Leonie Joubert, author of The Hungry Season, has written an article for The South African Medical Journal titled “Food security: The optimal diet for people and the planet”.

Joubert explains her interest in food security as a sustainability issue and talks about how she travelled across South Africa to understand what food security means for people living in urban and rural areas.

One morning, in the winter of 2010, I walked into the home of a family living outside Mbabane, Swaziland. There were three young children sitting at the table, aged about six or seven. The table was covered with a plastic tablecloth with really loud fruit printed on it, but there wasn’t any fruit in the kitchen. In fact, there wasn’t any food in the kitchen at all.

The breakfast that these children had been eating was donated by a local soup kitchen. And it was white bread, torn into chunks, floating in sugar water. The bread had puffed up like marshmallows.

• Keep reading: The South African Medical Journal

Book details

• The Hungry Season: Feeding Southern Africa’s Cities by Leonie Joubert with images by Eric Miller
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  EAN: 9781770102293
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