The nutrition sites in the blogosphere have been spreading the word that the nation’s food pantries are in trouble. I’ve been noticing that more and more grocery stores, in lieu of open donation bins, are putting together packages that they ask their customers to purchase for $5 or $10. This is very convenient for people who want to contribute - pay your $5 or $10 and you’re done. The problem with these packages is that the food in them is not very nutritious - things like dry pasta and rice, which are already over-represented in the diet of the poor. The best I can say is that most of the bags contain a jar of peanut butter, but it is probably some national brand that is loaded with trans fat and sugar.
So I thought I’d buy a bunch of cans of tuna and salmon and drop them off at some local food pantry. I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t know where the food pantries are in my community, so I googled and found this list:
http://www.cambridgema.gov/DHSP2/meals1.cfm
The first thing I noticed when reading this was how restrictive their hours are. They are almost always during the workday, and often just a couple of hours of the day. I don’t mean to bust on the volunteers who run the places (and I am sure these organizations have few, if any, paid staff), but I can’t imagine how a single, working parent who is struggling to make ends meet could make it to one of these places.
Migraine aura picture from 
