Three-quarters of people over age 50 in the United States say the rising cost of groceries has affected them somewhat or a lot, and nearly a third say they’re eating less healthily because of increased food costs, according to new poll findings.
But food cost inflation has hit certain groups of older adults harder, the poll suggests – especially individuals who rate their physical or mental health as fair or poor, and those in lower-income households or with fewer years of formal education.
The new findings come from a national poll conducted in late July by the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging, based at the university’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
“For our most vulnerable older adults, the huge increase we’ve seen in food costs could make a bad situation worse,” said Dr. Preeti Malani, director of the poll and a physician at Michigan Medicine, the university’s academic medical center. “These new findings suggest a need for better support of the food needs of adults over 50.”
AARP is among supporters of the National Poll on Healthy Aging.
More than a third of people age 50 to 80 say the rising cost of groceries has impacted them a lot. Overall, the percentages saying this were higher among those who rate their physical health as fair or poor (46 percent), those who rate their mental health as fair or poor (58 percent), those with household incomes under $30,000 (56 percent), and those who have a high school education or less (48 percent).
The pinch of inflation is having a direct impact on what food older adults are buying. Thirty-six percent of those 50 to 64 said their diet is less healthy because of rising costs, compared with 24 percent of those 65 to 80.
Try these steps for building an eye-catching and mouth-watering charcuterie board that will add color, flavor and variety to a holiday party table.
Use a platter or surface to display your charcuterie. Anything will work, even a simple cutting board. Just be sure to choose a size you can fill completely.
Use dishes or ramekins of mismatched sizes, shapes and colors to hold dressings, toppings and sauces. This will keep your board clean and add fun visual details to the display.
Include two to four cheeses of contrasting flavors and textures to please all palates, and to complement other elements of the board. The varieties should represent these basic categories: Hard cheese, (such as Chardonnay Bellavitano), soft cheese (such as brie) and blee cheese (such as French Roquefort).
While a traditional charcuterie board typically sticks with cured meats, the holiday season is the perfect occasion for adding depth and richness with grilled meats, such as filet, sliced into strips. Whether you are firing up the grill or preparing on a cooktop, allow any cooked meats to rest well before adding them to your board.
No charcuterie board is complete without some crunch. Add two to three options like pita crackers, crusty breads or toasted baguettes that will stand up to the weight of meats and cheeses.
Add some brightness and sweetness. Fresh fruit like blueberries, strawberries and green grapes, and preserves such as peach pepper jam will add contrast to rich, salty meat and cheese. Don’t forget seasonal sweets and treats like soft peppermints, peanut brittle, chocolate-dipped pretzels and candied nuts.
You’ll want your charcuterie board to look as if it’s overflowing. So, as you’re building it out, start with the largest elements like the cheeses and meats first, followed by smaller items like crackers, fresh produce, and sweets. Fill in any holes with sprigs of aromatic rosemary for trimming, along with additional portions of the smaller items. The various elements should pair well together, so it’s okay if they touch.
Want your charcuterie board to look like this? Read on.
Sources: StatePoint Media and Texas Roadhouse Butcher Shop.
There is no health risk for humans from eating food grown from genetically modified (GMO) seeds, according to a leading producer of them.
Unless you only buy food that is certified organic or marked as “GMO-free,” odds are that a great deal of the food you eat contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs). But are you risking your health and damaging the environment by eating them? Not according to Monsanto, the agricultural biotechnology company that is a leading producer of genetically modified seed.
Monsanto contends that GMOs are safe to eat and that seeds with genetically modified traits have been tested more than any other crops in the history of agriculture—with no credible evidence of harm to humans or animals.
The company also points to studies that have positively assessed the safety of GMOs, including the 2010 European Commission report summarizing the results of 50 research projects addressing the safety of GMOs for the environment, as well as for animal and human health. The commission stated that “there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants.”
Since the U.S. doesn’t require food producers to label products containing genetically-modified organisms, the non-profit Non-GMO Project has taken matters into its own hands and released its own certification label for the industry.
Of course, not everyone agrees. According to the Non-GMO Project, genetically modified crops and food items can contaminate conventional crops and food through cross-pollination and/or contamination. Also, since many such crops are designed to be immune to herbicides and pesticides, farmers have increased their use of weed and bug-killing chemicals to keep competition for their cash crops at bay. The resulting overuse of these chemicals has led to a rapid evolution of “super weeds” and “super bugs” that can quickly take over unmaintained or wild lands.
Given the prevalence of GMOs in our food supply already, the non-profit Just Label It believes labeling everything that contains GMOs would be a start so at least consumers can choose on their own what they put in their bodies. Some 64 countries—including China, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia, and 28 nations in the European Union—require labeling on food created with GMOs. Just Label It is one of many activist voices calling on the United States to follow suit. The group has created an online petition so everyday Americans can let the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) know they have the right to know what’s in their food, especially when it comes to GMOs.
But until we have federal rules in place requiring labeling, concerned consumers will have to take matters into their own hands when it comes to ferreting out the GMO content of what they eat. Luckily, the Non-GMO Project is helping make it easier by offering verified products the opportunity to display its “Non-GMO” symbol on their labels. The group has verified 35,000 food products across 1,900 different brands commonly available on U.S. store shelves as GMO-free, representing annual sales topping $13.5 billion. Meanwhile, Whole Foods has stepped up its support of GMO labeling by instituting a new policy of “full GMO transparency” in all of its North American stores.
Beyond just labeling, though, Whole Foods is also working with many of its suppliers to transition to ingredients from non-GMO sources altogether. Activists hope this leadership will trickle down to mainstream grocers, as well.
Source: Earth Talk (earthtalk.org), a non-profit organization which produces a weekly, nationally syndicated Q and A column and other articles on environmental issues.
In August, the U.S. Senate passed the country’s most significant climate bill to date. While lawmakers made controversial concessions that will expand oil and gas drilling to secure the support of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will incentivize unprecedented shifts toward renewable energy, electric vehicles, and curbing methane emissions from fossil fuel production.
For farmers and the broader food system, experts say the climate bill doesn’t go nearly as far but will still have far-reaching implications. Action to curb emissions from any sector will benefit farmers struggling to grow food as weather extremes and disasters increase, and the legislation directly earmarks about $40 billion for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation programs—many of which incentivize climate-friendly practices such as reducing tillage and the planting of cover crops—renewable energy infrastructure on farms and in rural communities, and climate-smart forestry.
“The influx of money is unquestionably a big deal for sustainable agriculture and climate resilience,” said Michael Lavender, interim policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), which hosted a “Farmer Climate Story Week” at the end of July to highlight climate action on farms.
At the same time, Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) and allies succeeded in leading a last-minute push to include $2.2 billion in funding to compensate farmers who have been subject to discrimination within USDA programs and $3.1 billion in loan help for farmers in serious financial distress. The provisions are meant to stand in for earlier efforts to compensate Black farmers who faced USDA discrimination that have been stymied by lawsuits.
In addition to NSAC, farm groups including the National Farmers Union, the National Young Farmers Coalition, and food advocacy organizations including the Union of Concern Scientists (UCS) mobilized their members to push for the bill’s passage. The American Farm Bureau Federation, which represents the agricultural industry and has historically fought against climate policy, largely stayed quiet on the bill. In a statement from AFBF President Zippy Duvall told Civil Eats the organization supports “voluntary, market-driven programs that help the environment” but had “serious concerns” about tax increases in the bill. The IRA includes a 15 percent minimum tax rate that will apply to the 200 largest corporations in the country, which often exploit loopholes to pay a lower tax rate than working families.
The historic investment in climate action comes on the heels of the latest reports from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which declared a “code red for humanity,” and emphasized that countries around the world were not moving fast enough to address the problem. Experts estimate the IRA could cut emissions about 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, which still falls short of the administration’s 50 percent goal but puts it within reach if other measures are taken.
Critics have also said it fails to focus on issues that could truly affect emissions from agriculture and the food system, such as reducing food waste, helping shift diets, and preventing big agricultural emissions, especially methane from cattle and nitrous oxide from fertilizers and manure. Some climate experts have concluded that food systems solutions like those will be critical to meeting global targets.
