPost on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in March using #WeMakeHerstory.

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Internationally renowned chef José Andrés declared “I am an immigrant” in front of an audience of hundreds at a black-tie event in South Florida.

The high-profile restaurateur was the man of the night as the annual South Beach Wine & Food Festival held a dinner with other top chefs in his honor Saturday, according to The Miami Herald. 

Andrés made a moving plea for all hardworking immigrants ― regardless of status ― at the auction dinner, which raised money for Florida International University’s hospitality school. During the speech, he took off his chef coat to reveal a T-shirt that read “I Am An Immigrant.” 

“Many of those immigrants are undocumented and that unfortunately, yes, many of them came crossing the frontier or they overstayed their visa,” the Spanish-born chef said in his speech, which The Miami Herald posted on Facebook. “But they are working every day with the same pride as you and I, documented or not; working hard every day with a smile, sometimes underpaid, sometimes without health insurance, sometimes under hardships, working 12, 14 hours under the hot sun ― but working because they are proud to be part of the system.”

In a reference to President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, Andrés said he does believe in building certain types of walls.

“We need to build a very big wall, the biggest wall … we need to be building walls to build communities, to build schools, to build hospitals, to build community centers, soup kitchens, to build an America we all believe in,” Andrés said as the crowd applauded.

Andrés owns the Think Food Group, the company behind his restaurants in Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami and Puerto Rico. The chef made headlines last year after Trump sued him for backing out of plans to open a restaurant in a Trump hotel. 

As an activist for the immigrant community, Andrés showed solidarity by closing all five of his D.C.-area restaurants on Feb. 16 for a national strike dubbed “A Day Without Immigrants,” and rallied other restaurateurs to do the same.

In his speech at the South Florida event, Andrés told the audience that “we are all immigrants” and that only united can the country succeed.   

“The American dream of the 21st century is to be an America of inclusion not of exclusion,” he said. “And we need to work hard to provide the same that we want to provide for us, to the other people that are left behind. So, I am an immigrant and I am proud of American immigrants. I am José Andrés and together, with a message of inclusion, we can keep moving this amazing country forward.”

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The White House wants to cut one-quarter of the Environmental Protection Agency’s funding and eliminate 1 in 5 EPA employees, three sources with knowledge of the proposed budget told The Huffington Post. 

The fiscal year 2018 budget proposes axing funding for a vast array of programs, including those aimed at low-income people, minorities and indigenous groups.

“While this ‘zero out’ strategy would impact nearly every community in the United States, a close examination shows the burden of these cuts will fall hardest on the health of low-income Americans and people of color,” Travis Nichols, a spokesman for Greenpeace USA, said in a statement. “This is environmental racism in action.”

The reductions target the implementation of the Clean Power Plan, the sweeping Obama-era regulation aimed at slashing carbon emissions from the utility sector, the country’s biggest emitter by far. The initiative has been stalled since the Supreme Court granted a stay last year in a lawsuit spearheaded by then-Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, whom President Donald Trump named EPA administrator.

Axing the initiative undermines the country’s commitments in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the first global deal to include the U.S. and China, the world’s biggest polluters.

The cuts the Office of Management and Budget put forward Monday do not appear to include reductions to the EPA’s capitalization fund, roughly $2 billion set aside as loans for states to improve sewers and drinking water infrastructure. That means the 25 percent reduction targets the EPA’s critical functions, including scientific research and enforcing rules against polluters.

“No cut like this has been proposed for the EPA since the early 1980s, in the first phase of the Reagan administration,” Stan Meiburg, a former acting deputy EPA administrator who spent 39 years at the agency, told HuffPost. “That didn’t ever get implemented, but it created a lot of chaos.”

The EPA budget totaled nearly $8.2 billion last year, a 0.22 percent sliver of federal spending. The agency employed about 15,300 people ― one of its smallest workforces since 1989. Eliminating more than 3,000 positions would be “unprecedented,” Meiburg said, and would require buyouts and layoffs.

The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

I won’t have the resources to be able to go and educate my community or educate even just my family about the environmental hazards in our community.
Cheryl Johnson, executive director People for Community Recovery

The EPA has a brief window to appeal the budget cuts, after which time the proposal goes to Congress for approval. The OMB routinely puts some programs on the chopping block ― including the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, which helps pay for repairs to outmoded diesel engines, and a different program aimed at reducing exposure to lung cancer-causing radon gas ― but Congress typically amends the budget to reinstate the funding.

“The OMB cuts, Congress puts them back,” said Meiburg, who oversaw the EPA budget for years. “They go through this dance every year.”

Public health programs were among those recommended for phaseout, including grants that cover screening for chemicals that disrupt endocrine systems. 

The budget proposed cutting funding to programs that benefit communities of color, including grants to improve water and living standards for Alaska Native villages, grants for restoring nature along the U.S.-Mexico border, a program supporting minority-owned small businesses, and multi-purpose grants that can go to states or Native American tribes.

Funding for scientific research and education ― a sort of boogeyman among conservative lawmakers of late ― took a hit, with proposals to zero out the Science to Achieve Results, or STAR, program, which funds research and provides recipients with a living stipend; environmental education and justice programs; and research into how to adapt to global climate change.

“It’s almost like I might as well just kill myself because I will have no protection,” said Cheryl Johnson, executive director People for Community Recovery, a 37-year-old nonprofit aimed at cleaning up polluted parts of Chicago’s inner city. “I won’t have the resources to be able to go and educate my community or educate even just my family about the environmental hazards in our community.”

The OMB also proposed eliminating basic programs for addressing pollution from beaches, fisheries, ozone-deteriorating gases, as well as programs for mapping out Lake Champlain, the Long Island Sound and San Francisco Bay.

Even programs targeting revitalization of old properties or land ― which could go hand-in-hand with Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan ― were proposed for elimination, including grants for brownfields, which are properties zoned for redevelopment but hindered by toxic waste.

The cuts should come as no surprise. Trump has assembled the most openly polluter-friendly Cabinet in recent history, putting climate science skeptics and fossil fuel executives in key environmental posts.

Trump named Myron Ebell, a once-fringe conspiracy theorist who shares the president’s view that global warming is a hoax, to lead the EPA transition team. He also nominated Pruitt, who sued the EPA 13 times as Oklahoma’s top cop and has deep ties to oil and gas companies, as EPA administrator. Pruitt was narrowly confirmed by the Senate last month.

“The Trump administration clearly sees corporations as its true constituents, not the people of this country,” Nichols said. “For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has helped protect people’s health and safety when corporations have put them in danger, and the Trump administration now wants to undo all of that. These proposed cuts negate any goodwill Trump may have shown during his Congressional address, including his empty promises to promote clean air and water.”

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At this point, the struggle to swipe right in a world of profiles that truly deserve a swipe left is all. too. real. 

Below, 21 relatable tweets from people who are just as over Tinder and online dating as you are. 

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