This past week, Libby and I read the article, titled “Want Amid Plenty: From Hunger to Inequality” published by Janet Poppendieck in 2000. It was mostly about how there is so much food produced in America. So much so, that a lot of it is never eaten and goes to waste. In fact, the USDA estimates that more than a quarter of our food goes to waste between production and cooking. There is also lots of talk about how the issues of obesity and over-eating in America. However, at the same time that this is happening, there is another issue that often goes unspoken about, and that is that millions of Americans are struggling with food insecurity. When people think of hunger, the first thing they probably think of is a starving child in another country so there is a lot of disconnect between the needy in America and those that are more well-off. There are actually several programs in the US that are there to help reduce some of this disparity. One of these that they author kept coming back to was the Boy Scouts Food Drives.
One of the reasons people focus on solving hunger is because it does really have a simple solution: give people food. It is a social issue that doesn’t have a complicated answer like ending racism or abortion, and it is something that everyone can empathize with. Everyone has felt at least a mild form of hunger in there lifetime whether they skip lunch or forget to eat during an intense study session. It isn’t comfortable and it is caused by a basic need not being met, so people feel as though they have a moral obligation to help feed the hungry. A big motivating motto is that “hunger has a cure.”
Another aspect of helping the hungry is that it is an ongoing issue. While the solution is simple, it is only temporary. One quote that stuck out to me in the article was “People don’t eat in the long run, they eat every day,” made by Harry Hopkins.
This article was surprising political with people who help the hungry being called “progressives” and that feeding the hungry is a social issue that both conservatives and liberals and get behind. It also mentioned that the right wing relies on “token solutions” to hunger, such as walks, bikes, swims, etc. for hunger, as being good enough to solve hunger in the United States so they can slowly undo welfare programs that are designed to help people in need. The author definitely shows their political bias in this article.
Libby and I overall did not recommend the class read this article. I thought that it was not reader-friendly as it used some pretty big words and complicated language. Libby thought it was interesting but did not offer a lot of new, eye-opening information. In general, we thought that there were more interesting articles for the class to read.
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