Food Rescue by Becky Mang
Becky Mang gleans potatoes as a Food Rescue volunteer, part of the Health Harvest program she championed.
This Women’s History Month, we want to celebrate the women who have driven Food Rescue since its creation. First among them in Becky Mang, who has been our number one advocate right from the beginning. Her passion for service and her abiding belief in our work has shaped who we are and what we do in innumerable ways. She took the time to share her story with us in this beautiful piece.
Baby boomers like me would agree that by growing up in post World War II America, we were part of the first generation of Americans introduced not to just a new, more modern way of living, but to a brand new way of eating. Families that for generations had been part of a strong family farming tradition, and scratch cooking, were sold on a brand new food culture.
Every form of media available at the time encouraged our mothers to catch on to this much improved, time saving and convenient way of shopping, preparing, and ultimately serving family meals. Foods like canned Campbell soups, Del Monte fruit cocktail, and instant Tang (preferred by the Astronauts) filled cupboards while frozen TV dinners packed our freezers. And then, of course, the ultimate time saver — fast food drive-ins like White Castle, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and McDonalds — entered the food chain.
Two things regarding the politics of food that I learned while in college remain relevant for me even today. They informed my decision to change my view of and approach to the culture of food that had become the norm in my home and was being introduced all over the world.
By supporting my neighbor farmers and their sustainable agriculture as well as purchasing from and working at our local food co-op, I could participate in a healthy food system. The Co-op movement of the 60s and 70s had enormous energy for change and I believe was the beginning for many a return to their natural food roots.
My second awakening came after I read Diet for a Small Planet, Frances Moore Lappe’s first book on the politics of food systems. She explained that the corporate food model, which included factory meat and egg production as well as a heavy reliance on the use of chemical fertilizers and herbicides, did not guarantee that, as promised, the world would be fed. This new model turned out to be more of a strain and less of a solution for world hunger. As Lappe said in her book, “The real cause of hunger is the powerlessness of the poor to gain access to the resources they need to feed themselves.” That book encouraged me to grow, purchase, and prepare foods that require less chemical energy, are kinder to plants and animals, and healthier to eat. She also gave me examples of how I could become less meat dependent for protein in a food culture that insisted meat was necessary for good health.
Fast forward 40 years and our community was given a chance to help start an organization that not only saved food from going to a landfill, but also offered healthy food to our local food pantries and community meal sites, as well as purchasing and distributing healthy food, grown sustainably, by our local farming community.
Goodwill Northern Michigan, the Food Rescue staff, Groundwork Center and the Northwest Michigan Food Coalition have been outstanding partners in Food Rescue’s evolution from one truck and one driver to a main food hub with a fleet of trucks and staff. We are so lucky and proud to be part of watching it grow.