Food Insecurity, Social Inequity, and Sustainability

In his 1941 State of the Union address, Franklin D. Roosevelt articulated four fundamental freedoms that people "everywhere in the world" should enjoy - of speech and of worship, and from fear and from want. Food ("freedom from want") is a fundamental human right, and it is acknowledged that there is enough sustenance in the world to feed everyone. Yet, some 800 million people are hungry. Why? It is due to a combination of inequitable distribution and morally indefensible destruction of excess crops to keep market prices attractive for producers and "big-agro" industry. In addition, one third of food is lost or wasted from "farm to fork." The world financial and food crisis in 2008 led to an additional short-term dimension to food security - stability. Sustainability may be regarded as the long-term time element combining environmental protection, sociocultural, and economic development. To emphasize the interrelations between economics and sustainable diets, the first two of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are: (1) No Poverty and (2) Zero Hunger. Every country has marginalized populations with food insecurity, aggravated by natural and man-made disasters and whose numbers are always underestimates. We have developed a Global Nutrition Index to track the triple burden of malnutrition and it seems that the problems of obesity and the food industry are even greater than those of hunger. However, there is an essential difference: while people never choose to be hungry, there are elements of socioeconomic inequalities, personal choice, and parental responsibility in the development of obesity, especially in children. Nutrition, economics, and education are essential for improving human capital and come together in SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-Being - since "a well-fed nation is a healthy nation is a productive and sustainable nation."