I am posting this because it is an excellent article on hunger in the United States.This year, the US Deaprtment of Agriculture stoped using the word hunger and replaced it with the term "very low food security" to describe the 35 million people who live in homes that struggle to put food on the table. The story was covered in major papers nationwide, but Time has a great job covering the issue and it is worth the read. It is sad that political interests often prevail, even against the interests of hungry children. I hate to think that in difficult political times the best we can do is push the burden of high national debt fueld by tax breaks for the wealthy onto the backs of the poor, as if we are an "everyone for themselves" country with no sense of responsibility or community.
Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006What It Means to Go Hungry
A controversial new government report has excised the term "hunger" altogether in favor of more supposedly accurate measurements. But sometimes words have a power that statistics do not.
By NANCY GIBBSSince Thanksgiving is the day we count our blessings instead of our carbs, it is a ripe moment to talk about hunger. Or perhaps, to talk about how we talk about hunger. When the government released its annual survey on Household Food Security in the United States last week, as it has every year since 1995, there was for the first time a word missing — a very important word. The report stated that about 35 million Americans sometimes don't always know where their next meal will come from, and a third of those sometimes experience "very low food security." But as of this year, the word "hunger" no longer applies.
The complete article can be found TIME.com Click here for the rest of the story.
