Tennille Allen - Food Inequalities

F OOD I NEQUALITIES

Recent Titles in

Health and Medical Issues Today

Concussions

William Paul Meehan III

Drug Resistance

Sarah E. Boslaugh

Work-Life Balance

Janice Arenofsky

The Body Size and Health Debate

Christine L. B. Selby

Obesity, Second Edition

Evelyn B. Kelly

Infertility Treatments

Janice Arenofsky

Assistive Technology for People with Disabilities

Denis K. Anson

Transgender Health Issues

Sarah Boslaugh

The Vaccine Debate

Tish Davidson

Stem Cells, Second Edition

Evelyn B. Kelly

Prescription Drug Abuse

Robert L. Bryant and Howard L. Forman

Universal Healthcare

Claudio Buttic

Genetic Testing

Sarah Boslaugh

Internet Addiction

Kathryn Vercillo

F OOD I NEQUALITIES

Tennille Nicole Allen

Health and Medical Issues Today

Copyright 2021 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Allen, Tennille Nicole, author.

Title: Food inequalities / Tennille Nicole Allen.

Description: Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO, 2021. | Series: Health and medical issues today | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020043402 (print) | LCCN 2020043403 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440864308 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781440864315 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Food supplyGovernment policyUnited States. | Food supplyUnited States. | EqualityUnited States.

Classification: LCC HD9006 .A785 2021 (print) | LCC HD9006 (ebook) | DDC 338.1/973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020043402

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020043403

ISBN: 978-1-4408-6430-8 (print)

978-1-4408-6431-5 (ebook)

252423222112345

This book is also available as an eBook.

Greenwood

An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

ABC-CLIO, LLC

147 Castilian Drive

Santa Barbara, California 93117

www.abc-clio.com

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to all of those working on and in the ground to ensure that we move from food apartheid and food injustice to food sovereignty and food justice.

C ONTENTS

Every day, the public is bombarded with information on developments in medicine and health care. Whether it is on the latest techniques in treatment or research, or on concerns over public health threats, this information directly affects the lives of people more than almost any other issue. Although there are many sources for understanding these topicsfrom Web sites and blogs to newspapers and magazinesstudents and ordinary citizens often need one resource that makes sense of the complex health and medical issues affecting their daily lives.

The Health and Medical Issues Today series provides just such a one-stop resource for obtaining a solid overview of the most controversial areas of health care in the 21st century. Each volume addresses one topic and provides a balanced summary of what is known. These volumes provide an excellent first step for students and lay people interested in understanding how health care works in our society today.

Each volume is broken into several parts to provide readers and researchers with easy access to the information they need:

provides overview chapters on background informationincluding chapters on such areas as the historical, scientific, medical, social, and legal issues involvedthat a citizen needs to intelligently understand the topic.

provides capsule examinations of the most heated contemporary issues and debates, and analyzes in a balanced manner the viewpoints held by various advocates in the debates.

provides case studies that show examples of the concepts discussed in the previous parts.

A selection of reference material, such as a directory of organizations and a bibliography, serve as the best next step in learning about the topic at hand.

The Health and Medical Issues Today series strives to provide readers with all the information needed to begin making sense of some of the most important debates going on in the world today. The series includes volumes on such topics as stem-cell research, obesity, gene therapy, alternative medicine, organ transplantation, mental health, and more.

As the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) disease began its spread in the United States, it soon became clear that in addition to a health crisis, it would create and deepen food crises and inequality. In addition to health concerns, COVID-19 has created numerous food-related concerns, including those surrounding access, supply, and employment. COVID-19 has meant that many children have been unable to access free and reduced lunches at their schools. Many farmers fields have lain fallow. Some farmworkers have lost employment, while others are forced to work longer hours under increasingly unsafe conditions. Farm and processing workers are compelled to go to work, whether sick or well, for fear of losing needed hours and missing out on COVID-prompted, promised perfect-attendance bonuses. Some fast-food workers have been told they may not wear masks, and others have been verbally harassed or physically assaulted by customers who refuse to follow government rules and company policy and put theirs on. Contingent workers have had to go grocery shopping or make restaurant deliveries for those able to shelter in place. Untold numbers of people have lost income that would have gone to food. They join those who have had to stand in line for hours to get food from the declining number of open food pantries and soup kitchens. And this has all been in just the early stages of the pandemic.

A March 2020 report from the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) entitled What Food Workers on the Front Lines Need Right Now discusses the vulnerabilities of food workers during the COVID-19 crisis. The report supports the long-held assertions of food workers, their allies, and activists on the importance of their work. Still, in the United States, these workers lack many vital health, economic, and other protections that many nonessential workers continue to enjoy even as they work from home. Through the crisis, food workers are forced to work in very close proximity to others and are not assured the ability to practice social distancing. They often are given inadequate to no supplies such as running water, soap, hand sanitizer, and protective equipment. There has also been a lack of guidance and implementation of safety protocols to limit their exposure to COVID-19. Food workers working conditions did not shift to offer them the pay, protections, or benefits, such as health care and paid leave, that would have been commensurate with the importance of their labor.

At the same time, many food workers in the restaurant and other parts of the hospitality industry have lost their jobs in the wake of businesses closing their doors to halt the spread of COVID-19 or as declining revenues forced them to do so. Those restaurant and other hospitality workers who remain employed have seen their wages and tips significantly reduced as patrons dwindle and service models switch from dining-in to take-out. The FCWA further highlights the particularly marginalized position of food workers in the informal labor market who do not enjoy even the meager labor protections offered in the formal labor market.