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[–]luster 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

“Food insecurity” is a statistic designed to mislead. From the USDA “For most food-insecure households, the inadequacies were in the form of reduced quality and variety rather than insufficient quantity.”

So, they have food, just not the variety and quality. I would love to eat steak, lobster, crab and shrimp but I can't afford that quality all of the time. I guess that makes me food insecure.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine have criticized USDA for how these statistics are contorted from a measure of household “security” into a misleading estimate that millions of individuals go hungry.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11578&page=5

Private nonprofit organizations exploit USDA statistics to create a crisis atmosphere. USDA food security reports, by creating the illusion of a national hunger epidemic, have helped propel a vast increase in federal food aid in recent years. But that has been a dietary disaster across the land.

A Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics study concluded that “food insecure” adults are far more likely to be obese than “food secure” adults — indicating that a shortage of food is not the real health problem.

http://www.andjrnl.org/article/S2212-2672(12)00745-9/abstract

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

“Food insecurity” is a statistic designed to mislead. From the USDA “For most food-insecure households, the inadequacies were in the form of reduced quality and variety rather than insufficient quantity.”

It's actually more accurate than quantity, because if you only eat one type of food, no matter how much you eat, you'll eventually get malnutrition, because the human body needs variety.

So, they have food, just not the variety and quality. I would love to eat steak, lobster, crab and shrimp but I can't afford that quality all of the time. I guess that makes me food insecure.

That's not what variety and quality means — it means variety and quality of nutrients. Those foods are high in protein, but not everything else people need to survive.

illusion of a national hunger epidemic

Middle class Yankees can pretend like the problems of rural, Southern, Working-class folks don't exist — 'til we burn the whole Union down.

a vast increase in federal food aid in recent years.

That obviously ain't enough if 23% of Americans are food insecure.

“food insecure” adults are far more likely to be obese than “food secure” adults

Because cheap food has less nutrients and more garbage, meaning that you gain weight, but not the nutrients your body actually needs to survive.

a shortage of food is not the real health problem.

Yes it is, because people can't afford to buy real food, thus are forced to by processed garbage.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Those foods are high in protein, but not everything else people need to survive.

Protein is the most expensive nutrient and the hardest to meet. Carbs and fat get met incidentally generally. And ofc carbs aren't strictly necessary at least in the short term.

Micronutrients... The RDA is unobtainable every day at a normal caloric intake without supplements and supplements are suboptimal. There's something wrong with the whole system. But they're also micronutrients, needed in far small values than macros and the only macro hard to get enough of is protein.