With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, the media traditionally looks at hunger in America for their heart tugging stories even though it is a year round problem…
Forty-nine million people, one in six, or almost 16 percent of the American population went hungry in 2008. Now contrast that with the obesity epidemic sweeping across America at the same time… WTF is wrong with those two pictures? Add to that, we (in the U.S.) waste and throw out enough food to feed all those hungry people…so it is not a problem of growing enough food, but supplying and distributing the food to the people who need it… Just as long as the fat cats and corporations get their bloated share, everything is a-ok.
The report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, titled Household Food Security in the United States 2008 says,
Eighty-five percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2008, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (14.6 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.7 percent with very low food security—meaning that the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food. Prevalence rates of food insecurity and very low food security were up from 11.1 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively, in 2007, and were the highest recorded since 1995, when the first national food security survey was conducted. The typical food-secure household spent 31 percent more on food than the typical food-insecure household of the same size and household composition. Fifty-five percent of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs during the month prior to the 2008 survey.
To read the complete report, click HERE.
Many of these people live in the inner cities and don’t have space to grow a garden…another reason to Plant a Row for the Hungry.
Photo credit: zenobia_joy’s Flickr photostream
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