03/24/2021 | 3m 5s | Video has closed captioning.
There’s no single definition of "food insecurity," but we asked people working in food justice to help us understand what it means, including a lack of access to healthy foods, a lack of choice, and families not knowing where their next meal will come from. Race and geography can both contribute to a family’s ability to access to healthy foods.
Aired: 03/24/21
(soft beat music) - [Woman] What is food insecurity?
- [Man] It's hard to define.
In different places it means a different thing.
- Food insecurity deals with a lack of access to nutrition.
And I also believe, you know access is something that we all need.
It's not a privilege to have access to food.
- So at Second Harvest Heartland, we say food insecurity.
And so what that looks like is parents skipping meals so their kids can have more, they're watering down milk turning ketchup packets into soup, things like that.
We use food insecurity because it just focuses on the pressure families feel when they're having trouble making ends meet.
- I would sort of just define it as an inconsistent ability to access healthy food.
And there are all kinds of reasons why people find themselves in that situation.
- For me food security means having access to any choice that you want to make regarding food.
- This is amazing.
- I know these tomatoes are incredible.
- So if that means you wanna get Popeye's for breakfast one morning, great.
If you wanna make the choice to have grass-fed beef and cook up your micro greens at home.
It means you have the resources and the knowledge and the tools to do that in an affordable and accessible way.
Race and class, and our systemic history in the United States impacts how we access and think about and see food in our neighborhoods.
- We can't talk about food insecurity if we don't intersect both place and race as part of that conversation, and certainly more black and brown communities are food insecure.
In addition, our rural areas are also experiencing disproportionately kind of impact around food access.
And so we need to take a systems level approach as we think about food insecurity.
- I think that choice is extremely important when dealing with matters around food insecurity, particularly I think it brings more dignity when you have options.
No one wants to feel like, you know you're being forced to eat something or do something.
So I think people appreciate when they have options - Dignity and choice is at the core of what we do every day and making sure every one of our neighbors can choose what they're eating for dinner.
They have access to healthy fruits and vegetables, culturally specific foods, so people can have that dignity when they're sitting down to dinner with their family.
They're eating food that they know, and they love.
- We need to be thinking about policies that promote autonomy so that families can make healthier decisions for themselves and their families.
- Access to nutrition is a basic human right.
It's not a privilege.
And we know that when people have access to nutrition they perform better, they are better.
Food, you know, that's where we get our vitamin and minerals, so making sure that people have this basic need is literally the right thing to do.
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