And 500 million American will lose jobs if stimulus package is not passed, according to Nancy Lugosi.

 

I don't know what they are up to. If they want to use record use of food stamp to push agenda for government take over of food industry, then we will be facing a real starvation in the US.

I was one of those hungry Americans the other day, so I went to the McDonald's drive thru and bought myself a flippin' double cheeseburger.  I bought it off the dollar menu (things are a little tight these days, you know). 

 

On a more serious note, I call bullshit on most of these stats that come out about hunger in the US.  The 50 million hungry stat seems to paint a picture that one in six Americans are starving, but that is absurd.  I have been a cop for fifteen years and have been in a lot of impoverished homes, but the only starvation death I have ever heard of was a case of criminal neglect (a couple allowed their three month old to starve to death).  Are there Americans that aren't getting enough to eat or are suffering from poor nutrition?  Sure, but there are a lot of programs in place to help those folks.  In mind whenever bleeding hearts uses statistics like that it hurts their credibility and their cause since most Americans with any sense know better. 

I find it hard to buy too. I've only been a tourist to the US, but the biggest problem in the US is obesity, not hunger. Poverty in the West is psychological: women ignore you, people look down on you, you are on the bottom rung of society. In the East it is nutritional. Actually you still enjoy the company of women and are accepted by society.

 

So, this stat doesn't ring true. It could be a stat taken from the use of food banks. Perhaps use of food banks in the US has increased, which is quite possible. but that doesn't make for a sesnational headline to flog newspapers, does it?

 

And from anecdotal info, a lot of people i knew in canada who went to food banks did so not because they were starving, but because they wanted a free ride and could get away with it.

blogs.orlandosentinel.com/chan...

If one is hungry in the U.S. it is due to a lack of effort on their part to alleviate the situation. There's so many options by which to get fed in this country that it boggles the mind.

 

 We don't have the fattest poor people in the world for no reason.

What is "great" about this system is that the Department of Agriculture are generating a legitimate number without sensationalizing it because it is just "food insecurity". The media is reporting a legitimate number but food insecurity is so technical to be basically meaningless without digging into the meat of the numbers and survey methodology, so the media has the job of "interpreting" it to make it accessible to avarage Americans - so they call it hunger. Unfortunately "food insecurity" != "hunger", but it is an interpretation and while we can debate the validity of the interpretations they are just doing there job.

 

So, in the end the American people are lied to and it isn't anybody's fault... If this were an isolated case it would be annoying but it is part of a systematic perversion of truth that cuts across nearly every aspect of American political debate.

Sinoflex is right, you can have a calorie rich but nutritionally poor diet.  You have calories to get through the day but little real substance.  This is a common problem in many poor nations because fruits, vegetables, beans and especially meat are expensive (meat is a luxury).  In the US, it is typically a lack of education.  At Safeway and King Soopers, a bag of whole carrots costs $1.99, about as much as a bag of chips and 3 carrots per day will last a week.

 

I would also bet that part of what we identify as "hunger" qualifies as a full three squares in most countries.  We are obese, we are used to big meals. Going from 3000 to 1400 calories a day means a period of hunger until the body gets used to getting around on less.

 

Our food are also artificially sweetened and fattened.  Corn syrup is banned in all but the UK and US.  In Asia and Central America, I've always had my fill of local food but always end up thinner than when I left the US.

 

On the other hand, there probably is a real growing hunger problem in the US, especially among kids whose diets are subject to the whims of their parents.  But all indicators state that the UK is in far worse shape than the US, so the Guardian ought to turn its gaze towards Manchester, Leeds and Belfast instead of poking the US from across the pond.

 

Watching Jamie Oliver's crusaude on UK school lunches I was appalled to see what parents were putting in their children's lunch boxes often consisting of nothing more than candy bars and crisps (potato chips).  No wonder kids don't behave in class and suffer from concentration and attention deficits.