Food

USDA policy changes threaten SNAP eligibility

About one quarter of Californians who use Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits would lose or decrease their benefits if the USDA Food and Nutrition Service enacts a proposed rule change to the program.

Homesteading organization shows Oaklanders the rewards of urban gardening

It’s chock full of collard greens. And figs. And chickens. On Saturday, visitors meandered through the bushy rows of produce in the community garden at the corner of 33rd and West Streets, in the expansive lot belonging to Hoover Elementary School. Between the vegetation, visitors could see pops of color from mosaics and decorative wooden poles with glittery streamers floating in the soft breeze. Volunteers picked at a ten-foot-high mulch pile, filling loads into a wheelbarrow before spreading them across…

New community hub aims to bring non-profit services under one roof

It was a record shop. Then it sat empty. Now it’s a community hub for non-profits. And at its housewarming party on Friday night, a crowd of roughly 250 people crammed into the space belonging to Restore Oakland, Inc. to learn about how it would be available for Fruitvale residents to use. Before making their way into the space, guests and curious onlookers watched a powerful and colorful performance from Danza Azteca Cuauhtonal, a group that practices indigenous cultural rites….

Eat Real Festival cultivates local food

The 11th annual Eat Real Festival at Jack London Square this weekend drew in thousands of people with an appetite. Food trucks, environmental advocacy booths, and stalls serving locally-sourced food and drink fed a steady crowd hungry for new flavors. Eat Real is a food festival where lines become masses, and sensory overload is, above all, driven by the nose—between the yeasty pungency of beer, smoky slow-cooked southern-style barbeque, and the thickness of frying oil. Among the dozens of vendors…

Alameda County Food Bank encourages political action during Hunger Action Month

Every September, the Alameda County Community Food Bank joins a network of 200 food banks nationwide for Hunger Action Month to promote volunteering, social media activity and advocacy to raise awareness about food insecurity, a term food bank staffers, activists and the government organizations use to mean that people lack access to enough safe, nutritious food to be healthy.