Review – All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?

All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America? , Joel Berg, 2008, ISBN 9781583228548

This book looks at the current state of hunger in America. Written by an anti-hunger activist and former government official, it’s not a pretty picture.

If food insecurity (the new euphemism for “hunger”) is such a big problem, why are so many African Americans obese? Doesn’t it show that they are getting more than enough food? What it really shows is that those whose food insecurity is bad, but not totally desperate, have to rely on cheaper high-calorie foods that are full of chemicals and preservatives.

Why don’t inner city residents buy more vegetables, even organic vegetables? Most inner-city neighborhoods don’t have a supermarket, so people have to rely on convenience stores, which will sell cheaper pre-processed foods, rather than organic vegetables. Also, if you’re given a certain amount of money and you have to make it last a whole week, vegetables are rare and expensive organic vegetables just aren’t a possibility. Find out what your state gives Food Stamp recipients each week to live on, and see if you can.

Another problem for inner city residents is that the various government programs are managed by different agencies, which are not physically close to each other. It requires taking time off from work, or finding childcare, and getting on multiple buses, to go through several different sets of bureaucratic nonsense.

Everyone knows someone who claims to have seen a food stamp recipient buy lobster or caviar or something else very expensive with food stamps. That’s highly unlikely, because the average inner-city recipient doesn’t have access to such items, and the benefits are doled out on what look like regular debit cards, to reduce stigma.

To do? Among other things, the author advocates uniting all anti-hunger programs into one giant program. He also advocates for free school breakfasts to be available to all children, to reduce stigma for children and make healthy food much more widely available in the inner city.

This book is a great revelation. It’s full of practical solutions and very easy to read (even with the charts and graphs). It is highly recommended.