The Issue

Food insecurity, as measured by the food security survey and represented in USDA food security reports, is a household-level economic and social condition characterized by limited or uncertain access to adequate food. Hunger is a physiological condition that can arise as a result of food insecurity.

California, recognized as one of the wealthiest states, contains approximately 8 million inhabitants who are food insecure. One in five Californians is unsure when their next meal will be. According to the California Food Bank, the percentage of food insecurity reaches 20%. During this time, California remains producing about half of the nation's fruits and vegetables. Food insecurity does not always imply a lack of food; it may also refer to persons who have restricted, unclear, or inconsistent access to food. According to Nourish California, "almost every county in California has over 30% adults and 40% children living in low income homes who are food insecure." A UCLA team has found that in the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than three million Californians reported their households went without sufficient food. During the COVID-19 pandemic, disadvantaged households in the San Francisco Bay Area were at higher risk of food insufficiency compared with similar households in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. The researchers discovered that Bay Area homes who were food insecure prior to the COVID-19 crisis were 55 times more likely than food adequate households to be food insecure during the crisis, compared to 40 times more likely statewide. Using the USDA 6-item validated survey module, food insecurity rates among Bay Area residents increased from 20% to 33% since the pandemic started, a 65% increase.

How does lack of food affect children?

Almost two out of every three children aged six months to two years are not fed food that supports their rapidly growing bodies and brains. This puts them at risk of poor brain development, poor learning, low immunity, increased infections, and, in many cases, death. In California, in 2020, 2.3 million children were food insecure, the number increasing from 1.7 million from 2019. The child food insecurity rate in California has become 19%. Not eating enough of the right foods can have serious consequences for a child's physical and mental health, as well as academic achievement. 14.8% of households with children 15.3% of households with children under 6 years old are malnourished in California in 2022.

Are school lunches healthy for kids in California?

Upon research California school lunches have been reported as extremely processed and unhealthy for kids. Effects of poor nutrition from school lunches go beyond weight gain. A child who eats too much fat, sugar, sodium or processed food and too few vitamins and minerals is likely to develop a higher risk over time for several chronic health problems. Some reports suggest that fast-food restaurants actually check for bacteria and pathogens between five and ten times more often than school lunch meats. California’s leading menu items are not just unhealthy for kids; they are unhealthy for the climate. In the 2018-19 school year, California’s USDA Foods purchasing had an embedded carbon footprint of 1.1 billion pounds of CO2-eq — equivalent to the emissions of 110,000 passenger vehicles driving for a year. Animal products accounted for 96 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions associated with the foods purchased from USDA Foods, a program that drives meat heavy menus by providing low-cost subsidized animal products to schools. “In this current system, California’s kids are losing out on nutrition while Golden State farmers struggle for economic survival. School food directors like me will keep working hard across the state to make school lunch more climate-friendly while supporting our California’s farming communities,” said Miguel Villarreal, a veteran school food director at San Ramon Unified School District. “We need more policy support to make our job easier, like investments in farm-to-school programs and universal, climate-friendly, healthy school meals for all.”

What is considered low income in California-

According to Covered California income guidelines and salary restrictions, if an individual makes less than $47,520 per year or if a family of four earns wages less than $97,200 per year, then they qualify for government assistance based on their income. About 16% of Bay Area residents (716,800 people) are in this low-income category. According to these income classifications, about half of all residents in the region are very low income or low income. Taking Count establishes a critical baseline for the number of people experiencing poverty in the Bay Area just months before the outbreak of COVID-19. The study shows that while 17% of the Bay Area are living in poverty, even those who are above the threshold are still struggling to get by. According to the CPM, 16.4% of Californians (about 6.3 million) lacked enough resources—$35,600 per year for a family of four, on average—to meet basic needs in 2019. The poverty rate dropped from 17.6% in 2018.

As a nation, according to the USA census, the official poverty rate in 2020 was 11.4 percent, up 1.0 percentage point from 10.5 percent in 2019. Along with this, the USDA researchers found, about 13.8 million US households were food insecure at some point during 2020 and this is only the number without children. This is about 10.5% of the total US population. About 8.6 million of U.S. households had low food security in 2020, and 5.1 million of U.S. households had very low food security at some time during 2020. A direct number of adults living in food insecure households averages to about 38 million adults. A nation so widely known to have one of the highest numbers of immigrants also has almost half of its population living in food insecure households or under privileged households. According to Reuters, “During the first two weeks of October, 19.8 million American households reported being food insecure - defined as "sometimes or often" not having enough to eat, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau's Pulse Survey. The survey shows 8% of U.S. households faced hunger pre pandemic, a figure that peaked at 14% last December and was still elevated at 9% in October 2021”