A Place At The Table Analysis

What image do you see when someone says hunger or food insecurity? Do you imagine someone severely underweight? Or maybe a child in a third world country? Perhaps the last thing you imagine is someone in the United States because surely hunger does not exist here. Despite this belief hunger does exist in the United States, the documentary A Place at the Table defines someone who is food insecure as someone who does not know where their next meal is coming from, they have no idea how to manage, find, or afford food. Now from this definition, who do you imagine when someone says hunger or food insecurity? Food insecurity is defined as not just a lack of food, but also someone who has a lack of access to nutritious food. There are two types of …show more content…
A solution to this problem would be to teach people how to grow and cook their own food. Susan Andreatta adds depth to an old proverb is her Article “Through the Generations: Victory Gardens for Tomorrow's Tables” by saying "Teaching a person to fend for her or himself, as in the case of learning to fish for a lifetime, are transferable survivor skills, which would could be land based as well. By extensions, suggesting that one could learn to grow one's own fresh vegetables, convert grassed front yards into edible landscapes, cook for one's self or one's family and friends, even teach others to garden and or cook from scratch would echo the fish proverb's message of taking care for a lifetime." (Andreatta 38) Andreatta suggests that teaching someone to grow their own food will give them more food security. Yes, teaching people to grow their own food has its benefits the first of which being the skill of gardening and cooking can be passed down generations. Another benefit to growing food is extra food can be shared with the community or donated to a food pantry. Growing and sharing food within the community is a great solution for those living in food deserts, but it has its downfalls. The first problem with gardening is a garden requires time. A person may want to have a garden, but cannot make the time commitment required, gardening requires weeding, watering, and fertilizing; but someone with a job and children may not have time for the maintenance of a garden. While vegetable gardens are considered money savers, the initial cost to start a garden may cost more than buying the vegetables would. Potential costs of starting a garden could include tiller, shovel, rake, hoe and of course seeds to plant, after the initial cost of starting a garden the price of