[Infowarrior] - Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry

[Richard Forno]

"Food security?"  As opposed to ensuring an "Adequate Food Supply" because
folks who lack an adequate supply might indeed be "hungry"?

I guess you can't have a modern gov program unless it involves the word
"security" in some fashion.  But if it gets more money for food as a result,
I guess it's a good thing........rf


Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry

By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 16, 2006; A01
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/15/AR200611150
1621_pf.html

The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But
they may experience "very low food security."

Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures
Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" to
describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this
year.

Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a
scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in
the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a
measure of that condition."

The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not
put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them
reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined
"very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description
for that group.

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In assembling its report, the USDA divides Americans into groups with "food
security" and those with "food insecurity," who cannot always afford to keep
food on the table. Under the old lexicon, that group -- 11 percent of
American households last year -- was categorized into "food insecurity
without hunger," meaning people who ate, though sometimes not well, and
"food insecurity with hunger," for those who sometimes had no food.

That last group now forms the category "very low food security," described
as experiencing "multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and
reduced food intake." Slightly better-off people who aren't always sure
where their next meal is coming from are labeled "low food security."