Thursday, November 16, 2006

How Very Low

Argh.

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.

…"hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." 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." (Washington Post)

I suppose people with "very low food security" also have "very low money security" and probably "very low job security" too. I have a "very low tolerance security" for this type of semantic baloney.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, USDA hates mentioning hungry people, poor people, any people. They won't even put simple safeguards on our food supply these days.

Anonymous said...

What pricks! No one wants to talk about the fact that one of the richest nations in the world has such problem. Do you know what the poverty rate is? For a family of three (two adults, one child) the income would be around $15,000 per year. Anyway, there are currently 37 million people living in poverty in America, about 13% of our population. Remember though that poverty and "low food security" are completely different. You may have a family of three whose income is $19,000 per year. Technically, they are not "living in poverty" but I can assure you that they are not eating three square meals a day either. Not if they are paying rent or mortgage, have power and heat. They probably would be hard-pressed to own a car on that salary. So, for these bastards to say that these people are not "hungry" is total BS. Can you tell things like this make me a little angry? Sorry for the rant, but it hurts my heart to think about kids not eating while some beaurocrat sits in a cushy office and tries to think of ways to make their suffering seem like less of a problem. But, that's America for you- give it a different name- or better yet an acronym "LFS"- and your problem just vanishes!

Nanuk of the North, older but no wiser said...

Hmmm. Seems like we have some disgruntled Americans around here.
Maybe you guys are very low on patience?

Anonymous said...

Patience? Never heard of it!

Anonymous said...

The question is not if you can/can't put food on the table, it's what kind of food are you resorting to slap on the table while the kids are melting down? When a large portion of your society is employed at popular Irish hamburger chains within a 10 minute drive from home and earning only minimum wage - what else can they afford to put on the table (but more cardboard hamburgers and soft drinks). When will fruit/veg be affordable and easy? What we need is some good old fashioned oatmeal outlets! N.