What is food security?

Community Food Security Coalition

Our government* defines food security as "affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food for all people at all times."

For some people, food security means to not have to worry about where their family's next meal is coming from, whatever that meal might be and for whatever reason, including poverty, homelessness, or absence of food even if money is no object.

Some communities are considered food deserts because they lack access to grocery stores. A food desert could be a small town in a remote rural location, or it could be a neighborhood within a big city.

However, food security is not merely freedom from hunger. One's diet might fill the belly but still be nutritionally inferior and actually cause harm.

Even access to a full service grocery store does not ensure food security, if one takes into account whether the food is stripped of its nutritional value by over-processing, whether it contains antibiotics, hormones, drug-resistant bacteria, or other contaminants that don't belong in our food. Food security requires that our food be safe.

Long term food security on a global and even local scale requires that we preserve the natural resources necessary to sustain our food supply.

With food insecurity comes serious health problems and other socioeconomic issues.

Food insecurity has been responsible for the demise of entire civilizations.

Without food, we die.

Earth is fast approaching its capacity to feed a global population expected to reach 9 billion people in just under 40 more years.

Thus, food security is the most important social issue of the 21st century.

I will address these and other issues relevant to the loaded term "food security." Stay tuned for more details to come.

*The U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture


More information

Community Food Security Coalition
Food Deserts
USDA Food Desert Locator
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You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as National Food Policy Examiner, National Science News Examiner, Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.

Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.

A highly recommended Real Food Nutrition course to WATCH with your Kids!

The Real Food Nutrition & Health E-Course is being offered by Kristen Michaelis, AKA Food Renegade. She is one of the core Real Food Media bloggers in support of the real food philosophy taught by the Weston A. Price Foundation and Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions.

This class is for your children and for you to watch together. It begins this Friday, February 4! You must enroll by then in order to join in on the course. It runs through April 8th, with final assignments due by the 15th. New class materials are posted each Friday.

If you enroll in the class, you probably should buy a copy of Real Food Nutrition & Health, the textbook for the class.

This course is not a regurgitation of what the U.S. government has convinced us is healthy, with its upside down food pyramid. Instead, here you will learn the truth. Even if you don't homeschool your children, it would be good to teach them the truth, perhaps highlighting and contrasting what they learn from this course with what they learn from their public school teachers.

My child is in the public school system, and I find that I often have to tell her what is right and what is wrong of the information she is learning at school. It makes it awkward for her, because when tested she has to give the answer that is expected, not the answer that her mother tells her is the truth, but in the end I hope that she learns the truth and the fact that our understanding of the truth evolves as we learn more, and not just from the research conducted by scientists, medical doctors, nutritionists, and university professors, but also from reviewing the traditional dietary practices of the past, which the above-mentioned professionals often overlook.

If you decide to take this course based on my suggestion, please let me know by commenting below. I hope that you enjoy it.


Enjoy this? You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner, Long Beach Restaurant Examiner, National Science News Examiner and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.


Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.