29 March 2012 ~ Food Security

To my astonishment, there is a "secure" and "insecure" aspect to food. Food security revolves around the availability, access and utilization to food. As we spoke about the topic and what it truly means, I realized that there are more people out there living with food insecurity than expected and that I may be one of them. Not going to the depth of dumpster-diving and searching for meals that way, it is difficult to balance the money outgoing towards bills and books and rent and the money spent to feed yourself. I never thought of myself as being insecure about food, but making the dollar stretch far is a common mindset amongst people nowadays. After watching the news clip on food security, it truly makes you open your eyes and count the blessings in your life. People are resorting to standing in food lines with hundreds of others in order to get bread and eggs and milk to last them the next 2 or 3 days. Watering down their milk as they once did in the Great Depression. Is this really happening today? The only way to manage such a problem while being in a financial depression throughout the world, we need to become more clever in our approach to food: utilizing gardening, less expensive substitutions, using "scraps" in order to replenish nutrients in the fertilizer for growing crops, educating people on how to lead more sustainable lives. Food insecurity is a sad situation which many face, but there are certainly solutions to aiding in their suffering.