food in·se·cu·ri·ty
Noun
Noun: food insecurity
1. the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.
What Is Food Security?
Food security for a household means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum:
The ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods.
Assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies).
...and Food Insecurity?
Food insecurity is limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.
(Definitions are from the Life Sciences Research Office, S.A. Andersen, ed., "Core Indicators of Nutritional State for Difficult to Sample Populations," The Journal of Nutrition 120:1557S-1600S, 1990.)
How Is Food Insecurity Measured?
The food security status of each household lies somewhere along a continuum extending from high food security to very low food security. This continuum is divided into four ranges, characterized as follows:
High food security—Households had no problems, or anxiety about, consistently accessing adequate food.
Marginal food security—Households had problems at times, or anxiety about, accessing adequate food, but the quality, variety, and quantity of their food intake were not substantially reduced.
Low food security—Households reduced the quality, variety, and desirability of their diets, but the quantity of food intake and normal eating patterns were not substantially disrupted.
Very low food security—At times during the year, eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake reduced because the household lacked money and other resources for food.
(USDA introduced the above labels for ranges of food security in 2006. See Food Security in the U.S.: Definitions of Food Security)
Follow me past the nutritious orange Velveta cheese string....
Some plain facts about just how this very under reported problem in America is growing, and not going away anytime soon due to our economic policies, poverty levels, stagnant wage increases, unemployment and underemployment, and inflation.
First some numbers to put this in perspective courtesy of MSNBC. The following shows a map of the US and the problem in each state:
(To say I am shocked at where the dark purple is in the second diagram would be a lie. They are the Red States that always vote against their own economic self interests. Their politicians have them well trained, or so undernourished that they can't think properly.)
Yes, that's right; over 49 million Americans fall into the food insecurity definitions, and guess who suffers the most? That's right, it's the innocent children:
This is immoral and ethically wrong as we hear in the media from our politicians and from across the aisle (and some on our side) talk about our "Family Values", and just how we are such a Christian Nation, always the beacon of what it right in the world. We hear the constant drumbeat of the Pro-Life movement and it's "moral high ground" rhetoric of just how life is so important. Unfortunately, life is important right up to birth, and then from there, children and their parents are on their own. Not a word about how their quality of life will be, and just how their parents will fare in this hard economic time with bringing home quality food for the table for all to eat. But I think you get the idea.
It's long overdue to......
So who suffers next with having to make the choices between food or medicine? You guessed it: The elderly:
We should all be ashamed of ourselves for allowing such hardship to befall both of these groups. But many adults suffer too from food insecurity; especially with medical issues. They are usually the ones making the decisions of just who eats today, and who eats tomorrow. They are the parents and adults that have to work and try to make it happen. They are typically single mothers making these tough and difficult choices:
So now we know just who is affected, but why? The answer isn’t so simple, but think about it, and you'll realize what they are. We read dairies all of the time here about our hard times what with unemployment, underemployment, stagnant wages, inflation, cuts to budgets for tax breaks for the 1% (a.k.a. austerity budgeting), and the list goes on and on. In a single word that nobody cares to mention anymore in this country especially our politicians, and most certainly by our MSM:
Yes we have a real problem with poverty across America whether anyone cares to admit it or not. It is found in urban and rural America and many can hide it as poverty today can be defined as those that can't make ends meet, whatever the reasons.
So just imagine what will happen if our ethically and morally challenged "boys and girls" across the aisle with "R"'s next to their names manage to gut Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, the A.C.A., and the entire safety net that so many of our neighbors, friends, and family need in some fashion or another: The thought of just what will happen to millions outside of the food insecurity problem is to hard for me to think about....... It is that emotionally difficult to imagine all that needless pain and suffering.
Food Insecurity: It's everywhere, you don't want it to be. Remember too that food is political.
Watch "A Place At The Table" - Official Trailer - It's on Netflix, and the trailer can be found here (it won't embed, sorry):
https://www.youtube.com/...
Remember to help another person in need - They will appreciate it, and you'll be the better for it.
Be safe out there.