Many Americans are planning for the Thanksgiving feast but many other Americans don’t have enough to eat on a regular basis, never mind a holiday feast. Right now, millions of Americans are struggling with hunger. Millions of Americans have shopped in supermarkets (the average price for 15 items used in a traditional Thanksgiving meal increased 3.5 percent over 2011. The cost of the 15 items, which includes a 20-pound turkey, totaled $57.97) for the food to be prepared and consumed in a bountiful Thanksgiving feast, yet the destination for millions of others is food banks for a basic holiday meal. How can anyone in the richest country on the planet, home of the mightiest farmers, the breadbasket of the world, be hungry?
These are often hard-working adults, children and seniors who simply cannot make ends meet and are forced to go without food for several meals, or even days.
"Low food security” is the label the U.S. Department of Agriculture currently uses to describe households that report reduced quality, desirability, or variety of diet. This used to be called food insecurity without hunger. ”Very low food security” means that households report “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.” This used to be called food insecurity with hunger.
The percentage of food-insecure households has jumped since the start of the recession in 2008, according to the USDA. From 1995 onward, the percentage had been dropping. The average percentage of food insecure households from 1995 to 2007 was 11.1% and the percentage of households with very low food insecurity was 3.7%. The averages from 2008 to 2011 are higher: 14.7% of households were food insecure, and 5.6% of households experienced severe food insecurity. Overall, 50.1 million Americans live in food-insecure households. More than one out of five children lives in a household with food insecurity, which means they do not always know where they will find their next meal. 16.7 million children under 18 in the United States live in this condition – unable to consistently access nutritious and adequate amounts of food necessary for a healthy life. Seniors citizens also have unique nutritional needs. For seniors, protecting oneself from food insecurity and hunger is more difficult than for the general population. In 2009, nearly 4 million people over the age of 60 lived in food insecure households.
One of the myths about eating in America is that poor people prefer junk food over healthy food. The reasons poverty and unhealthy eating go together have little to do with tastes or preferences or even knowledge. Fresh food tends to be too expensive for those who work for low wages. Typically healthy food is not available in poor neighborhoods. Preparing fresh food takes time, but working long hours leaves little of it for making healthy meals. Another myth is the assumption that if someone is hungry, that means they do not have a job and are living on the streets. What most people don’t understand is that anyone can experience hunger. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2010, 21 million people lived in working-poor families. This translates into nearly 9.6 percent of all American families living below 100 percent of poverty have at least one family member working. In fact, 36 percent of client households served by the Feeding America network have one or more adults working. For families in America, the source of hunger is an absence of a living wage, a lack of decent paying jobs to afford food security throughout the year.
Nationwide, consumers will purchase around 736 million pounds of turkey this Thanksgiving, of which about 581 million pounds will be actual meat. The USDA reports that 35% of perfectly good turkey meat in the U.S. does not get eaten after it is purchased by consumers (and that’s not including bones). That’s enough turkey to provide each American household that is food insecure with more than 11 additional servings, and 17.9 million American households suffer from food insecurity. Along with trashing uneaten turkeys, they’ll be wasting the resources necessary for its production -- meaning 105 billion gallons of water (enough to supply New York City for over 100 days) and greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 800,000 car trips from New York to San Francisco. And that’s to say nothing of the vast amounts of antibiotics used to produce turkey meat, leading to antibiotic resistance Per pound, the resources needed to produce that turkey are equivalent to driving your car 11 miles and taking a 130-minute shower (at 4 gallons/minute)
These are often hard-working adults, children and seniors who simply cannot make ends meet and are forced to go without food for several meals, or even days.
"Low food security” is the label the U.S. Department of Agriculture currently uses to describe households that report reduced quality, desirability, or variety of diet. This used to be called food insecurity without hunger. ”Very low food security” means that households report “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.” This used to be called food insecurity with hunger.
The percentage of food-insecure households has jumped since the start of the recession in 2008, according to the USDA. From 1995 onward, the percentage had been dropping. The average percentage of food insecure households from 1995 to 2007 was 11.1% and the percentage of households with very low food insecurity was 3.7%. The averages from 2008 to 2011 are higher: 14.7% of households were food insecure, and 5.6% of households experienced severe food insecurity. Overall, 50.1 million Americans live in food-insecure households. More than one out of five children lives in a household with food insecurity, which means they do not always know where they will find their next meal. 16.7 million children under 18 in the United States live in this condition – unable to consistently access nutritious and adequate amounts of food necessary for a healthy life. Seniors citizens also have unique nutritional needs. For seniors, protecting oneself from food insecurity and hunger is more difficult than for the general population. In 2009, nearly 4 million people over the age of 60 lived in food insecure households.
One of the myths about eating in America is that poor people prefer junk food over healthy food. The reasons poverty and unhealthy eating go together have little to do with tastes or preferences or even knowledge. Fresh food tends to be too expensive for those who work for low wages. Typically healthy food is not available in poor neighborhoods. Preparing fresh food takes time, but working long hours leaves little of it for making healthy meals. Another myth is the assumption that if someone is hungry, that means they do not have a job and are living on the streets. What most people don’t understand is that anyone can experience hunger. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2010, 21 million people lived in working-poor families. This translates into nearly 9.6 percent of all American families living below 100 percent of poverty have at least one family member working. In fact, 36 percent of client households served by the Feeding America network have one or more adults working. For families in America, the source of hunger is an absence of a living wage, a lack of decent paying jobs to afford food security throughout the year.
Nationwide, consumers will purchase around 736 million pounds of turkey this Thanksgiving, of which about 581 million pounds will be actual meat. The USDA reports that 35% of perfectly good turkey meat in the U.S. does not get eaten after it is purchased by consumers (and that’s not including bones). That’s enough turkey to provide each American household that is food insecure with more than 11 additional servings, and 17.9 million American households suffer from food insecurity. Along with trashing uneaten turkeys, they’ll be wasting the resources necessary for its production -- meaning 105 billion gallons of water (enough to supply New York City for over 100 days) and greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 800,000 car trips from New York to San Francisco. And that’s to say nothing of the vast amounts of antibiotics used to produce turkey meat, leading to antibiotic resistance Per pound, the resources needed to produce that turkey are equivalent to driving your car 11 miles and taking a 130-minute shower (at 4 gallons/minute)
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