Progressive Magazine, Mother Jones, recently published an article denouncing conservative think-tank, The Heritage Foundation’s, recent report, “Hunger Hysteria: Examining Food Security and Obesity in America.” James Ridgeway at Mother Jones writes:

According to a November 13 Heritage article…there are no longer any hungry people in the United States…. Far from having too little to eat, they argue, poor people are eating too much.

“Hunger Hysteria” is the work of Robert Rector, Heritage’s senior domestic-policy man [who] argues that while the USDA’s numbers [of food insecurity in the US] might sound “ominous” on the surface, “the government’s own data show that the overwhelming majority of food insecure adults are, like most adult Americans, overweight or obese.”

I think I might lose my lunch.

What the folks at Heritage fail to recognize (and Ridgeway points out) is that poorer people are not fat because they’re inherently lazy and gluttonness - they’re fat because unhealthy foods like Little Debbie Snack Cakes and Cheetos cost FAR LESS than healthy foods like broccoli and fish. Michael Pollan wrote in a New York Times article “You are What You Grow:”

“[Researcher Adam] Drewnowski found that dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.” This fact, he says, has everything to do with the Farm Bill and the huge subsidies that go to commodity crop farmers (corn, wheat, soy, rice, etc.), as opposed to growers of fruits and vegetables.

This stance that Heritage takes is particularly infuriating in light of yet another New York Times article, Food Banks, In a Squeeze, Tighten Belts, by Katie Zezima which reports:

“Food banks around the country are reporting critical shortages that have forced them to ration supplies, distribute staples usually reserved for disaster relief and in some instances close.”

Not only are people still hungry in America, they might be even worse off then they’ve been in the past. I guess Heritage must bank on the fact that most of their readers do not read the Times?

Read the full Mother Jones article here.
Read The Heritage Foundation’s “Hunger Hysteria” here.