The White House is hosting its first summit on hunger and nutrition in more than 50 years, and Massachusetts’ own U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern was one of the driving forces behind it. McGovern called into Boston Public Radio from Washington, D.C., Wednesday to applaud the conference’s ambitious goals and share his hopes that a bipartisan effort could make them a reality.
In President Joe Biden's address from the conference, he set a goal to end hunger in the United States by 2030.
“This is, I think, a turning point — and this is an opportunity that we can’t blow,” McGovern said, referring to the goals set by the administration, which include $8 billion in public and private investments to improving nutrition policies over the next eight years. “As we speak there are 35 million Americans who don't know where their next meal is going to come from, and we should be ashamed of that.”
McGovern said the conference aims to enhance the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — the modern successor to the food stamps program that was first introduced at the last hunger summit, in 1969 — and expand universal free school meals so that it's "permanent, all across the country."
He highlighted the need to bring nutrition and food programs into other government-provided services.
“We have to shake up some of our existing systems — like our health care system, and our educational system — to better integrate food and nutrition into those systems because it’s the right thing to do,” he said.
“One of the number-one reasons why people who get released from the hospital end up back in the hospital prematurely is lack of nutrition. So medically tailored meals, you know, is a way to avoid that,” McGovern added. “Insurance companies, and Medicare and Medicaid, they all ought to cover medically tailored meals, because if it can keep you out of the hospital, then it's not only better for you, it's cheaper.”
Conference attendees also aim to update existing regulations about things like nutritional labeling, hoping to put labels on the front of packages and target deceptive labeling.
“I’d like to make it so that you don’t have to be a chemist to figure out what’s good for you. And there’s a lot of deception in labeling,” McGovern said. “‘It’s 20 percent less sodium’ — than what?”
The Massachusetts Congressman said hunger is a problem that could be solved in his lifetime, if political leaders have the will do to it.
"That's what's so maddening about it — we're the richest country in the history of the world," he said. "This is an opportunity to change course and do something big."
