{"id":88,"date":"2006-11-21T06:43:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-21T06:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jwalking\/2006\/11\/hunger-gone.html"},"modified":"2006-11-21T06:43:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-21T06:43:00","slug":"hunger-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2006\/11\/hunger-gone.html","title":{"rendered":"Hunger?  Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Bush administration has done it.  Hunger is officially gone.  There are no hungry Americans anymore.  Here is the proof:<\/p>\n<p>The US government has tweaked its terminology in referring to the nearly 11 million Americans who face a constant struggle with hunger to refer to them as people with &#8220;very low food security.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to a report released this month by the US Department of Agriculture, roughly 35 million Americans had difficulty feeding themselves in 2005 and of those some 10.8 million went hungry.<\/p>\n<p>But unlike last year&#8217;s report on hunger in America, which labeled families who don&#8217;t get enough to eat as having &#8220;food insecurity with hunger,&#8221; this year&#8217;s report referred to them as having &#8220;very low food security.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The change in terminology has angered groups that fight hunger who say it is aimed at hiding a stark reality.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is very widespread feeling that it was a mistake to water down the language,&#8221; Jim Weill, director of the Washington-based Food Research and Action Center, a non-profit organization, told AFP.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are 35 million people in this country who are struggling with hunger, no matter what you call it,&#8221; he added. &#8220;An there is no way ultimately to obscure the fact that we&#8217;re an incredibly wealthy country with 35 million people who are struggling with hunger.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>US officials have defended the change, saying it is based on a recommendation from the National Academies, which advises the government on science and medical issues.<\/p>\n<p>Normally I would write something satirically or seriously on this development.  But why?  This  is beyond Orwell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Bush administration has done it. Hunger is officially gone. There are no hungry Americans anymore. Here is the proof: The US government has tweaked its terminology in referring to the nearly 11 million Americans who face a constant struggle with hunger to refer to them as people with &#8220;very low food security.&#8221; According to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hunger? 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