Summit meals incorporate Iowans' anti-hunger efforts
Des Moines Register (Iowa) - October 13, 2009 - At today's third annual Iowa Hunger Summit, attendees will spend their day focused on hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity.
And at lunch, they'll get a taste of how Iowa-based anti-hunger efforts make a difference.
A West African groundnut soup. Tuna salad on lettuce. Venison goulash. And a Bosnian soup made from turkey canned in Iowa that's part of a program from the Mennonite Central Committee.
Volunteers got together in Kalona earlier this year for two days. They took skinless, boneless turkey thigh, a dark meat that's cheap and high in protein. They cooked it in six huge pressure cookers inside a 42-foot semitrailer truck that travels to dozens of volunteer locations every year. Each pressure cooker takes two hours to cook enough meat to fill 144 28-ounce tin cans.
"It's sort of bred in us, I guess," said Edwin Miller of Kalona. "The idea is we help our neighbors. It boils down to Christ's teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. Love thy enemies. That's how you get rid of enemies: You help them."
The Kalona volunteers contributed to the more than half a million cans of turkey, pork and beef that Mennonite Central Committee - the relief, development and peace agency of the North American Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches - sent to 15 struggling countries around the world in the past year. The food helps communities affected by war, disaster and malnutrition.
As attendees eat lunch, Vicki Escarra, president of the domestic hunger-relief charity Feeding America, will give a keynote address. Summit organizers will announce the state's contribution to the fight against hunger in the past year. The event kicks off a weeklong series of events related to the World Food Prize.
At last year's Iowa Hunger Summit, organizers announced that Iowans had donated more than $6 million in the past year to fight hunger and that 17.2 million pounds of food were gathered or distributed.
Along with the Bosnian turkey soup made with Mennonite-canned turkey, three other meals at the luncheon will incorporate examples of Iowans fighting hunger:
- The West African groundnut soup includes soy that comes from a Cargill plant in Iowa. The Cargill soy is provided to food aid and nutrition programs overseas by the World Initiative for Soy in Human Health.
- The tuna salad on lettuce, with brown rice and green beans, was developed with the Des Moines Area Religious Council, which operates food pantries in town. This meal is constructed to meet nutritional needs for people with diabetes.
- The venison goulash recipe is recommended by the Food Bank of Iowa for venison that's provided by hunters through a Department of Natural Resources program in which hunters can donate their deer to a meat locker. The meat is sent to shelters, food banks and service agencies.
