A diet fueled by food stamps is making South Texans obese but leaving them hungry

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59. We already have the knowledge and government publications

To work on educating people about healthy eating and economically buying and cooking. Cooperative Extension System Offices across the country have that information. http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/

With the shift from rural to urban needs for their services, those offices have not kept up in many states - but they could be the way to educate people on wise food buying, preparation, and nutrition.

In fact, they ALREADY have ongoing programs: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/nutrition.cfm

They had grants last year for just this kind of program - that would be worth communities checking on: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/fo/fundview.cfm?fonum=1080

Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP)

The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) is designed to assist limited resource audiences in acquiring the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and changed behavior necessary for nutritionally sounds diets, and to contribute to their personal development and the improvement of the total family diet and nutritional well-being.http://www.nifa.usda.gov/nea/food/efnep/efnep.html

SNAP-Ed

SNAP-Ed (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – Education) is a federal/state partnership that supports nutrition education for persons eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).* Two key federal partners are NIFA and the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). FNS determines national policies and procedures, monitors state programs, and reimburses states for up to half of program costs. NIFA facilitates communication among federal, state, and local partners, and provides programmatic leadership to university contractors for effective nutrition education through the land-grant system.

These associated web pages are primarily for administrators of SNAP-Ed programs and networks hosted by the Land-Grant University System and the Association of State Nutrition Network Administrators (ASNNA), which conduct social marketing campaigns. Other SNAP-Ed contractors and non-affiliated professionals involved in other education programs for low-income audiences may also find the information of value.
http://www.nifa.usda.gov/nea/food/fsne/fsne.html

This should be part of food assistance programs - SNAP, MIC, or food banks. It would help people make better of what food they do get and help them be healthier.

Heck, people not in a program could learn from programs like this or from the free publications available!

Instead of ranting about poor choices or ignorance, we should be pushing for these programs to be used more in communities where these stories emerge. (Laelth, not aimed at you, but at other posts in this thread.)

ETA: Later in the OP article they talkabout these kinds of programs - which are being cut:

Later that same afternoon, Luisa Colin and Jessica Rueda grabbed their nutrition brochures and their plastic vegetables and headed toward the Mexican border to do that kind of teaching. They had been working together for three years as nutrition educators, paid in part by the USDA to instill better eating habits in low-income families. Theirs was the government-sponsored solution.

“If only people had the basic knowledge,” Colin said.

“If they just understand their choices,” Rueda said.

The two women drove out of McAllen and into the desert until the paved roads gave way to gravel, and the gravel gave way to a roller coaster of irrigation ditches and rocks. Two miles from the border, they stopped at a collection of a few hundred ramshackle houses called Little Mexico where residents had built their own homes using drywall and scrap metal. The community had no running water and only intermittent electricity. Chickens wandered through the streets and a donkey stood in an intersection eating trash. Two children ran outside to greet them, and Rueda asked them in Spanish, “Is your mom home? I’d like to talk to her about something.”

Her job was to walk through the neighborhood and enroll women in nutrition classes that would improve their diets: better portion sizes, more dark-green vegetables and whole grains, fresh fish instead of ground beef, at least 30 minutes of exercise each day. These were the tenets of their work. Research showed that every $1 spent on nutrition education saved the government $10 in future health-care costs. But lately, the USDA had cut funding for nutrition programs by 25 percent and Congress was threatening cuts again. A dozen nutrition workers in Hidalgo County had been steadily reduced to six devoted women who worked 60-hour weeks to keep pace with the rising need. Now, in some of her conversations, Rueda’s goals had become more basic: to keep people nourished and living, she said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2013/11/09/too-much-of-too-little/?tid=ts_carousel

(Underlining added.)