U.S., Hawaii make laudable progress against hunger

THE ISSUE The number of American households without enough food has declined, with Hawaii leading the way.

THE number of Americans who are having a hard time putting enough food on the table dipped in 2005 for the first time in six years, and Hawaii residents were especially satiated. The percentage of people in need of a good meal remains too high, whether they are described as hungry or -- according to the latest government-speak -- "food-insecure."

The U.S. Agriculture Department says it abandoned "hungry" because it was not scientifically accurate, but no substitute is an improvement in describing a condition that cannot be measured in calories or vitamins. Application of the new term does provide an idea of how food figures into the budgets of too many Americans.

The good news is that 89 percent of U.S. households were "food secure," meaning they had "consistent access to enough food for active, healthy lives for all household members at all times during the year," according to the USDA report. That is up nearly 1 percent, or more than a million households, from the previous year.

The households regarded as least secure -- the bottom 3.9 percent -- were those where some members' food intake was reduced and "normal eating patterns were disrupted because of the lack of money and other resources." A notch better were those able to "avoid substantial disruptions in eating patterns and intake" through a variety of strategies, including participation in food assistance programs.

One of the elements of the study is the USDA's Thrifty Food Plan, a low-cost food basket that meets dietary standards. A typical food-insecure family spends 1 percent less than the $40 weekly cost for a single person, while a typical food-secure household spends one-third more.

Although the study bases its Hawaii findings on island prices for the dietary food basket being 43.7 percent higher than the national standard, or about $51, Hawaii had the biggest drop in the percentage of hungry -- "food-insecure" -- people from 12.9 percent in 1998 to 7.8 percent in 2005.

The leading program for tending to the needs of those remaining in the islands' bottom tier of the food trough is the Hawaii Foodbank, which serves more than 130,000 different people each week. The food bank provides an umbrella for food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, rehabilitation centers and other organizations, including food banks on Maui, Kauai and the Big Island.

Advocates for the hungry are irritated by the USDA's new vocabulary. "We should not hide the word 'hunger' in our discussions of this problem, because we cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens," says the Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World.

As long as the effectiveness of programs such as food stamps, school meals and the Hawaii Foodbank can be shown, it shouldn't matter what the government calls it.