The Nutritional Divide: An Introduction

I have never known hunger.

Sure, my stomach rumbles when I skip a meal—perhaps too busy in a day to stop for lunch—but that is the experience of appetite, not hunger.

I have never worried about where my next meal was coming from, or if it would come at all. Food insecurity, as the USDA (2009) defines it, has never been a remote reality for me.

Growing up in a suburb of Milwaukee, I knew when I got home from school I would find a stocked pantry, an overflowing fridge, and a family dinner that would produce a few rounds of leftovers. Every day. Without fail. In fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't even know anyone whose life didn't resemble the well-nourished, comfortable existence I took for granted. My parents took care that I understood my fortune and the fact that other people in the world went to bed hungry, suffering chronically from the gnawing clamor of a hollow stomach. 

Now as an adult living in Milwaukee proper, and studying Health Communication at Marquette University, I see clearly the many critical divisions in our city: rich and poor, black and white, sheltered and homeless.

Hungry and fed. 

Milwaukee Manna is my embarkation to discover the state of nutrition and information availability in our city. As part of this health communication project, I will explore and document what health information is available to the people of Milwaukee who receive food stamps. What resources guide food choices, meal planning, and cooking? Gathering together journalistic, academic, and grass-roots sources, I hope to create a hub of valuable information on what it means to rely on food stamps in Milwaukee, America, and how it can be done healthfully.

According to the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, one in five Milwaukee residents rely on the average $120 per month stipend to help cover the costs of food (2010). Milwaukee county's food stamp program enrollment is consistently higher than the national average, and grew 29% between 2008 and 2009, compared to the nation's 24% growth (UW Milwaukee Employment & Training Institute, 2010).

It is my hope that Milwaukee Manna will become far more than a graduate school project, but the basis for providing, exchanging, and improving the information available to those who need help--a vehicle for sharing more equitably in one of the most basic things we all have in common:

We eat.