Food Drink Archives - Page 14 of 37

On the breadline: inflation overwhelms Europe’s food banks

Posted on28/03/202408/08/2023Author

With no job and speaking little of the language, Olena Vinykova has relied on her local food bank to cope with the “very hard” situation she found herself in since fleeing Ukraine for Germany seven months ago. If she had arrived any later, her situation could have been even worse.

Surging food and fuel prices mean millions more people in Germany are struggling to make ends meet, forcing many food banks to shut their doors to thousands of new applicants. That includes the one used by Vinykova in Friedberg, about 15 miles north of Frankfurt.

The former nurse, who left her husband and grown-up children in Bakhmut, now on the front line of Ukraine’s war with Russia, asked the Financial Times to “say thank you” to the volunteers for their “amazing” work.

Across Europe food bank use is soaring as the highest inflation for a generation hits the region’s poorest, who spend a greater proportion of their income on energy and food, the hardest.

Charities from Spain to Latvia report 20 to 30 per cent higher demand than last year and expect a further increase this winter. In Bulgaria, one of the poorest countries in the EU, there was a three-quarters jump between September and October in people using the national food bank, according to the country’s food bank director Tzanka Milanova. “Inflation is gnawing away at people’s finances,” said Milanova. “More people end up below the poverty line.” Government bodies have exhausted their budgets for food aid, forcing Bulgarian charities to turn to food banks.

Over a third of Germany’s 962 food banks — called Tafel — have stopped taking new applicants beyond the 2mn they already help. This is the first time many have taken such a drastic step, after which demand rose more than 50 per cent this year for access to the fruit, vegetables, bread and other essentials they collect from shops and donors.

“We could double the number of customers if we took everyone who asked,” said Peter Radl, chair of the Friedberg food bank, which provides a basket of supplies every two weeks to 700 families, of which about 130 come from Ukraine. “But space is limited, we have a total of 120 baskets, and there is only so much our volunteers can do,” he added.

“It is surprising for a rich country like Germany to have so many people who cannot afford to feed themselves properly,” said Katja Bernhard, a board member of the food bank association for the Hesse region.

Yet soaring energy prices, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have pushed over a quarter of the German population into “fuel poverty” — defined as spending more than 10 per cent of income on energy — up from 14.5 per cent last year, according to the country’s council of economic experts.

More than a fifth of the EU population was already unable to heat their home sufficiently last year, before the latest price surge, according to the latest data from Eurostat, the EU statistics agency.

In November, eurozone price growth slowed for the first time in 17 months, dipping from 10.6 per cent to 10 per cent. But this was little consolation for people struggling to make ends meet, especially when average wages have risen only 4 per cent in the past year.

Peter Radl, chair of the Friedberg food bank: ‘We could double the number of customers if we took everyone who asked’ © Martin Arnold/FT

Energy prices across the single currency area are still almost 35 per cent higher than a year ago, while food, alcohol and tobacco cost more than 13 per cent extra, according to Eurostat.

The price of some essentials has risen even faster. In the wider EU, milk prices have soared 43 per cent in the past year, while pork costs 55 per cent more and Japonica rice 68 per cent more.

In central and eastern Europe, the cost of staples has increased even more sharply. In Hungary, bread prices have risen by 80 per cent over the past year. There, the national food bank works via a network of charitable groups, which has expanded by almost a quarter to 530 this year. Its spokesman András Nagygyörgy estimates it helps 221,000 people, adding: “Since the start of the inflationary spiral, we have been witnessing an inflow of organizations.”

Giovanni Bruno, president of the Italian food bank foundation, estimated an additional 85,000 people had sought their help this year. “Many people who ask for food are now young, even students trying to save money to pay electricity or heating bills,” he said.

Inflation has also led to a fall in the amount of

Add These Honey-Glazed Fried Dough Balls to Your List of Favorite Hanukkah Recipes

Posted on20/03/202408/08/2023Author

The Festival of Lights would not be complete without delicious Hanukkah foods to keep the celebrations going (for all eight nights!). Observed on the Hebrew calendar date of 25 Kislev — Sunday, December 18th this year — the holiday recognizes the rededication of Jerusalem’s Holy Temple during the second century BC As the story goes, the Maccabees revolted against Greek occupiers and recaptured the temple. They needed to burn a candelabra for eight days in succession in order to rededicate the temple, but they only had enough oil for one day. Miraculously, the candles stayed lit the entire time, which is why we celebrate the “Festival of Lights” today.

Traditional Hanukkah recipes use oil to commemorate the same oil that keeps the lights burning, which often means fried food — and lots of it! In the spirit of the holiday, we rounded up our favorite crisp latkes and fluffy, jelly-filled sufganiyot — and because one cannot live off fried food for all eight nights — we also gathered mains like juicy roast chicken, salmon and brisket. Low on time? There are plenty of easy Hanukkah dishes — try our 3-ingredient applesauce — in addition to the more involved projects that are well worth the effort.

So brush up on your Hanukkah facts and make the most of the holiday with an abundance of snacks, Hanukkah appetizers and Hanukkah desserts. (Pro tip: You can never have too many!)

Higher food prices worsen hunger crisis this holiday season

Posted on26/02/202408/08/2023Author

WASHINGTON (AP) — Staffers at Bread for the City, a venerable charity in the nation’s capital, thought they were prepared for this year’s annual pre-Thanksgiving Holiday Helpers food giveaway. The pandemic had faded, but inflation was high, so they budgeted to give out 12,000 meals, 20% higher than normal pre-pandemic levels.

But they were quickly overwhelmed, with long lines of clients waiting hours to receive a free turkey and a $50 debit card for groceries. They were forced to shut down three days early after helping 16,000 people, much more than anticipated.

“We don’t want to retraumatize our community by having them wait outside four hours for a turkey,” said Ashley Domm, the charity’s chief development officer. “We are not set up to have hundreds of people lined up on a city street.”

Bread for the City’s experience reflects a larger dynamic playing out across the country. What many Americans hoped would be the first normal holiday season in three years has instead been thrown into a heightened hunger crisis once again, with Christmas on the horizon.

A September report by the Urban Institute estimated that about 1 in 5 adults experienced household food insecurity last summer, about the same as during the first year of the pandemic but a sharp increase from the spring of 2021. Black and Hispanic adults reported higher rates of food insecurity than their white counterparts, according to the report.

“In the pandemic, nobody had jobs and nobody had money,” said Nancy Murphy, a 45-year old caregiver picking up a frozen turkey and groceries last week from a giveaway at the Redeemed Christian Church of God New Wine Assembly church in northeast Washington . “Now they’re back at their jobs but the money isn’t going far enough. It’s still hard.”

The government estimates food prices will be up 9.5% to 10.5% this year. And that’s squeezing the budgets of many Americans and the food banks that have helped them, especially with the expiration of the massive flow of pandemic relief aid.

“ Inflation has been the story of the year,” said Michael Altfest, director of community engagement at the Alameda County Food Bank in Oakland, California.

Altfest said the level of community need remains 50% to 70% higher than pre-pandemic levels, and about 30% of calls to the food bank’s emergency helpline are from first-time callers.

In multiple cases, charities and food banks had prepared for increased numbers due to inflation, only to find the level of need had far exceeded their projections.

The Capital Area Food Bank in Washington originally projected it would need to distribute about 43 million meals during the July 2022-June 2023 budget year. Now four months into that fiscal year, it is already 22% ahead of those predictions.

“That was an educated prediction with a good four or five months of information,” said the food bank’s CEO, Radha Muthiah. “We are always thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas right when everybody’s heading to the beach in summer.”

In Illinois, Jim Conwell of the Greater Chicago Food bank says the need remains elevated. “So we’re purchasing more and we’re spending more on what we do purchase,” he said.

His organization’s network served about 30% more households in August 2022, compared to the previous August.

“Families that were just getting their feet back underneath them are experiencing a whole new challenge or even if they have employment, or have several jobs or sources of income, it’s just not going as far as it was two years ago,” he said.

Higher prices are forcing people to make “sacrifices on their food,” Altfest said.

For example, he said, the price of chicken has more than doubled — from 78 cents per pound last year to $1.64 per pound this year. Estimates from the Farm Bureau set the cost of turkey as 21 percent higher than last year. And market researcher Data assembly estimates that a 16-ounce box of stuffing costs 14% more than last year, while a 5-pound bag of Russet potatoes averages 45.5% more.

Mike Manning, president of the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank in Louisiana, draws a distinction between the increased hunger levels sparked by the pandemic and the current crisis. During the pandemic, millions of people’s jobs and incomes have essentially disappeared, creating an immediate wave of need that he compared to the aftermath of a hurricane.

But the current crisis has been a slow and steady rise, starting in late February and still climbing. Manning said his food bank has seen a 10% to 15% rise in local food insecurity in just the past two months.

“You’re talking to people who are on lower incomes and they’re working multiple jobs — just think of the cost of them to get from one job to the other with the gas eating