Read With Karla: How the other half eats

Karla Hagemeister, Executive Director
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I am an avid reader in my “spare” time, often juggling two or three books at once- I like a little variety of content depending on how much brain space is available. While my fiction diet covers a wide range of content, my nonfiction tends to center around issues that are close to my heart- public policy, leading a nonprofit organization, and food insecurity. Fortunately, there is a lot of overlap in these areas, and I find golden nuggets in almost everything I read.
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I finished How the Other Half Eats-The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America by Priya Fielding-Singh, PhD over the weekend. The content of Dr. Fielding-Singh’s book comes from research she conducted as a doctoral student at Stanford University. She interviewed seventy-five families and observed four additional families in greater depth. 

​The families comprised an incredibly diverse tapestry, with the only commonality in selection being that they had at least one teenager, a stage where parents lose some control over their child’s choices, living in the home. She wanted to understand their relationship with food- what they fed their children, how they did it, why they made the choices they made. She wrote from a place of empathy, free from judgement, which allowed parents (mostly moms, but a few dads) to be vulnerable about one of the most fundamental and often complicated jobs of parenting- feeding your children.

Out of many aha-moments, one observation in particular rose to the top. Never will there be a conversation about food insecurity that does not start with access. Increasing access to healthy food choices is obvious, and critical. But seen through the lens of Flint Hills Breadbasket today, another piece of the equation is equally important. Time. Time is a resource that most of us lack, with many feeling like an overscheduled mess most days.

But take a moment to think about time as a tangible, limited resource. What is your tolerance for time invested in grocery shopping? Are you still ordering online and picking up? Is it a family affair? Is it a solo escape while the rest of the family is otherwise occupied? Whatever amount of time you are spending to secure food for your family each week, I am almost certain that it is less time (and less complicated) than most of our guests. The Breadbasket is currently open for 2.5 hours four mornings and 4.5 hours one afternoon each week. Each day we are open, there are at least twenty or more people waiting outside an hour before we open. There is space for three, maybe four people to shop in The Market at a time. These two issues come together to mean that a weekly visit to the Breadbasket for much needed food can easily take over 90 minutes.

Our guests are expending considerable time and effort to secure the most basic essentials to feed their family. Could you tolerate that time commitment? How frustrated would you be by the end of that trip? How many ways would run through your head of how you could have better spent that time? Would you feel respected and valued? I wouldn’t.

Moving to a new location that has four times the dedicated space for shopping will return time to our guests. Shopping in The Market will look and feel like an uneventful trip to the store, as it should. Without a long wait in tight quarters at all extremes of Kansas weather, a visit to the Breadbasket will rise in value for everyone- guests, volunteers, and staff alike. Creating a physical space that reflects our value for human dignity and develops our ability to build community is an opportunity that cannot be missed.
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The book is available at the Manhattan Public Library or for loan from our own shelf of relevant and compelling books.