Food insecurity in America continued to rise last year, and participation in the food stamp program is approaching record highs, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday (Nov. 17).
In 2007, 11.1 percent of U.S. households reported food insecurity — what used to be labeled as “hunger” — up from 10.9 percent in 2006. About 4 percent of households were severely food insecure, meaning one or more adults had to adjust their eating habits because the household lacked resources for food.
The food stamp program now has more than 30 million people enrolled, an increase of 9.5 percent from 2006, and half of all babies receive supplemental nutrition from the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, according to the report.
This entire topic area requires remarkable care, as it is phenomenally agendised. For several years we ran a small 501(c)(3) intended to grow top-quality fresh vegetables for the hungry. Along the way we have learnt several things:
a) The vast majority of people on food assistance — as opposed to food stamps — need such help for an average of two months. Basically, something has blown up unexpectedly in their lives.
b) Over 60% of the households on [i]direct[/i] food assistance (not Food Stamps) are [i]employed[/i], at least part-time. These are [i]not[/i] (for the most part) lazy people.
c) The Food Stamp program is primarily the means by which the US Department of Agriculture secures urban Congressional votes for its Farm Program subsidies. “I’ll support your urban welfare if you support my rural (farm) welfare.” USDA thus continues to chug along with its 125,000 or so bureaucrats, and incumbent members of Congress continue to deliver the pork to their voters.
d) The non-profit world is full of nasty back-biting competition for donors. We eventually terminated the non-profit because we simply did not enjoy working in that world.
The USDA, however, will [i]always[/i] attempt to justify its food programs to an increasingly urban constituency. An ever-widening definition of “food insecurity” is part of that effort., but it is somewhat misleading. If an adult must “adjust” eating habits in the most “insecure” 4% of households, then in the other 7% … no adjustment is necessary. And the USDA didn’t say what those adjustments typically are in that 4%. Politics, people. Politics and empire-building.
The real issue — and here’s where churches can be of great assistance — is that few of the poor have any idea how to cook any more. You can often buy 20 pounds of potatoes for the cost of one bag of potato chips. One orange-flavored Popsicle (which is nothing but water, corn syrup, and artificial color and flavor) costs more than a really big orange, even allowing for the peel, yet poor mothers buy the Popsicle rather than the orange.
When people eat high-calorie, low-nutrient foods — which covers just about the entire universe of expensive processed foods — their bodies remain “hungry.” That is, they’re craving real nutrition. So they eat more of the same junk. And they get fat.
The obese hungry are a product not of “economic injustice,” but of ignorance. If the faithful address the real problem, then real progress is possible.