Hungry No More?

Earlier this week I commented on what I was convinced would be the dumbest argument/battle over semantics of 2006 – the “is a burrito a sandwich?” discussion.

I thought there couldn’t by anything out there that was more brainless than that.

I was wrong.

I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn that there is something even more inane than arguing about the sandwich qualities of a beef & bean burrito. But I’m sure that there will be no surprise to learn that it’s courtesy of the U.S. Government.

This story really sounds like something out of The Onion or National Lampoon, but it looks real to me. Of course, I “borrowed” the article from the Washington Post, so if we’ve been punked, well... they were punked first.

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U.S. agency changes "hunger" to "very low food security"

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security."

Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" in connection with those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year.

Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hunger" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, an Agriculture Department sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."

The department said that 12 percent of Americans — 35 million people — could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the Agriculture Department has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.

The number of hungry Americans has risen over the past five years, and last year, the share of food-insecure households stood at 11 percent.

Anti-hunger advocates say the new words sugarcoat a national shame. "The proposal to remove the word 'hunger' from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and their families," said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy group.

"We ... cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens."

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See what I said about being dumb as hell?

I have nothing nice to say about the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture wasting perfectly good tax dollars on this crap, especially when that money could’ve been used to actually feed the hungry...oops, “people who are experiencing very low food security”.

I have to go now. I’m so disgusted by this, I’m afraid that I may experience urges contrary to digesting.

And where the security in that????