Thread: Going Hungry in America’s Bread Basket

Going Hungry in America’s Bread Basket

New America Media, News Report, Viji Sundaram and Ketaki Gokhale, Posted: Aug 11, 2008

Editor’s Note: A small farming community near Fresno is reeling under the impact of the economic downturn and the drought. As a result hundreds are going hungry in the middle of America’s breadbasket, reports NAM health reporters Viji Sundaram and Ketaki Gokhale. Photographs by Ketaki Gokhale

MENDOTA, Calif.—Early each morning these days, the manager of Mendota Food Center on Derrick Avenue in this small community west of Fresno, boxes his aging produce, which he would normally throw away, and leaves it at the back of his store.

Within an hour, the boxes are all gone.

“It shows there’s hunger in Mendota, and people will take anything,â€

Gonzalez’s grocery bags contained cans of diced tomatoes, grapefruit juice, pink salmon (for her pet cat),

What, no Novalox at $8 per package for six slices?