Kate Manchester, publisher of Edible Santa Fe, talks with Steve Warshawer of Beneficial Farms and Josh Veirtel, the President of Slow Food USA.

Food insecurity, obesity, diabetes, hunger, and federal food assistance- these are the topics of the day on It's More Than Food. In the debut episode, host Michel Nischan is talking with two guests about food access. Lori Silverbush is the Co-director of the A Place at the Table, a film that highlights hunger's economic, social, and cultural implications for our nation. Janet Poppendieck is a Professor of Sociology at Hunter College, and the author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America and Bread Lines Knee Deep in Wheat. Find out about the cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Why so many Americans view SNAP participants as 'welfare queens', and how do negative opinions of low-income people feed the problem of food insecurity. Listen to Michel, Lori, and Janet discuss some stories from A Place at the Table, and how people of all ages are affected by a lack of healthy food in their communities. Later, hear Michel and Janet talk about emergency food's affect on our everyday culture, and the importance of a living wage in establishing food security. How do initiatives like Green Carts help to provide access to healthy food in food deserts and create jobs? Find out on the first installment of It's More Than Food! This program has been brought to you by Wholesome Wave.

"SNAP has the lowest fraud rate of any federal entitlement program. It's at less than 1%." [5:00] -- Lori Silverbush on It's More Than Food

"The great bulk of our food assistance does not any longer hinge on surplus commodities. So in a way, the new paradox is between diet related disease, and people that are not getting the food that they need." [15:55]

"One of the ways that emergency food affects our culture is as a moral safety valve. It makes us feel better." [40:00]

"The poor, in the United States, are poorer than they've ever been. They're further out of the middle. The poverty line is now obsolete, there are more people living outside of the mainstream." [23:50]

-- Janet Poppendieck on It's More Than Food

Tanya Tolchin and her husband Scott Hertzberg run a small diversified vegetable, flower, and herb farm called Jug Bay Market Garden (www.jugbaymarketgarden). The farm is located 20 miles outside Washington, DC and markets primarily through a CSA that delivers to Capitol Hill. Her first farm experience was on the Food Bank Farm in Western Massachusetts and later she worked on farms in Connecticut, England, and Israel. Tanya also worked for 10 years as an organizer and lobbyist for Sierra Club on issues ranging from protecting national forests to protecting workers and communities from toxic chemicals and forming alliances with labor unions. Now she is focused on her role as a full time mother of two young children and the farm’s bookkeeper, marketer, cheerleader and writer. Sometimes she can even be caught getting her hands dirty like the good old days, planting, weeding, picking and packing. Tanya is also trying to actualize her long time dream of being a writer, starting with freelance farm writing, blogging, and the occasional poem. You can read her blog at www.thelettuceedge.com.