Fight hunger by eating out this week

Want to fight childhood hunger in America in an easy way? Share Our Strength's Great American Dine Out is going on this week, Sept. 20-26. You go to a participating restaurant and the restaurant donates a portion of the proceeds to Share Our Strength. Couldn't be simpler.

The only local restaurant in Charlottesville that is participating is the Blue Moon Diner (where I've had several outstanding meals), although a few chain restaurants are participating as well. For a full list of restaurants across the nation, go here.

You can search for restaurants near you by zip code.

A billion hungry people

Soaring commodity prices pushed the number of people without enough food close to 1 billion last year, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Prices have been falling since July, partly because of a drop in fuel costs, but they are still a third higher than they were in 2005 and 61 percent higher than in 2000, the Food and Agriculture Organization says.

At a two-day food security conference in Madrid sponsored by the United Nations that ended yesterday, delegates from 95 countries met to discuss the food crisis that has stoked social unrest in many parts of the developing world and is threatening to push millions more people into hunger

Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food secure when its occupants do not live in hunger.

Alex Wijeratna, a food rights campaigner for Action Aid, an anti-poverty agency based in London, told the International Herald Tribune that the most important message to emerge from the meeting was the need to include smallholder farmers in new agricultural strategies.

"If you're going to tackle hunger, you have to be talking to the people who are growing food all over the world," Wijeratna said.

The Global Call to Action Against Poverty, an alliance of civil society movements, contrasted the slow pace of initiatives to defeat poverty with governments' relatively nimble response to the banking crisis.

"The fat cats of the financial world got huge governmental support within months," the group said in a statement. "Not so the starving street cats."

Food trends

Top 10 Food Trends for 2009, according to the Food Channel:

1. Home on the Range - Downsized economy breeds new generation of home
chefs, more food-savvy than their predecessors
2. Foodie 2.0 - Growth of virtual and non-virtual food communities
3. Going, Going Green - Kitchens go eco-conscious
4. Living La Vida Locavore - Eating locally and seasonally, both at home
and in restaurants
5. TMI? - Is seeing the calorie count on the menu Too Much Information, or will it lead to healthier choices?
6. FrankenFood - The rise of bioengineering and genetically modified
food; the next evolution of last year's Functional Food trend
7. Food Philanthropy - Individuals and companies address world hunger
8. Food Insecurity - The call for tighter food controls, after the
tomato and jalapeño scares of 2008
9. Brewing Business - Striking a balance when cost is an issue; the
divide widens between the exotic and day-to-day food needs
10. Where in the World ... is the next flavor trend coming from? It's
all about globalization and variety