Cheap, plentiful food is an American tradition. We spend a smaller percentage of our income on food than any other nation. We feed much of the world with our surpluses. Consumers, retailers, and restaurants throw away one-quarter of our food stock every year. And yet data collected by the federal government show that almost 12 percent of American households either suffer from hunger or worry about going hungry. Why are so many Americans afflicted with "food insecurity" during such prosperous times? According to this book, it's not simply an artifact of poverty: even most of the poorest homes have access to adequate food. Nor is it indifference to their plight or a lack of ways to help: Americans strongly support government food assistance, and there are a host of public and private programs devoted to feeding the hungry. Peter Eisinger seeks to unravel the puzzle of America's hunger and asserts that it is a problem that can be solved. He believes that the perception of hunger and responses to it emerge from a complex, intellectual, political, and social context. He begins by looking for a meaningful definition of hunger, then examines the structure and funding of government food assistance programs, the roles of Congress and community interest groups, and the contributions of volunteer organizations. He concludes by offering ideas to reduce the nation's perplexing hunger problem, based on creating stronger partnerships between public and private food programs.

Cheap, plentiful food is an American tradition. We spend a smaller percentage of our income on food than any other nation. We feed much of the world with our surpluses. Consumers, retailers, and restaurants throw away one-quarter of our food stock every year. And yet data collected by the federal government show that almost 12 percent of American households either suffer from hunger or worry about going hungry. Why are so many Americans afflicted with "food insecurity" during such prosperous times? According to this book, it's not simply an artifact of poverty: even most of the poorest homes have access to adequate food. Nor is it indifference to their plight or a lack of ways to help: Americans strongly support government food assistance, and there are a host of public and private programs devoted to feeding the hungry. Peter Eisinger seeks to unravel the puzzle of America's hunger and asserts that it is a problem that can be solved. He believes that the perception of hunger and responses to it emerge from a complex, intellectual, political, and social context. He begins by looking for a meaningful definition of hunger, then examines the structure and funding of government food assistance programs, the roles of Congress and community interest groups, and the contributions of volunteer organizations. He concludes by offering ideas to reduce the nation's perplexing hunger problem, based on creating stronger partnerships between public and private food programs.

Originally published in 1969, the documentary evidence of poverty and malnutrition in the American South showcased in Still Hungry in America still resonates today. The work was created to complement a July 1967 U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty hearings on hunger in America. At those hearings, witnesses documented examples of deprivation afflicting hundreds of thousands of American families. The most powerful testimonies came from the authors of this profoundly disturbing and important book. Al Clayton’s sensitive camerawork enabled the subcommittee members to see the agonizing results of insufficient food and improper diet, rendered graphically in stunted, weakened and fractured bones, dry, shrunken, and ulcerated skin, wasting muscles, and bloated legs and abdomens. Physician and child psychiatrist Robert Coles, who had worked with these populations for many years, described with fierce clarity the medical and psychological effects of hunger. Coles’s powerful narrative, reinforced by heartbreaking interviews with impoverished people and accompanied by 101 photographs taken by Clayton in Appalachia, rural Mississippi, and Atlanta, Georgia, convey the plight of the millions of hungry citizens in the most affluent nation on earth. A new foreword by historian Thomas J. Ward Jr. analyzes food insecurity among today’s rural and urban poor and frames the current crisis in the American diet not as a scarcity of food but as an overabundance of empty calories leading to obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

In the US, there is a wide-ranging network of at least 370 food banks, and more than 60,000 hunger-relief organizations such as food pantries and meal programs. These groups provide billions of meals a year to people in need. And yet hunger still affects one in nine Americans. What are we doing wrong? In Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries, Katie Martin argues that if handing out more and more food was the answer, we would have solved the problem of hunger decades ago. Martin instead presents a new model for charitable food, one where success is measured not by pounds of food distributed but by lives changed. The key is to focus on the root causes of hunger. When we shift our attention to strategies that build empathy, equity, and political will, we can implement real solutions. Martin shares those solutions in a warm, engaging style, with simple steps that anyone working or volunteering at a food bank or pantry can take today. Some are short-term strategies to create a more dignified experience for food pantry clients: providing client choice, where individuals select their own food, or redesigning a waiting room with better seating and a designated greeter. Some are longer-term: increasing the supply of healthy food, offering job training programs, or connecting clients to other social services. And some are big picture: joining the fight for living wages and a stronger social safety net. These strategies are illustrated through inspiring success stories and backed up by scientific research. Throughout, readers will find a wealth of proven ideas to make their charitable food organizations more empathetic and more effective. As Martin writes, it takes more than food to end hunger. Picking up this insightful, lively book is a great first step.

Hunger is one of the most significant issues in America. One in eight Americans struggles with hunger, and more than thirteen million children live in food insecure homes. As Christians we are called to address the suffering of the hungry and poor: "For I was hungry, and you gave me food . . ." (Matthew 25:35). However, the problems of hunger and poverty are too large and too complex for any one of us to resolve individually. I Was Hungry offers not only an assessment of the current crisis but also a strategy for addressing it. Jeremy Everett, a noted advocate for the hungry and poor, calls Christians to work intentionally across ideological divides to build trust with one another and impoverished communities and effectively end America's hunger crisis. Everett, appointed by US Congress to the National Commission on Hunger, founded and directs the Texas Hunger Initiative, a successful ministry that is helping to eradicate hunger in Texas and around the globe. Everett details the organization's history and tells stories of its work with communities from West Texas to Washington, DC, helping Christians of all political persuasions understand how they can work together to truly make a difference.

Veteran statesmen George McGovern and Robert Dole here find common cause with theologian and activist Donald Messer in this powerful testimony and appeal to people of faith. They are each convinced we can overcome global hunger now, and their informed, strategic, impassioned thoughts encourage and equip. This book brings together their disparate yet powerful voices behind a shared conviction: that helping the millions who lack basic provision for food has become a religious imperative and human priority. Writing for congregations and individuals of faith, McGovern, Dole, and Messer appeal to the biblical, theological, and ethical foundations of action against hunger.

The United States is viewed by the world as a country with plenty of food, yet not all households in America are food secure, meaning access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. A proportion of the population experiences food insecurity at some time in a given year because of food deprivation and lack of access to food due to economic resource constraints. Still, food insecurity in the United States is not of the same intensity as in some developing countries. Since 1995 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has annually published statistics on the extent of food insecurity and food insecurity with hunger in U.S. households. These estimates are based on a survey measure developed by the U.S. Food Security Measurement Project, an ongoing collaboration among federal agencies, academic researchers, and private organizations. USDA requested the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies to convene a panel of experts to undertake a two-year study in two phases to review at this 10-year mark the concepts and methodology for measuring food insecurity and hunger and the uses of the measure. In Phase 2 of the study the panel was to consider in more depth the issues raised in Phase 1 relating to the concepts and methods used to measure food security and make recommendations as appropriate. The Committee on National Statistics appointed a panel of 10 experts to examine the above issues. In order to provide timely guidance to USDA, the panel issued an interim Phase 1 report, Measuring Food Insecurity and Hunger: Phase 1 Report. That report presented the panel's preliminary assessments of the food security concepts and definitions; the appropriateness of identifying hunger as a severe range of food insecurity in such a survey-based measurement method; questions for measuring these concepts; and the appropriateness of a household survey for regularly monitoring food security in the U.S. population. It provided interim guidance for the continued production of the food security estimates. This final report primarily focuses on the Phase 2 charge. The major findings and conclusions based on the panel's review and deliberations are summarized.