Food security and cultural foods
Access to cultural foods (or lack thereof) is a major public health concern in many places across the us and the world. “determinates of food security” defines food security as “all people at all times have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. This sources definition for food insecurity is “when one or more of the conditions of FS (food security) is absent”. With these definitions in mind, we can better understand how not having access to cultural foods is a form of food insecurity that is most prevalent in immigrant diaspora communities across the us.
Supplying these communities with their cultural foods benefits the consumers and anyone involved in growing and producing them. While more benefit is seen by who sells the products there can be policies put in place to encourage and support farmers who grow cultural foods. ECV are defined as “… those vegetables consumed by a group that shares a similar cultural heritage.” Culturally appropriate vegetables and economic development addresses this issue with this suggestion, “…any policy that will support the purchase of ECV (ethno-cultural vegetables) should prescribe policies that will reduce the cost of production of these vegetables”. By giving financial incentives to farmers and any nonprofit that wants to help these farmers, this can make access to ECV easier for many communities. These policies can also help reduce the cost of these vegetables. Cost is a main factor in resolving this type of food insecurity. It has been found that household income doesnt really determine how much a household will spend on ECV. It was also found that as household size increased so did spending on ECV. Amount spent on ECV didn’t change with a change in income (positive or negative).
Growing ECV locally is beneficial for the consumer as the nutritional value doesn’t change as much as it would if they were shipped from all around the world. The longer a vegetable is out of the ground the less nutritional value it has. Moving to a country (willingly or not) where you don’t know the language and dont have alot of access to the foods you know can make it very difficult to eat healthy. This can lead to many health problems like malnutrition, undereating or overeating, and any health issues related to not eating healthily. That is why having access to locally grown ECV is so important for not only those who sell and produce the products but also those who consume it.