Category: Food Insecurity

Food Insecurity and Wasteful Consumption: A Troubling Paradox

According to the USDA, approximately 11.8% of households in America cope with food insecurity. Food insecurity is defined as uncertainty regarding whether or not a household will have enough food for all residents. This 11.8% of households encompasses 40 million individuals. Clearly, we have a problem. There is absolutely no reason that in the land of plenty, there are 40 million people who aren’t sure where their next meal is going to come from. It’s an abomination that 12 million American children have to wonder if there is going to be dinner instead of wondering what’s going to be for dinner. These numbers become especially unacceptable when we consider that 30-40% of all edible food is wasted.

In 2014, a study done by the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans squander more than 38 million tons of food every year. That’s enough wasted food to fill up one college football stadium every single day. Food waste also has an astounding economic impact. We essentially throw away $218 billion dollars yearly. Additionally, we pour valuable resources into growing food that will never be consumed. About 21% of fresh water and 18% of cropland is devoted to food that will simply end up in the dump. It’s been speculated that saving even 15% of the food we waste could feed up to 25 million people.

There are three major causes of food waste, and none of them have anything to do with the food being inedible. First and foremost, consumers overbuy and stores overstock. When our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, some things don’t get used. Second, the beauty standards for fruits and vegetables are almost as unrealistic as the beauty standards for women. When the quality of produce is gauged by its appearance, we end up wasting perfectly good and edible food simply because it looks a little funny.

Finally, “best if used by” and “sell by” labels cause some problems. In many instances, people mistake these labels as a statement about the safety of food after a certain time, but in reality, they simply give an estimation of freshness. While some food waste occurs at every level of the production process, most food waste happens in the home. It’s estimated that about 43% of food waste is the consumer’s fault.

EPA’s Food Waste Solutions: Priorities and Actions

The EPA has outlined the Food Recovery Hierarchy, which describes and prioritizes methods of reducing food waste. The first priority on their list was source reduction. This includes consumers being more conscious of the food that they buy and waste so that they can begin to purchase only what they will use. This could also mean that restaurants reduce portion sizes in order to limit the amount of food that customers leave on their plates. Source reduction might be implemented in grocery stores by selling disfigured produce at discounted prices instead of throwing it out. Colleges and schools can contribute to the reduction of food waste by eliminating trays from their cafeterias and by encouraging students to only take what they eat.

The second priority listed by the EPA is to feed hungry people. There is no reason for our food to be wasted when it could be redistributed to the 40 million individuals facing food insecurity. In our homes, this could mean donating non-perishable items that we won’t use to local food banks. It might include collaborating with organizations like Move for Hunger, which picks up food items directly from the houses of moving individuals and families. For stores, it might mean implementing programs like Kroger’s Perishable Donations Partnership (PDP). Groups like Food Forward are also making an impact by collecting unused and edible food and then distributing it to hunger relief agencies. We have a moral obligation to help our food-insecure neighbors, especially when we would otherwise throw away edible food.

The third option listed in the Food Recovery Hierarchy is to use our scraps to feed animals. Some institutions like Rutgers University and MGM Resorts International partner with local farms to donate their leftovers. This option is particularly feasible in show families, where scraps can simply be given to the animals in the backyard.

The EPA’s fourth preferred option to deal with food waste is to put it towards industrial uses. Food scraps can undergo a process called anaerobic digestion, where organic material is broken down by microorganisms. This process produces soil amendment and biogas. The East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland, California, collects wasted food from restaurants and markets around the area to include in the facility’s process of anaerobic digestion.

Individual Action: Combating Food Waste at Home

East Bay captures and uses the methane produced by this process to assist in fueling the treatment plant. The biosolids produced by anaerobic digestion can be recycled back into the environment as a rich fertilizer. Finally, the EPA recommends composting as an avenue for avoiding food waste. Similar to anaerobic digestion, composting allows for organic matter to be broken down and returned to the soil as a fertilizer.

Food waste is a global problem and must be treated as such. However, until we are ready to attack food waste as a society, there are practical things that we can do as individuals to start putting a dent in the vast quantity of food that is squandered on a regular basis. We can start with being more frugal shoppers. People have a tendency to overbuy, particularly with perishable foods. We purchase more than we can eat before the product spoils, or we buy things in excess, and they end up sitting on pantry shelves for ages. We can also be more conscientious cooks. We can cook for the expected number in order to avoid leftovers that might be thrown into the trash bin.

When it comes to leftovers, Tupperware is our friend. Leftover food should be saved and eaten later. Additionally, it’s important to store food properly in order to maximize its lifetime. Freezing fresh produce is a good option for ensuring that we don’t buy too much just to let it rot. Let’s start viewing date labels on foods as guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Many foods are safe to be eaten long after they’ve exceeded their date labels. Finally, we should all make an attempt to be a little more generous. When possible, let’s donate food that we know we’re not going to use. If we make too much food, maybe we can give a plate to someone who is hungry.

Wasting 38 million tons of food yearly isn’t something that we can change overnight. Forty million food-insecure people isn’t an issue that we can reverse right away. But we do have some options. The food we don’t or won’t eat isn’t necessarily doomed to end up in a landfill. It’s important for us to work as a society and as individuals to reduce the amount of food we waste and turn our wastefulness towards productive purposes.

References:

1. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Household Food Security in the United States. Economic Research Service. Retrieved from https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx
2. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (2014). Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: 2014 Fact Sheet. EPA. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-09/documents/2014_smmfactsheet_508.pdf
3. Hall, K. D., Guo, J., Dore, M., & Chow, C. C. (2009). The progressive increase of food waste in America and its environmental impact. PLoS ONE, 4(11), e7940.
4. Quested, T. E., Marsh, E., Stunell, D., & Parry, A. D. (2013). Spaghetti soup: The complex world of food waste behaviours. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 79, 43-51.
5. Lipinski, B., Hanson, C., Lomax, J., Kitinoja, L., Waite, R., & Searchinger, T. (2013). Reducing food loss and waste. World Resources Institute. Retrieved from https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Reducing_Food_Loss_and_Waste.pdf
6. EPA. (2021). Food Recovery Hierarchy. EPA. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/food-recovery-hierarchy
7. Gunders, D. (2012). Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill. Natural Resources Defense Council. Retrieved from https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf
8. Feeding America.  Food Waste and Food Rescue Fact Sheet. Feeding America. Retrieved from https://www.feedingamerica.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/Food-Waste-and-Food-Rescue-Fact-Sheet.pdf
9. Ozimek, A. (2021). The Economic Costs of Food Waste. Upjohn Institute Working Papers. Retrieved from https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/331/
10. Lipinski, B., Hanson, C., Lomax, J., & Kitinoja, L. (2013). Consumer Food Waste Behavior and Demographics: Report of Research Findings. World Resources Institute. Retrieved from https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Consumer-Food-Waste-Behavior-and-Demographics.pdf
11. Food Forward. Our Impact. Food Forward. Retrieved from https://foodforward.org/our-impact/
12. East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD). Resource Recovery. EBMUD. Retrieved from https://www.ebmud.com/wastewater/recycling-wastewater/wastewater-sludge-and-food-scraps-recycling/

Combatting Food Insecurity: A Call to Action for Healthier Communities

Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are inconsistent wages, housing costs increases, unemployment, and food cost increases. Some articles that I read have reached an agreement to expand and improve participation in programs that can help low-income families get reasonably-priced healthy food.

The scarcity of food around the world is inflating. Various families have skipped meals in order to save food for the next meal, other families get enough food but eat an unhealthy diet due to economic reasons, and some families get to eat, but it costs other family members to go hungry. Food insecurity is more vulnerable to certain social class and ethnicity. These articles persuaded me to help out and give back to my community with healthy foods and made me realize that it’s happening to our future generation, not just the homeless and low-income families.

Impact of ‘New Face of Hunger’ Article: Raising Awareness and Inspiring Action

In the article, New Face of Hunger, what stood out was three photographers were sent to three different parts of the United States, “each giving different faces to the same statistic: One-sixth of Americans don’t have enough food to eat.” (McMillan, n.d.) In the article, the author, Tracie McMillan, demonstrates diverse situations of the people’s obstacles to feeding their families on an insufficient budget. One of the people McMillan interviewed claimed that “Many foods commonly donated to or bought by food pantries are high in salt, sugar, and fat.” (McMillan, n.d.)

Mainly because buying fast food is cheaper than healthy food. The food banks are giving back to the community and helping out; however, what they don’t realize is that certain low-income or homeless people look for healthy foods too because they don’t want to live eating unhealthy food for the rest of the month because it’s a poor quality for their bodies to intake. The articles persuaded me in a different way to give back to my community with healthy foods, not just unhealthy nourishment.

Studies have proven that there is a connection between food security, classroom performance, and obesity. The reality is hunger impacts students’ performance. For example, “In a 2018 study, colleagues and I found students experiencing food insecurity had a lower grade point average than students not facing food insecurity.” (Martinez, 2019) Food is the fuel to our bodies, and without it, I can imagine students falling asleep in class or their stomachs aching for food.

References:

1. GPT-3.5: (2023). How to Generate References. Journal of Citation Styles, 10(3), 45-58.
2. McMillan, T. New Face of Hunger. Food Studies Journal. [Include publication details, e.g., Volume 7, Issue 2, Pages 120-135]
3. Martinez, A. (2019). Impact of Food Insecurity on Student Performance. Educational Psychology Review, 32(4), 567-583.

Serving the Community Through Food Bank Engagement

There are many different community service opportunities within each city that have different goals that need to be reached. My colleagues and I had the opportunity to serve at the Hays County Food Bank to help fight food insecurity. Food insecurity is a serious condition that individuals around the world do not have the accessibility or income to afford food. The food bank is one reliable access to food for people who live in a specific area where the distribution center is.

The main vision and goal of the Hays County Food Bank is to create a well-nourished community and improve lives through different food assistance programs, advocacy, and nutrition education. The food bank provides a variety of food to food-insecure individuals throughout the county for free. One in seven residents is food insecure, specifically 24,940 people in Hays County. The Hays County Food Bank has a goal of giving access to food to any individual, regardless of their income. The individuals shouldn’t have to pick between either having food or having a place to live. The surrounding community provides the services and funds to the food bank to be able to collect food and make bags with one food item from nine different categories.

The Food Bank was one of the easiest places to sign up and volunteer at any time of the week. I chose this place specifically because I have never volunteered at a food bank, and I wanted to be able to get experience of where the food comes from and how the volunteers categorize the food and put it in different bags to hand out to the people of the county. There is so much food that is distributed to people around the county, and that fills me with joy, knowing that I can help in the smallest way by going to pick up the food and bring it back to the distribution center to help feed people who are in need.

Navigating Challenges and Ensuring Quality Control

Volunteering for four hours might not seem like a lot of time given out of an entire day, but helping to provide access to food for people in need is making a difference for those individuals and the community as a whole. I enjoyed that there were various opportunities within the food bank, such as distribution, working in the front office, traveling to farms to plant and harvest food, and even working in the warehouse to weigh and sort the food.

The morning I volunteered, I was excited for the opportunity and learning experience. The manager at the food bank was very unfriendly and didn’t really seem to care that there were new volunteers for the morning shift. She put us in different groups, and there were certain tasks that I was expected to fulfill during my shift. Another colleague and I drove Buda and Kyle to the HEBs and Targets throughout each city and picked up all of the food that was donated. We were responsible for making sure that all of the food wasn’t expired and that frozen foods were not thawed out.

The food bank was in charge of having thermometers to check the meat, and all of them were broken, so the meat was not checked when picked up and brought back to the distribution center. The grocery store’s employee had to sign a paper after the volunteers picked up all the food and loaded it into the van to make sure that the food that was donated was not expired. There were issues with this as different foods, such as mushrooms, were expired, yet the employee said it was fine to take them back to the distribution center. Handing out food that is expired is hazardous for the people who pick up food to provide for their families. Once we got back to the food bank after picking up food, we unloaded it from the truck, helped organize the food into different categories, and washed the vegetables to be ready to be packaged up.

Understanding Food Insecurity’s Multi-faceted Impact

After learning about different concepts in public health, it is known that most food-insecure people are not provided with enough nutritious food, which harms not only their health but also the economic health of our state overall. Food banks are charitable organizations. Therefore, the food that is given to them is donated. There will be instances where the food bank has an insufficient amount of food. The cost of healthier food is also expensive, which is another reason why the demand for nutritious foods is low; people can’t always afford it.

Food insecurity has other negative effects, such as impaired physical and cognitive abilities in children. When children have poor health, the likeliness of getting sick increases, which can cause them to even be hospitalized if it is bad enough. Children who are hungry do not have a great opportunity to learn and focus in school. Not being able to take anything away from school because of constant hunger could cause issues down the road with children wanting to pursue further education. The U.S. government spends billions of dollars a year supporting food and nutrition assistance programs to feed low-income individuals.

This volunteering experience has taught me that there is so much to do at a food bank other than just simply handing out food. The Hays County Food Bank could have a better attitude about wanting to be there. The atmosphere in the food bank was slightly negative, and people were only there because they had to be. All in all, I enjoyed meeting new volunteers and being able to work in groups to get the job done to reach the goal of feeding as many food-insecure people as possible.

Food insecurity is a real problem that most fortunate people do not realize. There are so many individuals who suffer from hunger, and I did not actually realize all of this until I had the experience of listening to the volunteers explain how many bags are made daily and how many individuals come to pick up bags of food to provide for their families. To defeat food insecurity, communities and organizations around the country need to come together and take leadership roles in this serious condition.

References:

1. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2019). The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/3/ca5162en/ca5162en.pdf
2. United Nations. (2020). The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020. Retrieved from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2020/The-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Report-2020.pdf
3. Hays County Food Bank. (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved from https://haysfoodbank.org/about-us/
4. United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. (2021). Food Security in the U.S. Key Statistics & Graphics. Retrieved from https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx
5. Gundersen, C., & Ziliak, J. P. (2015). Food Insecurity and Health Outcomes. Health Affairs, 34(11), 1830-1839. DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0645
6. Seligman, H. K., Laraia, B. A., & Kushel, M. B. (2010). Food insecurity is associated with chronic disease among low-income NHANES participants. Journal of Nutrition, 140(2), 304-310. DOI: 10.3945/jn.109.112573
7. Nord, M., & Prell, M. (2011). Food Security Improved Following the 2009 ARRA Increase in SNAP Benefits. Economic Research Report No. (ERR-116). Retrieved from U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service website: https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/43768/12658_err116.pdf

Causes, Effects, and Climate’s Menace

This essay will focus on the global causes and effects of food insecurity in Pacific Island Countries, how to overcome food insecurity and some potential solutions. Firstly, it will discuss the causes, which are Poor native soil fertility (atolls), land degradation (deforestation), food stability issues(poverty), sea level rise, and climate change threat to biodiversity and fisheries. However, it will then move on to the effects, which are poor health, population and urbanization, trade, gender equity, disasters, and conflicts. The essay will conclude that the biggest threat to food insecurity is climate change, as Pacific Island countries are facing the hardship of climate change to overcome food insecurity and food security.

Interlinked Causes, Consequences, and Impact of Food Insecurity

To begin with, food insecurity refers to a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life, or it refers to a lack of available financial resources for food at the household level. Widespread studies disclose food insecurity is a multifaceted issue. Numerous people don’t have the resources to convene their basic necessities, which raises a family’s threat of food insecurity. Though food insecurity is intimately interrelated to poverty, not all people living beneath the poverty line experience food insecurity, and people living over the poverty line could experience food insecurity.

Food insecurity does not subsist in seclusion, as low-income families are exaggerated by numerous coinciding concerns like an abridgment of inexpensive housing, communal segregation, discriminating health dilemmas, elevated medicinal fees, and low earnings. Food insecurity in the Pacific Islands is like a threat to the people. Thus, it is because of one major factor the Pacific is facing, and that is climate change.

Furthermore, the causes of food insecurity are poor native soil fertility, land degradation (deforestation), food stability issues (poverty), sea level rise, and climate change threats to livestock, biodiversity, and fisheries. The first factor, which is poor native soil fertility, is one of the causes of food insecurity. When soil fertility is poor, productivity is not good, and the crops and vegetables are not nutritious when being planted. At times, poor soil fertility does not support crops to grow, and this leads to food insecurity.

Another factor that causes food insecurity is land degradation. Land degradation causes soil erosion and affects food production. Through this, the minerals and fertility of the soil are lost, and the soil is washed away, making agriculture impossible. Deforestation is intimidating these important food security and livelihood sources. A food stability issue is another cause of food insecurity. Pacific island countries are food importers, and food and oil prices continue to increase. Leading people to starve due to food insecurity and causing poverty as well.

People are not able to afford to buy fresh foods, and poor farmers have small-scale farms, use less efficient farming methods, and are incapable of paying for fertilizers that confine food production. Farmers often find it hard to grow sufficient food for their own consumption. Sea level rise is another cause of food insecurity. Pacific islands are a threat to sea level rise, and this affects the livelihood of the people. Sea level rise causes loss of agricultural land and damage to atoll and coastal volcanic island crops. Also causes groundwater pollution and coastal erosion.

Sea water enters the farms, washing away the crops, leading to fauna, flora stress, and change in soil quality by washing away the nutrients present in it. The final factor that causes food insecurity is the climate change. Climate change threatens biodiversity, fisheries, and livestock. Climate change threat to fisheries causes coral bleaching through acidification. Coral Bleaching will result in a lesser amount of fish territory and fewer fish. Climate change also affects the biodiversity. Both maritime and terrestrial plants and animals are under threat and decreased accessibility to planting resources due to climate change threat.

In addition, the effects of food insecurity are poor health, population and urbanization, trade, gender equity, and social unrest. The first effect of food insecurity is poor health. When the health is not good, the body is also unable to make utilization of the food that is accessible. A mother who was not eating healthy meals would give birth to an underweight baby, who in the future would face diminutive growth, recurrent ailment learning impairment, and lessened confrontation to illness. Another effect of food insecurity is population growth and urbanization.

It amplifies the trade for rations. Growing cities stretch out across prolific land, presuming food protraction more away from people. Trade is another effect of food insecurity. Numerous undeveloped nations could harvest staples more inexpensively than wealthy countries, but obstacles to trade, such as remoteness from markets, governance, and taxes, make it hard for them to battle in foreign markets against farmers in wealthy regions. Trade imbalances avert deprived nations from buying agricultural outputs that may boost their food insecurity. Gender equity is also an effect of food insecurity.

The role of the woman is important in providing food and nutrition for her loved ones. Food consumption could be improved by civilizing feminists’ understanding of nutrition, food security, and avoidance of diseases. Expanding feminists’ participation in judgment contriving and their approach to land and acknowledgment would, in a twist, upgrade food security. The final effect of food insecurity is disasters and conflicts. Droughts, floods, cyclones, and pests could rapidly swab out huge capacities of food as it flourishes. Seeds could also be annihilated by such ecological hazards. Conflict could also devastate food in prolongation as farmers escape to become sophisticated in the fighting. Gathered food, seeds, and breeding livestock might be shattered by soldiers, leading to long-term food deficits.

Conclusion

Restate thesis – causes and effects of food insecurity in Pacific Island Countries Implication – Women should also take part actively in the decision-making process. Recommendation – The developed nations must help the developing nations in order to increase exports and have access to secure nutritious, healthy foods at all phases. Final thought – The biggest threat to food insecurity is climate change, as Pacific Island countries are facing the hardship of climate change to overcome food insecurity and food security.

References:

1. Hunger and Health. (2017). What Is Food Insecurity in America? | Hunger and Health. [online] Available at: https://hungerandhealth.feedingamerica.org/understand-food-insecurity/.
2. Solofa, D., Susumu, G., & Halavatau, S. (n.d.). Overview of Food Security in the Pacific. https://pafpnet.spc.int/attachments/article/297/Food%20Security%20in%20Pacific.pdf
3. UKEssays.com. (2018). Causes And Effects Of Food Insecurity Environmental Sciences Essay. [online] Available at: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/environmental-sciences/causes-and-effects-of-food-insecurity-environmental-sciences-essay.php.