Great Famine

The experience of a first generation Indian American growing up in the US was a privilege given to me by my parents. Throughout the years, I have had the opportunity to visit India and have witnessed different ways of living. The first time I visited India, I was six. My parents took me to all the places they lived, learned, and explored throughout their childhood. I was immersed in the culture and was able to learn so many new things about my heritage. I was also able to see how people lived in…

There is much to be learned from analyzing Dorothea Lange’s photograph “Migrant Mother” and the article relating to it by Kevin Starr. The photograph shows a poor migrant family and how the conditions they have been living through have begun to wear them down. The article gives more personal information on the family, ones you wouldn’t have been able to get from the photo, like how the mother’s name was Florence Thompson and that, “...they had been living on frozen vegetables from surrounding…

What was once a peasant's meal now blesses the kitchens of many five star restaurants, but most importantly my own kitchen. Potatoes were originally eaten for a daily dosage of vitamin A and calcium, causing them to be considered a necessity instead of a luxury. Potatoes were easy to grow and took a lot less preparation than most of their original meals. Irish peasant life typically centered around potatoes because they had them three times a day. Even though potatoes are not as prevalent as…

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or “SNAP,” the new name for the Food Stamp Program, is America’s largest and most important nutrition assistance program. It provides low-income people with money they must use to purchase food. The modern program was established as part of the War on Poverty in the 1960s, but it has undergone a ton of changes since then. For example, the government now gives recipients electronic debit cards, rather than stamps, for buying food. Those changes are…

Roughly about 50 percent of all produce in the United States is thrown away, and there is an estimated 70 billion pounds of food waste in America each year. Americans sure do waste a tremendous amount of food. Wasted food is also the single biggest occupant in American landfills. Globally, about 800 million people suffer starvation, but only ten years ago the total was almost 1 billion. A drop of nearly 200 million in the number of chronically hungry people should encourage anyone committed to…

The agricultural revolution is what turned hunters and gatherers into farmers. It brought the development of villages and the ability to grow one's own food. Domesticated animals and specialized jobs also developed with farming. However it also brought disease and an increase in death. My thoughts on agriculture are very similar to David Steinlicht, it was a very important step towards civilization. Jared Diamond claims that agriculture was “The worst mistake in the human history of the human…

Who is "hungry" or the "food-insecure" in America? The number of citizens experiencing food insecurity in America is surprising. While many would consider families who are homeless or living in poverty the only population with food insecurity, the actual statistics provide a much more diverse community of people. According to Feeding America, a major domestic hunger relief organization, food insecurity is defined as “all people in a household having enough food for an active healthy lifestyle…

Food Insecurity What and Where? Food insecurity is when people do not have access to enough safe and nutritious food to live an active and healthy life. It effects many countries in the world, especially the countries of Africa. Kenya is a country that is greatly affected by food insecurity. It is located across the equator in east-central Africa. Kenya is on the coast of the Indian Ocean, as shown on the map (Figure 1). In Kenya food insecurity is a large problem. More than 1.5 million people…

Who is "hungry" or the "food-insecure" in America? The people who are hungry or food-insecure in America vary widely across the states. People who live in highly urbanized areas as well as extremely rural areas both face challenges that influence whether or not they are hungry or food-insecure. Sadly, the population that is most affected by this issue at the moment are children. When children are raised by single parents, parents who work multiply jobs or can’t work at all, acquiring and…

There are current U.S. programs designed to ameliorate the issue of inadequate food access to the rural elderly, each being major contributors in meeting the needs of this population, but likewise facing limitations common to all non-profits, and common to the issue itself. Possibly the most well known is Meals on Wheels America, a non-profit organization with a national hub that supports state and local branches in all fifty states (Helseth, 2013). Meals (2017) is known for their efforts to…