A special event will be held at the Women, Infant and Children’s Clinic on Navy Hill from 10 a.m. to 12 noon on Monday where the community will get ideas on healthy and delicious recipes from local products by students of the Northern Marianas Trades Institute.
CNMI Women, Infant and Children nutritionist and program coordinator Erin Angela Camacho said that the emphasis on the Food Day participation is to urge CNMI residents to eat real and healthy food and to continue to support the local farmers here.
The goal of the Food Day is nothing less than “to transform the American diet”, which means to inspire more people to turn away from the fast foods and drive- throughs and divert their attention to farmers markets and cook real food in their homes.
Six objectives for the Food Day
1. Reduce diet-related disease by promoting safe, healthy foods.
The foodday.org said that most Americans feast on salty, overly processed packaged foods that are high in calories, rich in sugar drinks and fast-food meals — diets that promote obesity, tooth decay, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer, hereby increasing medical costs to billions of dollars each year.
2. Support sustainable farms and limit subsidies to big agribusiness.
Foodday.org is looking at possible improvements to farm policy to help small and mid-size family farms including limiting federal support to large farms and use the money for technical and financial support to small family farms, protect small ranchers and poultry growers, building local food systems, promoting farms to school programs, and improve the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as Food Stamps.
3. Expand access to food and alleviate hunger.
Expand access to food and end hunger
Foodday.org said that “some 50 million Americans are food insecure, or near hunger, and it would take political will, money, and time to ensure that every American has reasonable and affordable access to healthful, fresh, and culturally appropriate foods.”
The organizers said that food stamps, school meals and WIC benefits have done so much to diminish hunger but some families still don’t have access to healthy food.
4. Protect the environment & animals by reforming factory farms.
5. Promote health by curbing junk-food marketing to kids.
6. Support fair conditions for food and farm workers.
Camacho said that CNMI will participate in the Food Day with these goals in mind.
On October 24, Americans from all walks of life will come out together to come out together to push everybody to eat “healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable humane way.”
The CNMI will just be one of the hundreds of places that will celebrate Food Day in homes, farmer’s markets, city halls, state capitals and churches all over the country on October 24.
Registered dietician Dianne Esplin earlier told the Variety that putting healthy food on the tables of each household cannot be stressed hard enough for its importance to sink in.
Esplin said with the heavy problems of overweight and obesity topping the list of health concerns in the island, a lifestyle change especially in diet is important.
About Food Day
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Ct., are the honorary co-chairs for Food Day 2011, and the day is sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the nonprofit watchdog group that has led successful fights for food labeling, better nutrition, and safer food since 1971. For more information about the Food Day, visit www.foodday.org.
For more information about the WIC and its programs, call 664-4084.
