food insecure
adjective
variants:
or less commonly food-insecure
Definition of food insecure
: unable to consistently access or afford adequate food
According to data released last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 17 percent of Americans—more than 50 million people—live in households that are "food insecure," a term that means a family sometimes runs out of money to buy food, or it sometimes runs out of food before it can get more money.— Lisa Miller A food-insecure household may be faced with the difficult choice of paying for basic necessities, such as health care and housing, or buying nutritionally adequate foods.— Elyse Miller
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Examples of food insecure in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
One in seven Oregon households is food insecure, according to the Oregon Center for Oregon Center for Public Policy. — oregonlive.com, "Back to school: For some Oregon families, free and reduced lunches are a lifeline," 24 Aug. 2019 Participants can also join a group of people who will be walking from one food pantry to another to further experience the plight of some food insecure populations. — Casey Smith, Indianapolis Star, "'Food access is an issue': Canal walk kicks off Hunger Awareness Week," 20 July 2019 In Cook County, 184,900 children live in food insecure homes. — Bianca Sanchez, chicagotribune.com, "CPS to offer children free lunch at nearly 100 locations, almost all summer vacation," 25 June 2019 Bi-Lo’s decision to close six local stores could exacerbate a problem Charlotte already has with serving lower-income areas with little access to fresh groceries – also known as food insecure areas. — Katherine Peralta, charlotteobserver, "6 Charlotte-area Bi-Lo, Harveys stores, more across NC, closing as part of bankruptcy | Charlotte Observer," 15 Mar. 2018 About 59% of rural Zimbabweans, or about 5.5 million people, are now food insecure, a report by the government, the United Nations and aid groups said this month. — Farai Mutsaka, Los Angeles Times, "Zimbabweans say their economy is worse than ever: ‘This is hell’," 25 July 2019 Data collection will show not only where college students are most food insecure but also where colleges are already working to help students in need, and those schools could provide examples to follow, Murphy said. — Tess Vrbin, courant.com, "Rep. Hayes, Sen. Murphy introduce legislation to combat college hunger," 22 July 2019 Just under half of CAR's people are food insecure, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). — Sebastian Shukla, Tim Lister And Clarissa Ward, CNN, "The forgotten crisis that has displaced 1.2 million people," 27 June 2019 In Bexar County alone, there are 200,000 food insecure students during the summer, according to the donation page for the cereal drive held by Methodist Children’s Hospital of San Antonio. — Austin Taylor, ExpressNews.com, "San Antonio food drive collects over 277,000 servings of cereal to to help feed area children," 7 June 2019These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'food insecure.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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