For more than 50 years, activists in New York City have been fighting to end hunger, increase access to healthy affordable food, improve the pay and working conditions of food workers, reduce food-related pollution and climate change, end food apartheid, and improve school and other institutional food. As New York prepares for city elections [...]
In the coming weeks, the city, state, and federal governments will be formulating, debating, and voting on their budgets for the next fiscal year. The budget decisions that legislators and Mayors, Governors, and the President make will influence many aspects of our lives, including spending on public food benefits, food security, nutrition programs, institutional [...]
In their newest book, "Feeding Each Other: Shaping Change in Food Systems through Relationship" (Changemakers Books, 2023), food systems educator Nicole Civita and story justice activist Michelle Auerbach argue that trying to "feed the world" is accelerating the collapse of environmental, economic, and social structures. By blending research, insights from diverse thinkers, and lived [...]
On September 28th, join us for a panel discussion on the topic of mutual aid and its importance in supporting our communities during times of crisis. In recent years, mutual aid has gained momentum as a movement that promotes the idea of collective care and solidarity amongst community members. Our panel will explore the [...]
On April 27, join us for a book talk by Dr. Eduardo J. Gómez, Associate Professor and the Director of the Institute of Health Policy and Politics in the College of Health at Lehigh University, on his newest book “Junk Food Politics: How Beverage and Fast Food Industries Are Reshaping Emerging Economies” (Johns Hopkins [...]
School meals are an important source of nutrition for the approximately 1.1 million students who attend New York City’s public schools, especially for those students who come from very low-income households. Since the 2017-2018 academic year, New York City has adopted universal free school lunch throughout the city’s more than 1,000 public elementary, middle and [...]
On February 24, join us for a book talk by Dr. Naa Oyo A. Kwate, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Human Ecology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, on her newest book "White Burgers, Black Cash: Fast Food from Black Exclusion to Exploitation" (Forthcoming by University of Minnesota Press, 2023). Dr. [...]
A panel discussion to assess the potential and limits of the concept of ultraprocessed food to inform food policy and advocacy. Recent research suggests that ultraprocessed food – industrially prepared food high in fats, sugar, salt, additives and preservatives – makes a major contribution to the global and local rise in premature deaths [...]
Drawing on the seminal work of food policy scholars, activists, and trailblazers Marion Nestle and Robert Gottlieb, this urban food policy forum focuses on the key question of how to combine food policy scholarship and activism and examines it through an intergenerational dialogue. The two authors and guest speakers' most recent books, Slow Cooked: An Unexpected Life in Food Politics (Nestle, 2022; University of California Press) and Care-Centered Politics: From the Home to the Planet (Gottlieb, 2022; MIT Press), will inform and frame this timely exchange. Nestle and Gottlieb will be joined by CUNY students who will facilitate the discussion and share their views and questions on this and related food policy and activism topics. Join us on December 15 for this virtual CUNY Urban Food Policy Forum!
This urban food policy forum focuses on the key question of how to translate into action some of the core ideas and solutions put forward at the 2022 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health and the concurrently released National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. Invited guest speakers will offer insights into this question in the context of three central food policy goals: making free school meals available to all, ending college food insecurity, and reducing corporate influences on community food environments, including through reducing predatory marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to young people. On November 17, join us for this virtual Urban Food Policy Forum!
This forum will address the policy dimensions of using institutional food procurement — or the food purchased with public dollars through government agencies and government-funded institutions — to advance racial equity. What are some of the different policy options and implementation strategies to achieve greater racial equity in the food system by leveraging the [...]
Predatory marketing describes the practice of aggressive advertising of products known to damage health. A growing literature documents that predatory marketing of unhealthy food, alcohol, tobacco and other harmful products increases premature deaths and preventable illnesses and widens racial/ethnic, income, gender and other inequities in health. This session explores the strengths and weaknesses of [...]
