The Ration

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A News21 food and health reporting project by UC Berkeley School of Journalism

Bridget Huber, reporter

Picture of Bridget Huber

Bridget is a graduate student in journalism and public health at UC Berkeley. She's originally from Maine and has worked as a farmhand, editor, chambermaid, cooking teacher, nanny, waitress, baker and cheesemaker's apprentice. Her print and radio stories have been published by the Associated Press, the Christian Science Monitor, KALW-San Francisco and Grist. She likes goats.

Stories by Bridget Huber

Illustration by Lily Mihalik, Chard Photo by WIKI COMMONS/ Sanjay Acharya

Walmart Prepares to Storm the Desert

Oasis or mirage?

Over the last year, eradicating food deserts has become a matter of national policy. The Obama administration says 23.5 million Americans –6.5 million of them children – live in low-income neighborhoods without grocery stores or access to healthy, affordable foods. As part of the “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity, the Obama administration pledged in 2010 to eradicate food deserts within the next six years, largely through public-private partnerships that would bring new supermarkets to underserved neighborhoods and help existing ones sell more fresh food. Continue reading →

Pop art of farmworkers in a field

How Can We Keep the People Who Harvest Our Veggies Healthy Too?

Even though agricultural workers spend their days surrounded by fresh produce, obesity and diabetes are at epidemic levels in many farmworker communities. In one farmworker group where Schenker does research, 80 percent of people were overweight or obese. Other farmworker health surveys have drawn similar conclusions.

Multiple factors could be at play: Immigration often disrupts traditional diets and food culture, and farmworkers who work grueling hours for little pay may struggle to find the time or money to eat healthy foods. Continue reading →

Farm-workers

Will the EPA help doctors fight pesticide poisoning?

After years of running into this problem while treating orchard workers in Washington’s Yakima Valley, Keifer devised a solution: He wants the EPA to require chemical companies to provide tools that would detect human exposure to their products.

Proponents of the idea say it could help safeguard the health of some of the most vulnerable people in society — farm workers. Continue reading →

Head of CA Department of Pesticide Regulation Leaves Post to Work for Chemical Giant

California’s top pesticide regulator is leaving her job to work for Clorox. Mary-Ann Warmerdam, the director of the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), announced her resignation on Tuesday. Warmerdam’s departure was voluntary, but environmental and public health advocates have been … Continue reading →