Oh SNAP — Realizing the Problems of Hunger and Food Waste in America
When asked to imagine what America is like, not many people would picture starving citizens scrounging for their next meal.
Rather, minds are usually filled with images of streets lined with fast food chains, plenty of sweets, and an absurd amount of people who are overweight.
Thus, these are probably the pictures that come to mind after hearing the news of the government’s proposal of a $213 billion budget cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (which can be abbreviated to SNAP, but most people know it as “food stamps”). The United States is the cornucopia of food — this is no hidden secret. So surely this $213 billion can be put to more efficient use somewhere else is the governmental budget, can it not?
These fantasies are not reality for many, however. Although hunger in the U.S. was almost abolished by the end of the 1960s thanks to prosperous food assistance programs, food insecurity has been steadily rising ever since. Today, over 50 million Americans are classified as food insecure. Being deemed food insecure is defined as “the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food” (“Food Insecurity”). From the 50 million in this category, 13 million are children. The film A Place at the Table introduces us to one. Meet Rosie, a fifth-grader in the small town of Collbran, Colorado. Rosie and her family are just a few of the 50 million Americans that fall under this definition of food insecure. This young girl is as bright and cheerful as anyone could imagine, that is, until she is asked about school. She is eager to admit she enjoys school, but there is then a noticeable shift in her mood. Rosie embarrassingly explains her struggles concentrating in class because her growling tummy “sometimes makes [her] feel like [she’s] going to barf” (Clemons 2013). This hunger-driven inattentiveness is something Rosie’s teacher deals with quite often she admits, as she explains her beliefs that not excelling in the classroom is not an issue to blame on lack on intelligence, but on hunger.
Food insecurity is not an issue unique to Rosie and her family fat out in the hills of Colorado. Rosie’s story is the daily reality for 50 million Americans — 50 million that do not have access to enough food to even stop their stomachs from growling, let alone plentifully nourish their brains. Hunger cripples mental and physical development, leaving its victims more susceptible to illness. While rumbling stomachs already distract a brain’s attention from attempting to process information learned in the classroom, school absences escalate these issues even further (Brown 2005). These are brains that have the potential to develop into minds comparable to those of Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking, if only hunger wasn’t impeding their intellectual development. The cure to cancer may be hidden in one of these brains, but we may never know since they do not get the adequate nutrition needed to flourish. Allowing these brains to be malnourished at their most plastic, malleable stages will delay brain development for the rest of their lives, ruining their academic potential.
This proposal was beginning to sound less appealing after considering the millions of stories similar to Rosie’s. But surely there is something else that distinguishes these 50 million people from other Americans, right? The adults in the food insecure families can just get jobs, can they not? This has to solve the problem. But this is where the issue of food insecurity gets more complicated and frightening:
85% of families that are considered food insecure have at least one working adult in the household.
In many cases, Rosie’s included, even the combination of employed family members and SNAP benefits is still not enough to provide proper nutrition. To make matters worse, food insecurity usually runs through generations. The hungry child in the classroom who is unable to concentrate or stay healthy may be forced to drop out due to their abundance of school absences. Without a proper education, they’ll be considered lucky if they are able to attain any job at all, let alone one that pays well — again leaving them without enough money to sufficiently feed themselves. Thus, food insecurity becomes a never-ending cycle, impossible to escape from.
There is no denying that $213 billion is an enormous sum of money. Two hundred thirteen billion dollars. After hearing that number, it seems as though it is going to take a lot of convincing to keep you from supporting this budget cut. Raw, personal accounts have a much greater impact than statistics do, however. It’s much easier to pretend to forget about the issue of food insecurity when you only hear about it in terms of statistics. 50 million hungry Americans — 13 million of which are children. Our brains just cannot process how significant of a number this is, or what it truly means. But when movies such as A Place at the Table give us names and faces to these statistics, they become much harder to ignore. Before, the number 213 billion seemed to describe a useful, cost-efficient budget option. Now, all you can seem to think about after hearing the number is Rosie’s young innocent face, as you hear her growling tummy distracting her in the classroom. 50 million people in equal to 1 in 6 Americans. $213 billion is an extraordinary amount of money — there are no arguments against that. But is there any amount of money that is worth putting 17% of Americans’ lives in more jeopardy than they already are?
Since the massive budget cut doesn’t seem like it’s going to fix the problem, what can we do to try to solve food insecurity? Due to the rise of food insecurity, many struggling families often have to resort to the help of local food banks and soup kitchens — which have increased by a factor of 200 since 1980. While these organizations are a blessing to those in need, they should not be considered a solution to food insecurity. They are rather makeshift fixes, usually assembled and managed by good Samaritans and their humanity. The issue of food insecurity is not something that can be solved by a Band-Aid-type fix, however. To truly make a difference, new governmental rules and regulations will need to be implemented.
Sarah Brown mentions one possible change in legislation in her essay titled How to Afford an Apple a Day: living wage. Sarah supports her suggested solution with another story told within A Place at the Table: Barbie, a single mother from Philadelphia, relies on SNAP benefits to feed her two children as she desperately searches for a job. Eventually, she finds a job and is filled with pride, as she feels like she is finally providing for her family. Unfortunately, this pride is short-lived. Her new job has allowed her to (just barely) make enough that she no longer qualifies for SNAP, bringing feelings of déjà vu. Despite having a job for the first time in years, it does not pay enough to allow her to adequately feed her family. This is where the idea of a living wage comes in. Rather than determining an employee’s salary by matching it with the state’s legal minimum, it should be based on their living situation, giving them at least enough to afford basic needs, i.e. shelter and food. A living wage would allow Barbie, and the 50 million other food insecure Americans, peace of mind knowing they will be able to put food on the table.
While implementing a living wage is one potential solution to food insecurity, it is definitely not the only change that can be made. Another huge problem in America is food waste — as 40% of all the food produced in America is never eaten. Yes, you heard that correctly. Forty percent of all American food is wasted, yet there are 50 million people in the country that do not know when their next meal will be. While we’re all guilty of not always finishing everything on our plates or forgetting about the leftovers in the back of the fridge, the problem of food waste is much deeper than that. Many times, for example, farmers do not harvest all of the crops they have grown because it is not economically feasible. I know what you’re thinking — this doesn’t make any sense … why wouldn’t farmers harvest all of these crops they spent time, money, and labor on throughout the growing season? Here’s the simple answer: they’re too ugly. So, these crops are not even worth the effort to harvest, as the probability that they will make profit is extremely low. The effects of these strict aesthetic guidelines do not stop at the farm, however. The USDA’s stringent standards are pretty much life-or-death for the majority of food products, as “highly-skilled graders” get to decide their fate (“Grades and Standards”). Is the food product too big? Too small? An odd shape? Does it have a blemish or two? These are means to be deemed as “ugly,” as the product will immediately be removed from the line of production, never to be seen by consumer eyes. The same principle applies in grocery stores and supermarkets, as they only want their name to be associated with having the highest-quality products. Was the corner of a cereal box smushed before it reached the store? Was the label on the jar of pickles slightly ripped? These products, too, will never be seen by consumers, as many companies refuse to put anything on their shelves unless it looks the best of the best. Another thing we’re all guilty of is throwing away something just a day or two past its “Best By” date. Consumer misconceptions about dates such as these on food items make this another major root of food waste. These dates are supposed to solely be for communication between the producers to the retailers, letting them know when products are at their peak freshness, and when they should be removed from the shelves; they were never meant to even be seen by consumers.
Do you know what all these aforementioned examples have in common? None of them involve food safety risks. The ugly, misshapen vegetables left unharvested? The cereal and pickles with packaging defects? The foods past their sell by dates? All perfectly safe to eat. While the tomato may have an extra lump or bump, but it is still just as safe to eat as one that is perfectly spherical. The same goes for the products whose packaging may not look exactly like it did when it left the manufacturers. The phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover”? I guess that logic doesn’t apply in the food industry. And yes, even the food date labeling has no correlation to the safety of the food product, but the quality. Sell by dates are estimated to communicate to the retailers when they should have the product off their shelves by so the consumer can enjoy the food while it is still at its peak quality. Best by dates are only an indication as to when the product may begin to be less than ideal quality. For example, the crust on your apple pie may not be as crisp or flaky as it was before, but the safety of the food is just the same as it was previous to this date. The majority of foods that are wasted are not thrown away because they are no longer safe to eat, but because of the strict standards set by regulations and consumer expectations.
So, if all of this food is perfectly safe to eat, why is it being wasted … especially when there are 50 million hungry stomachs in the U.S. alone that it could feed? After asking themselves this question, some companies decided they wanted to do something about it. Panera Bread, for example, donates about $100 million worth of baked goods every year solely by sending the goods leftover at the end of the workday to local nonprofits. Donating to food banks or pantries is not the only way to simultaneously combat both food waste and food insecurity, however. Around the world, many innovative companies have adopted the motto of “turning trash into treasure,” as they take products that have been wasted and recreate them into a new food product. This usually involves reinventing the product into something in which you are unable to tell what the original product looked like — upon first glance, you would never know these products contained the same tomatoes or strawberries you abandoned at the grocery store due to their blemished appearance. This logic is used by Misfit Juicery’s two creators and owners, as they take “ugly” produce and leftovers and blend them into juices (“Misfit Juicery”).
Other ingenious organizations are battling food waste in a way that also lends a sense of empowerment to those who are food insecure. Imperfect Produce has teamed up with their own collection of farmers who share the belief that ugly produce should not remain unharvested. They buy odd-looking or misshapen fruits and vegetables from these farms and sell them to consumers for 30–50% less than grocery stores (“Imperfect” 2018). A new Danish company known as WeFood uses these same principles while it works to achieve its two goals: battling food waste and hunger. WeFood uses ugly produce, and (as mentioned earlier) products that other supermarkets do not want to put on their shelves and has made its own low-income grocery store. They stock their shelves with foods that are still perfectly safe to consume, but may be “ugly,” have damaged packaging, or are past their best by dates, and sell them at a discounted price compared to other retailers (Peters 2016). With these reduced prices, families such as Rosie’s or Barbie’s could obtain fresh produce at a cost they can afford but would also feel a sense of responsibility as they paid for such products rather than having them handed to them for free.
Although there are many contributing factors to the problem of food insecurity, we cannot ignore food waste as one of them. Working to reduce food waste would, in turn, work towards reducing food insecurity. To help solve our problem of food waste, we can use all the perfectly safe foods that are being wasted to create an affordable market for those who are food insecure. While major governmental changes need to be made to the SNAP program, there are some adjustments that can be incorporated into today’s society without too much work. The fact that the U.S. wastes 40% of the food that is produced while 17% of the country is hungry should strike you as a moral dilemma, motivating you to help work towards solutions to these problems. After making conscious efforts to fight food waste by implementing ugly-food-friendly grocery stores, Denmark has cut back on food waste by 25% within six years (Hitchings-Hales 2017). So, the question isn’t whether or not such methods are going to work — because Denmark has shown that they do. Instead, the question is, if Denmark can do it, why can’t we?
Want more information? You can learn more about the issue of food insecurity in the US here.
Want to contribute to the movement against food insecurity and hunger in the US? You can do so here.
Acknowledgements
The inspiration for this paper came from Dr. Kali Kniel’s Food for Thought course, where the majority of this information was learned. Throughout the semester we were taught about a variety of topics regarding the food industry, including food processing, challenges in animal agriculture, food safety, (and, of course, food waste and insecurity) among many other subjects. I found this class not only very informative, but also extremely moving, as I became educated on several different controversial topics. Prior to this course, I was not very opinionated on these issues, but the opposite is true now that I have become more informed.
References
Bilow, Rochelle. “Are the Beauty Standards for Fruits & Vegetables Unfair?” Bon Appetit. July 29, 2014. Accessed May 08, 2018. https://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/article/fruit-vegetable-beauty-standards.
Brown. “Hunger, Almost Eliminated in the 70’s, Is Now Widespread.” Nieman Watchdog. November 29, 2005. Accessed May 08, 2018. http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Ask_this.view&askthisid=155.
Clemons, Mary. “”A Place at the Table” Reveals Stark Facts about Food Insecurity in U.S.” Occasional Planet. February 22, 2013. Accessed May 08, 2018. http://occasionalplanet.org/2013/02/25/a-place-at-the-table-reveals-stark-facts-about-food-insecurity-in-u-s/.
“Food Insecurity | Definition of Food Insecurity in English by Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries | English. Accessed May 08, 2018. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/food_insecurity.
“Grades and Standards.” United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service. Accessed May 08, 2018. https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards.
Hitchings-Hales, James. “Meet the Woman Who Led Denmark to Cut Food Waste By 25% in 5 Years.” Global Citizen. March 2, 2017. Accessed May 08, 2018. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/denmark-food-waste-selina-juul-25-five-years-stop/.
“Imperfect: Ugly Produce Delivery for 30–50% Less!” Imperfect Produce. 2018. Accessed May 08, 2018. https://www.imperfectproduce.com/.
“Misfit Juicery.” Misfit Juicery. Accessed May 08, 2018. https://misfitjuicery.co/.
Peters, Adele. “This Danish Grocery Store Only Sells Food Other Supermarkets Are Throwing Away.” Fast Company. March 07, 2016. Accessed May 08, 2018. https://www.fastcompany.com/3057211/this-danish-grocery-store-only-sells-food-other-supermarkets-are-throwing-away.
Rosenbaum, Dottie, et al. “President’s Budget Would Cut Food Assistance for Millions and Radically Restructure SNAP.” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. February 15, 2018. Accessed May 08, 2018. https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/presidents-budget-would-cut-food-assistance-for-millions-and-radically.