Originally Posted by
BD
My wife also volunteers at the local food bank. The issue is that the food is donated based on what is surplus to the suppliers needs, (usually they couldn’t sell it before it went bad). Most of the people in need of nutritional support are not experienced cooks, and do not recognize the possibilities in foodstuffs they are not familiar with, (or that require more than minimal preparation), If the food bank has tons of oranges near the end of their shelf life, it is not realistic to expect these people to come up with lbs of sugar and the equipment to can marmalade. We are in northern Maine, at the very end of the east coast supply chains. A lot of what we see are nuts, and canned goods, little juice cans, dry beans and rice. Occasionally frozen chicken or game meat from the warden service. Many people raised in the processed food cultural norm are at a loss to deal with any unfamiliar bulk food stuff. Education is needed to go along with whatever is available. That takes a faculty volunteers and a little $$. All hard to come by.