'Top Chef's' Tom Colicchio wants you to help end hunger for millions of veterans
Tom Colicchio has a long and impressive résumé. He's a working chef, has founded some of New York City's most celebrated restaurants, and is easily recognizable as the lead judge on the Bravo reality TV series Top Chef.
Over the past several years, however, the famed restaurateur has used his platform for his other role: "food activist." And this week, he's spreading awareness around the issue of hunger, and how it's affecting veterans and military families across the U.S.
Ahead of Veterans Day on Nov. 11, as part of Colicchio's organization A Place At the Table, the #FoodIsFuel campaign is calling on Americans to contact their local representatives and urge them to protect programs that prevent hunger for 1.5 million veterans, tens of thousands of active-duty service members, and their families.
A Place at the Table launched following Colicchio's 2012 documentary of the same name, which he co-directed with his wife, the filmmaker Lori Silverbush. The film explored the fact that more than 41 million Americans struggle with hunger.
"One story that was left out of the film was hunger in the veteran community and active members in the military," Colicchio said. "We had a few people teed up and ready to tell that story, and one by one they all dropped out, whether it was from pressure or shame involved in getting assistance."
Approximately 1.5 million veterans receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, commonly referred to as food stamps. An estimated 23,000 active-duty military households are enrolled in SNAP, and 1 in 4 veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan reported that they struggled with hunger and food insecurity.
A Place at the Table started working with veterans groups in order to tell their stories and make this issue more widely known. Colicchio also cofounded an organization called Food Policy Action, which publishes a scorecard that grades Congress on how it votes on food issues.
"What individuals can do, really, is just educate yourself."
Through the #FoodIsFuel campaign, everyday Americans can take action for the veteran community by pushing the country's leaders to prioritize ending hunger. The campaign website, foodisfuel.org, aims to make it easy for anyone call their member of Congress in one step. Once you enter your phone number and address, and hit the "Call Me" button, you'll get a call that helps you with what to say to your officials before patching you directly to them.
The site even has a sample script to help callers speak with more confidence, with places to add personal touches.
Colicchio stressed that calls really do show representatives how their constituencies feel about a topic, even if it might be hard to believe. He pointed to those who galvanized around the Affordable Care Act earlier this year, flooding phone lines to their reps. Multiple attempts by the Trump administration and GOP lawmakers to introduce a new health care bill, criticized for drastic cuts and potentially leaving millions without health insurance, failed.
"We've been told by some members of Congress that if they get as few as six phone calls … that will change their way of thinking about an issue," he said.
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Colicchio isn't shy about wading into politics with this issue and taking President Trump to task. He feels Trump uses veterans when it's convenient or beneficial for him.
"I find it just stunningly advantageous for him to talk about wanting to support veterans when he's looking to cut $160 billion from the SNAP program, which right now more than 1.5 million veterans use to help feed their families," he said.
Even though he's considered himself a food activist for more than 30 years, working with and supporting impactful hunger organizations while he was a chef, Colicchio gets pushback all the time: "Why are you making this political?" or, "Get back in the kitchen."
"Well, everything that we eat, everything that we purchase … is touched by policy and therefore touched by politics," he explained.
Calling your members of Congress isn't the only thing that will help. Ultimately, this comes down to fixing a broken food system.
"Right now in this country, calories are cheap, nutrition's expensive," Colicchio said, calling for more focus on nutritious school lunches and support for farmers.
And while Veterans Day is a time of year when public conversation around hunger in the community increases, it's a year-round problem. In order to really tackle it from all sides, Colicchio said we need to examine how members of the armed forces are paid and fight for higher wages, as well as offer other types of support for military families.
"What individuals can do, really, is just educate yourself," Colicchio said.
You can learn more about the campaign, and share how you're taking action, by using the hashtags #CalltoAct and #FoodisFuel.
Topics Activism Social Good
Matt Petronzio was the Social Good Editor at Mashable, where he led coverage surrounding social impact, activism, identities, and world-changing innovation. He was based at the New York City headquarters from January 2012 to April 2018, and previously worked as the assistant features editor.
