Albino Wooly Mammoth

People love to talk about food. We do not like to talk about, or even think about, what happens when there is not enough food. Here in North America starvation on any kind of scale is rare, but hunger is a reality for many. When experts talk about food deprivation in the Western population, they refer to it as food insecurity, which somehow makes the problem seem less serious than it actually is.

Food insecurity, as it is defined in the U.S, is "the inability to acquire or consume an adequate quality or sufficient quantity of food in usually acceptable ways, or, the uncertainly that an individual will be able to do so."

If that sounds too wordy for you, the components of food insecurity are: not enough food, and poor quality food.

Hunger, in contrast, is better defined as the lack of food, otherwise termed as temporary and/or frequent food deprivation. Prior to 2007 only 4.1% of U.S. children experienced hunger, and 11.1% were food insecure. Currently 14.5% experience hunger, and 33.3% of families find themselves in food insecurity. For those, like me, who aren't all that great at math, that is one-third of the population.

I find that statistic hard to internalize. It is outrageous for anyone to go hungry in a place that grows so much food that farmers allow crops to rot in the field because it is economically prohibitive to harvest it, and in a place where 40% of the food we purchase is wasted. Yet, when you sit down to write about food provenance, and eating healthfully, it is necessary to overlook that all too familiar albino Wooly Mammoth staring you in the face. How can you write about the necessity of better quality, responsibly sourced, fresh food, when so many people have no food at all?

In the interest of full disclosure: if it weren't for the fact that we live with my husbands parents, we would be considered food insecure. Even with their financial input, and my cooking abilities, it is difficult to keep decent quality fresh food on our table on a consistent basis. As food obsessed, and uncompromising, as I can be at times, I am aware of the true value of the food I put on the table for my family. I am also, all too aware that I am extremely fortunate to have enough food to eat.

When I write about the importance of buying the best quality produce that you can afford, I am fully aware of its value, and not simply parroting a popular elitist philosophy: it really is important! Yes, there are some of us who do not have enough to eat, but, as a population, many more of us can do better than we are doing. We can, and should, use our hard earned food dollars to demand better quality, contaminant-free, foods for ourselves, and our families.