1 in 8 Americans Hungry/Starving?

if you're starving in this country it is because you are bulimic...

Originally posted by menjo2000
[First you have to know what the definition of "starving" is, according to the U.S. government.
To be considered "starving", you have to miss one meal a month, out of 3 meals a day. I usually don't eat lunch, so in the governments eye's I should be withering waste of a person.

So right.

If one was really "starving" in the truest sense of the word, one would take food anywhere it could be found (people dying of thirst in the desert don't demand only Evian). You can go to any dumpster behind any fast food outlet or restaurant or grocery store - which are about every other block in the U.S. - and find enough to feed a family of 50 for a week. The problem is (just as you described) what the definition of "starving" is. I bet there are a lot of people in North Korea, Sudan, etc. that would love to be "starving" like those in the U.S.

This report is utter rubbish. The streets of America may not be paved with gold but there is food thrown around here in such great quantities that no one ever need "starve".

reply to post by passenger


Did anyone see that special that was on, it was within the past year or so, it was about this club / group of people that basically live off of the trash of restaurants, grocery stores and other stores. How people dig through the trash and find piles of food that are still good, loaves of bread, cartons of eggs, bottles of juice. I think there were two families in NYC that hadn't paid for food in several years and still ate like kings. They weren't poor, in fact, judging by their apartments, they were pretty well off, they just figured why pay for food, when you can get it for free.

reply to post by menjo2000


Thank you. Right on that one

There have been a number of individuals/groups that have demonstrated all the wasted, but still good, clean and nutritious food disposed of in the U.S.

I for one, have personally witnessed fast food restaurants that have a "schedule" for disposing of food: e.g. hamburgers under the warmer more than 30 minutes have to be disposed of. I also knew, personally, the managers and workers of those restaurants. And despite the imperial edicts of the Mother Chain, the workers and employees were more than happy to hand out a burger to any scruffy person hanging out near the dumpster. This is not withstanding the guys that stood out front, by the doors, and asked for money to buy a hamburger. Though, as more often than not, they took the cash to buy drugs. It was only when they were truly hungry that they took a hand-out hamburger before it went into the dumpster. I also worked for a church that had regular "freebies" to those in need - without question.

The moral of this story is that, in America, if you are truly starving then something is deeply and fundamentally wrong with you. You are either so pathetically lazy or stupid that you cannot find food even when it is right in front of your face. That is sad because even an amoeba can accomplish that much. So much for the superiority of human beings! There is truly no helping such people. A person such as this would die of dehydration while standing on the shores of a river. If you "starve" in America, you are truly beyond hope and the human race is probably better off without you.

reply to post by menjo2000


Are you saying all of these statistics are skewed!!??! Well I can't believe it...

People in general need to worry about themselves, not the rest of the population.

Why? Because you can't do almost anything for everybody, unless you were blessed with a fortune.

I would like to make a bet that a high percentage of people having trouble feeding themselves in these times have zero self responsibility.

There are certain cases to everything, but just by seeing all these poor people smoking a pack of cigarettes rather than buying food is disgusting. Goes for alcohol too.

My goal is not to bash smokers, but the irresponsible. They want to continue living a life of expenses when their is no money.

When it comes to finances, American people SUCK.

An important point needs to be made. People can be fat and starving at the same time. Hypothyroidal people can gain weight eating small portions of beans. Do not assume that poor fat people are over eating.

Find me 25 million Americans that look like this and i might be inclined to agree.






Practically no one in America should be *starving*.As far as i know you still have good soil and water,enough to grow your own food if you wish to.Food banks,coupons...tell one of those *starving* Americans to look behind their supermarket and see how much edible food they throw away everyday that you can get for free,the amount of vegetables and fruits is shocking.Many americans are nutritionally starved,like alot of other western countries.That is out of ignorance and complacency and not because they don't have access to nutritional food.

reply to post by Trams


I volunteer at a local food bank, and this year the cupboards are literally empty. We have not received even half of the donations that we got last year. The people that we used to help were the elderly, the disabled and the temporarily unemployed, such as single mothers with children.

This year, we are seeing the middle class come in from the suburbs, and they are so ashamed. I know they must be very hungry, and most of them have lost their jobs. It is very sad. I have never seen this before, and I have been working there for 6 years.

In the Pacific Northwest, there are NO jobs, especially in Oregon. I applied for a part time position last week that paid a lousy $8 and hour with no benefits, and there were over 400 applicants. It seems logical to assume that the 399 people that did not get the job want to work, and I know that mostly everyone I talked to wanted a job, not unemployment or welfare.

The reason I would never volunteer downtown, is because I do not want to help the drunks, drug addicts and the voluntarily unemployed. If it was up to me, those people would go hungry.

I have no idea how many people are actually starving in the U.S., but I have never seen it this bad. The Masters of the Universe on Wall Street blew up the economy, and it is the little people on Main Street who will suffer the consequences.

Is there a social security system in the USA ?

In the UK we have a range of cash benefits, paid by the central government which are paid depending on your circumstances. Jobseeker's Allowance for the unemployed, Incapacity Benefit for those unfit for work, Carer's Allowance for someone looking after a disabled person, Disability Living Allowance for the disabled & Income Support for some other categories.

There's also "in work" social security for those on a low wage, such as Working Tax Credit. In addition Housing Benefit helps cover rent payments, there's various programs to cover mortgage payments & Council Tax Benefit to help cover local taxes. There's also the Social Fund which helps provide interest free loans to the poor for household items, sometimes even cash grants if circumstances permit.

Does none of that exist in the USA ? I'm not advocating you adopt such a comprehensive system, far from it, I think the UK social security system is hugely expensive, far too generous & wide open to abuse. But at least no-one should go malnourished ... if anyone does it's because they've made poor choices of their own and not for the lack of state intervention.

reply to post by Ulala


We have programs like you described in your post in the U.S. What is happening now is that people are being deleveraged, that is losing their jobs, then their homes, then the rest of any money they may have. Until one is actually broke, there are really not that many programs available, and maybe that is how it should be.

However, after a while, not sure how long, the government will not have the money to help everyone who has become poor. And it does not seem like the jobs are going to come back. Obama extended unemployment benefits and also expanded some other things, like medical care for children who do not have health insurance. I do not believe in socialism or higher taxes, so I am not sure what the answer is.

The only solution is to create more jobs, but I do not see that happening anytime soon. We were living off of a real estate bubble, and that is what was providing tax revenues and jobs. Now the bubble has popped and we are left with a huge hole in our economy.

No one in the government, including Obama, and Congress (both parties) ever talks about jobs anymore, all I hear is "unfreeze the credit markets" and things like "Credit is the lifeblood of the American economy". However, one can not get credit when they are broke and unemployed. Therefore, in the future, many more people will wind up homeless and hungry.

All Washington is trying to do is blow yet another bubble, and this time it will not work. At some point, people are going to figure out that we are screwed...then maybe they will get angry.

It seems like in the U.K. and Europe, people go on strike and protest and at times the government actually listens to the demands and tries to find a reasonable solution. Maybe that needs to happen here, and maybe it will.

cant really comment for the U.S but I can for the UK... and by midway through the week were out of food. We used to be able to make a weeks shopping last a week, now with food priced rising, were shopping twice a week, spending 4x as much and we can barely afford it whilst barely having food...