[Background music continues throughout]
>> MATT HABAS: Food insecurity is not about food.
Its about having the resources to live.
[children talking]
There are many, many, many people in each
and every community across this country
that don't have access to food on a regular
basis;
can't go to a grocery story and buy what they
need when they need it.
And I think that's, for me, the ultimate definition,
is do you have the resources to acquire food
the same way each and every one of us do.
You know I work three jobs to support my family.
I work very hard. Yes, I do receive food stamps..
um..
but that does not cover all of my food costs.
It's a lot more than sometimes meets the
eye.
[background music]
>> CASEY HOY: The statistics are that we produce enough now to feed everyone in the world.
And then some.
Half the people we help at the food bank work.
You know, the people that are working playing
by all the rules, shouldn't have to use the food pantry,
food bank system to get food, but yet that's
what's going on in America for millions of Americans.
Healthy food across the country is the most
expensive food we buy.
You know, and therefore people don't have
the choice of eating healthy
if they're on a very limited budget and the
last thing in their budget
is go spend the money on food.
It is $12 to feed them through McDonalds,
but if I go to the grocery store its going
to be $30.
So there are times that I do feed them....things
I know are not well for them,
but sometimes its cheaper and I need to feed
them.
If we want to take on food insecurity and
end it, as opposed to relieve it,
then we have to work with partners in the
community
to ultimately find ladders out of poverty
towards self-sufficiency,
and the only way to do that is to make sure
people have opportunity to work
and then get paid at a level in which they
can support themselves.
>> PATTY CUNNINGHAM:A food desert is a place, geographical space,
where people in a neighborhood do not have access to healthy food and vegetables.
So whether you're in an urban setting, or
a rural setting, there are counties
that do not have a grocery store.
>> JONI DICKENSON: We've got TV dinners, chicken nuggets, a lot of boxed and processed foods available,
and if you cannot get out of this area to
go grocery shopping, those are your only options.
We don't think about the cost of driving to
a grocery store in our world.
But for a person on a fixed income gasoline
is a big issue.
>> JONI DICKENSON: You would think that in this rural area you would see a lot of small farms
and some farmers that would have little stands
on the side of the road, and you just don't.
If people in this town had the fresh produce
and the fresh meat available in town,
at an affordable price, it would help a lot
of people.
>> CASEY HOY: We're hung up on cosmetics in the food system, and this particularly for fresh food.
And think about the way you go to the supermarket
and choose which apple to buy.
If there's one that's blemished, and one that
looks perfect, no blemishes, which one are you going to choose?
Well you scale that up across the entire food
system
and it leads to about 40% of the food that
we produce being wasted.
>> MATT HABAS:There's nothing wrong with this product.
Its good food, and there's so much of this
available,
we haven't figured out how to create a market
for people to buy it.
You can buy it at a less price point, therefore
you might be able to eat healthier.
When people are eating really bad food, because
that's all that's available to them..
what I mean by bad food is food that has no
nutritional value.
Where they're drinking only sodas, where they're
eating food that's got a high content of sugar,
no protein, no fiber, no fresh fruits and
vegetables, those kinds of things.
The toll that it takes on them is that it makes them
sluggish, it makes them unable to work,
all kinds of diseases, hypertension, diabetes.
If you think about the calories that are inexpensive,
they're the kinds of things that promote obesity,
Type II Diabetes, health issues that are diet
related, not necessarily a quantity, but certainly a quality issue.
In the case of food you can compromise. You
can shortchange yourself and your body.
And so one always has to see food insecurity
against the context of the human being
who's in that circumstance
where they're making those kinds of terrible
choices between electricity, transportation,
health care, pills, medication, and food.
[Background music]
The great enemy of trying to end hunger is
apathy and ignorance,
and the way that apathy plays out is that
people listen to this and they say "its terrible"
and then they don't do anything about it.
And ignorance is they have all these myths
about who the people are who are facing hunger in America,
facing food insecurity in America.
>> HOY: Food security is what's known as a wicked
problem.
It's laden with value judgments and trade-offs
at every turn.
You all came with different lenses today.
You all do different kinds of work.
All of it can be turned towards resolving
issues with food security.
To me if we're really going to solve this
problem its going to be because we break down the gaps;
we have a huge income gap, and that's the
wage issue;
we have a huge disconnect in how we live and
socialize and gather.
We don't see people the way we used to see
people; segregated schools in a lot of ways,
we've got communities that are segregated by
price-point of housing.
We have to break down those barriers.
We don't have a shortage of food in America.
That's not our problem.
We have a shortage of political will.
We have a shortage of psychological will.
If we can get our arms around those things,
and if we do, we can solve this problem together.
[music]
