Man-made starvation. Humanitarian catastrophe. Genocide. These words are starting to become a refrain. And yet still too many are staying silent as the situation in Gaza deteriorates. Some humanitarian aid is finally breaking through the Israeli blockade, but the damage already done is unfathomable. On Tuesday, the World Food Programme officially announced Gaza is on the brink of a full-scale famine.

According to the WFP:

• More than 1 in 3 people are now going days at a time without eating
• Nearly a quarter of Gaza’s population is “enduring famine-like conditions”
• In Gaza City, malnutrition among children under 5 has quadrupled in two months to 16.5%

And, WFP notes, reports of starvation-related deaths are increasing, but “collecting robust data under current circumstances in Gaza remains very difficult as health systems, already decimated by nearly three years of conflict, are collapsing.” According to the World Health Organization, 63 Gazans have died of starvation this month alone, including 25 children. The agency reported that, as CNN describes, Gaza’s “barely functioning hospitals and clinics,” dealt with more than 11,500 children seeking treatment for malnutrition in June and July.

Amid these conditions, chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen resumed aid in Gaza, and Andrés penned an op-ed in The New York Times. “Our teams on the ground are committed and resilient, but our day-to-day ability to sustain cooking operations remains uncertain,” Andrés wrote. WCK had been forced to halt its work in Gaza in May after running out of supplies, and their volunteers were no longer able to obtain ingredients due to Israel shutting down border crossings in March. WCK had served more than 130 million meals and 26 million loaves of bread in Gaza over the first 18 months of the war.

Well before the hunger crisis escalated, this latest war between Israel and Gaza was already one of the deadliest and most destructive conflicts since World War II. A ceasefire, many including the United Nations say, is the only way to make sure the entire population of Gaza will have access to enough food—and the chance to survive this man-made starvation.

As Fresh Take readers, you know that I have not been quiet on what’s been transpiring in Palestine, or the unprecedented federal cuts to global humanitarian aid in the past five months, or the many other regions around the world where food has been twisted into a weapon of war, from Yemen to Sudan.

To be blunt, if you think what’s happening in Gaza is bad—and it is so very bad—there are some places where the situation is even worse. According to WFP, Sudan is currently the only place in the world where famine has been confirmed, and there are at least 10 regions where famine is present there, particularly in northern Sudan. The country has faced decades of conflict, and its most recent one, which started a few months before war broke out in Gaza, has created “the worst displacement crisis in the world.”

I share this because it’s too easy to get wrapped up in the news, and it’s also too easy to shut down and drown it all out. While it’s crucial to protect our peace, we should not use that as an excuse to avoid interrogating the systems that enable these catastrophes in the first place.

— Chloe Sorvino

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Let’s Hang

Preserving the bounty from my terrace garden helps me feel in control in an out-of-control world. To that end, I’ve been working towards my certification through Cornell as a Master Food Preserver, and I’m excited to share what I’ve learned with you. I’m going to be leading workshops on preservation of all kinds, both in-person and online, and my first is this Saturday. Join me as I explain how to dry medicinal herbs at a city-owned farm in Staten Island on August 2 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. I’d love to see you there! RSVP here.

The Feed

The Call Is Coming From Inside The House: It’s been deeply concerning to witness the widespread dismantling of climate regulations and policies that protect consumers and farmers from harmful chemicals and pollution. Just in the past week, there’s been major changes which will impact everyone.

The Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill, for example, passed a vote in the House Appropriations Committee including provisions that, according to Beyond Pesticides, “shields pesticide companies from lawsuits by those harmed from pesticide product use and limits states’ authority to regulate pesticides.” The bill also has another section which prohibits any EPA action on PFAS.

Then the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the reintroduction of dicamba—the previously banned herbicide with links to cancer and other serious health risks—for farms growing genetically engineered soybeans and cotton. Past court rulings on dicamba have taken years, the AP notes.

And because that all wasn’t enough, on Tuesday the EPA proposed revoking a 2009 rule known as “the endangerment finding” that is the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gas emissions because they threaten human health. The move would rollback much of the Clean Air Act. Agriculture is one of top sectors responsible for greenhouse gases, emitting 10% of the nation’s total. As Christy Goldfuss, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the AP: “As Americans reel from deadly floods and heat waves, the Trump administration is trying to argue that the emissions turbocharging these disasters are not a threat.” She added that “the EPA wants to shirk its responsibility to protect us from climate pollution, but science and the law say otherwise. If EPA finalizes this illegal and cynical approach, we will see them in court.”

Drain The Swamp Redux: As the Trump Administration did during the first term, the USDA is moving its employees out of Washington, D.C. According to Politico, the plan doesn’t include a large reduction in the agriculture department’s workforce, but a fair amount of workers are expected to leave before moving out of the district. The federal workers will be split up across five regions: Salt Lake City; Fort Collins, Colorado; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; and Raleigh, North Carolina.

SUMMERMAXXING

My next recommendation is a classic: When was the last time you updated your Ball jars? According to a recent Ball consumer survey, 63% of Americans want to start canning to support healthier eating habits.

And as I put my Master Food Preservation certification into use, I’ve been loving using these jars for pretty much everything—from brewing tea from fresh garden herbs to making pickles, hot sauce and strawberry top-infused vinegars. As I’ve gone all in, I’ve learned more about how much time and resources Ball invests into its product research and development. Ball, which is owned by publicly traded Newell Brands, has the biggest staff dedicated to mason jars of any business in America and the lengths that the team goes to innovate on these timeless pieces has been fascinating to me. Ball invests more than any other company, and, aside from the USDA and schools with some public funding, they also represent the biggest tester of preservation recipes in the U.S. As Stephen Galucki, product development manager at Ball, told me, “If you spend a whole summer growing a cucumber, when you go to make a pickle, you want that jar to seal. You want it to work. We are always driving back to how people will be using our products and how to give them the confidence that when you go to do that final step, the jar is the least bit of your concern.”

In The News

Following my interview with the BBC earlier this month, The New York Times featured my work on mozzarella cheese billionaire James Leprino, who commercialized pizza cheese as we know it today and died at age 87 in June. As the only journalist who ever got Leprino to sit for an interview, I have been enjoying seeing this nearly decade-old work get a new lease on life. His company Leprino Foods, America’s largest mozzarella supplier, turns 75 this year. And the NYT pulled extensively from my Forbes feature as well as the interview I did with NPR’s Marketplace after it was published.

Field Notes

My garden is in full bloom! Here’s a recent terrace harvest of cherry tomatoes, as well as jalapeño and cayenne peppers.

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