Latest from Food Politics: Weekend reading: Flagstaff anti-hunger efforts

In September 2025, I was invited by the Flagstaff Family Food Center to give a talk on “Anti-Hunger Politics 2025: Planting Seeds for Resilience. ”  This is an organization in Northern Arizona doing outstanding anti-hunger work. The Center has ...

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By Marion Nestle June 12 2026 Weekend reading: Flagstaff anti-hunger efforts In September 2025, I was invited by the Flagstaff Family Food Center to give a talk on “Anti-Hunger Politics 2025: Planting Seeds for Resilience.”  This is an organization in Northern Arizona doing outstanding anti-hunger work. The Center has just produced its 2025 Northern Arizona Food Equity Report.  The online copy is here.  It is well worth a look. The Center sent this to me with this message: We hope this resource can serve as a resource for multiple stakeholders across the food landscape, like you. Data and lived experience should always be the guiding light in this work, and we are proud to be part of a community that shares that sentiment and helps carry it out. I wrote the Foreword to the report (see page 4).  Here’s what I said—and I meant every word: It is my honor and privilege to introduce the impressive and utterly compelling 2025 Northern Arizona Food Equity Report. The Flagstaff Family Food Center (FFFC) has done a superb job of collecting what must have been incredibly hard-to-get data on hunger and food insecurity in the rural and tribal communities it serves. These data reveal a shocking truth: many people—even those working full- or part-time—lack sufficient resources to feed themselves and their families and require government and private food assistance to survive. Even working people cannot keep up with the rising costs of housing, rent, utilities, and food. Today, government food assistance programs like SNAP and WIC are under siege and targeted for cuts, not increases. Private groups like FFFC do the best they can to fill the gaps and meet the ever-increasing demands for food assistance, especially from the most vulnerable members of society- -children, the disabled, and seniors. This report presents the stark facts: too many Northern Arizona residents experience food insecurity, and their numbers are rising. It explains the reasons for food insecurity, particularly for these communities, and draws on the lived experience of community members to describe why this problem requires an immediate solution. It describes potential policy solutions, and the reality-based barriers to achieving them. And it presents this critically important information without ever losing sight of the cultural context in which food insecurity occurs in Northern Arizona. These are tough times in America. Northern Arizona is fortunate to have a group like the FFFC doing the hard work and clear thinking needed to solve some of the most difficult problems facing our society today. The post Weekend reading: Flagstaff anti-hunger efforts appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle       Now Available: What to Eat Now My new book, What to Eat Now, is officially out! It's both a field guide to food shopping in America and a reflection on how to eat well—and deliciously. For more information and to order, click here. You can explore the full archive of this (almost) daily blog at foodpolitics.com, where you'll also find information about my books, articles, media interviews, upcoming lectures, favorite resources, and FAQs. Visit the Site » ​​​​​​​ Marion Nestle Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, Emerita © Marion Nestle. You're receiving this email because you've signed up to receive updates from us. If you'd prefer not to receive updates, you can unsubscribe. Safely Unsubscribe • Archives • Preferences • Contact • Subscribe • Privacy

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Latest from Food Politics: Do salmon really get high on cocaine? And will you if you eat it?

I was riveted to come across this item. Coked-Up Salmon Go Speeding Upstream: Have you ever wondered whether the cocaine you snort ends up giving Atlantic salmon the zoomies? It turns out it does—at least to a certain extent. Welcome to the ...

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By Marion Nestle June 11 2026 Do salmon really get high on cocaine? And will you if you eat it? I was riveted to come across this item. Coked-Up Salmon Go Speeding Upstream: Have you ever wondered whether the cocaine you snort ends up giving Atlantic salmon the zoomies? It turns out it does—at least to a certain extent. Welcome to the Salmonopolis 500. No.  It never entered my mind. But now there is a study:  Cocaine pollution alters the movement and space use of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in a large natural lake [Current Biology, 36, 2018-2027.e4] Here, we combine slow-release chemical implants with acoustic telemetry tracking to reveal how environmentally realistic levels of cocaine and its main metabolite, benzoylecgonine, affect the movement of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) smolts in a large natural lake (Lake Vättern, Sweden). Benzoylecgonine exposure increased weekly movement rates of fish in the wild, with exposed fish swimming up to ∼1.9 times farther per week relative to controls. In addition, benzoylecgonine-exposed fish dispersed up to ∼12.3 km farther than control conspecifics. Oh.  They put the cocaine into the fish.  Not a natural experiment. But here’s another study, examining drugs in the natural environment: Pharmaceutical pollution of the world’s rivers  [PNAS:119 (8) e2113947119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113947119] Here, we present the findings of a global reconnaissance of pharmaceutical pollution in rivers. The study monitored 1,052 sampling sites along 258 rivers in 104 countries of all continents, thus representing the pharmaceutical fingerprint of 471.4 million people. We show that the presence of these contaminants in surface water poses a threat to environmental and/or human health in more than a quarter of the studied locations globally. Cocaine did not show up as a major contaminant in this study.  Tylenol does; it is #1. The contaminants with the highest concentrations were paracetamol, caffeine, metformin, fexofenadine, sulfamethoxazole (antimicrobial), metronidazole (antimicrobial), and gabapentin Comment We take a lot of Tylenol and drink a lot of coffee, explaining the two drugs most frequently found in this study.  Lots of people take metformin for type 2 diabetes.  The more drugs we take, the more we pee out, and the more gets into rivers. The investigators found huge socioeconomic inequities in drug contamination.  There were drugs everywhere they sampled, even in Antarctica, but the highest levels were in low- and middle-income countries with unregulated pharmaceutical manufacturing plants, untreated sewage, and waste dumping. Rivers with the lowest drug contamination were in remote areas with few people or those with access to modern medicine, were in places with effective wastewater treatment, or had so much flow that the drugs got diluted. I’m not worried about cocaine in salmon.  And I live in New York City which has outstanding water treatment. Otherwise?  Get a good filter. The post Do salmon really get high on cocaine? And will you if you eat it? appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle      Related Posts Weekend reading: The alcohol-free trend: it’s hot!   Now Available: What to Eat Now My new book, What to Eat Now, is officially out! It's both a field guide to food shopping in America and a reflection on how to eat well—and deliciously. For more information and to order, click here. You can explore the full archive of this (almost) daily blog at foodpolitics.com, where you'll also find information about my books, articles, media interviews, upcoming lectures, favorite resources, and FAQs. Visit the Site » ​​​​​​​ Marion Nestle Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, Emerita © Marion Nestle. You're receiving this email because you've signed up to receive updates from us. If you'd prefer not to receive updates, you can unsubscribe. Safely Unsubscribe • Archives • Preferences • Contact • Subscribe • Privacy

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