A reader posts in response to my column of yesterday on food and emotions:
It is nice that you can use food as a tool to aid in your performances and your emotional uncertainties.
Food is a necessity and a right. Hunger is growing dramatically in the United States. Today, 1 in 8 Americans are receiving emergency food assistance from Feeding America, the largest food provider in the country, through the food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters it serves. Over one third of them are children. This new hunger is almost 50 percent higher than in 2006. Is it because less food is produced? We all know this is not the case. In this America of ours, we must have money to buy all the necessities of life, including food. And if you are forced to choose paying the rent or utilities, instead of buying food, then you and your family will experience hunger in America.
An abundance of food is produced in America. However, much of it is never placed into the marketplace. By withholding it from the market, farmers and food processors create an artificial shortage to maintain or inflate food prices. Meanwhile, the number of hungry Americans grows amidst an increasing abundance of food.
California is a good example of this national problem. Its farmland spans 25 million acres and produces about half of the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. More than 6 million tons of California food products are dumped annually, according to state studies. Food is the largest single source of waste in California, making up 15.5 percent of the state’s waste stream, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board.
At the same time nearly 40 million Americans, at some time or another can’t buy enough food. Like everything else in a market-based economy, food is for sale just like any other product. But food is not a luxury; it’s a most basic need of human beings. When it’s denied to people, it leads to human hunger and even death.
With today’s high-tech production methods, food is produced in such abundance that every person on the planet can be fed. There is no justifiable reason for anyone to go hungry. Only the corporations and their lust for profits and a government that protects them stand in our way.
