What does "food security" really mean?

Writing toward specificity and accountability following Summer Brennan, Adrienne Rich, Sinead O'Connor, and Toni Morrison

A happy sink filled with beans and vegetables

On Monday, I made baked tofu with sauteed bok choy and rice for dinner while also preparing a pot of Rancho Gordo's Cranberry Beans. My husband and I bought the ingredients at different times and stores. The rice at our local conventional grocery store, Fry's. The bok choy, parsley, jalapeno, carrots, and celery at Sprouts Farmers Market, a locally founded grocery store chain. And the beans at Monsoon Market, a natural wine and snack shop that's also a community hub and supporter of smaller brands, founded by two women I adore, Koral Casillas and Michela Ricci, who've long been involved in Phoenix business.

Fry's is owned by Kroger and has an increasing presence in Arizona "after investing more than $550 million in the state over the last five years." At least four new Fry's are planned to open in 2024. Sprouts is a public company founded in 2002 in Arizona, headquartered in Phoenix, with over 380 stores in 23 states. It has received criticism for using the term "farmers market" when, really, it isn't one. Monsoon was founded in 2021, is owned by the co-founders, and sources specialty and locally made food products. At the same time I bought the heirloom beans from California, I bought a bag of cookies made by two sisters in Phoenix who run Sorelle Sandwiches & Baked Goods. I'm incredibly privileged to have this level of access and the ability to purchase from different places for different reasons.

I'm reading The Oyster War: The True Story of a Small Farm, Big Politics, and the Future of Wilderness in America by Summer Brennan and her newsletter, A Writer's Notebook. In a recent newsletter, she writes about the work that goes into writing and publishing. How they go hand in hand and can work against each other. Her newsletter post reminded me to be more rigorous and specific in my writing. 

There's a term I've thrown around a lot this year: food security. I use it like everyone (including myself) knows what it means. And in a hazy way, most English readers will understand what it means: food + security = secure access to food. But I want to be more specific as I educate myself about local and global food systems. I've also returned to the Adrienne Rich quote that galvanized me (I even put it on my about page) in August when I started to write more about food: "I come here with notes but without absolute conclusions. This is not a sign of loss of faith or hope. These notes are the marks of a struggle to keep moving, a struggle for accountability." It's a quote from her essay Notes toward a Politics of Location (1984), and along with specificity, I'm writing toward accountability.

In The Oyster War, Brennan writes, "Prior to the Point Reyes Wilderness Act of 1976, there wasn't a clear message of whether an oyster farm could continue operating in a National Park or a wilderness area. For many, what a 'wilderness' area was exactly wasn't entirely clear." Food security isn't entirely clear, as a term, either. What food? How? How will everyone have the time and money to procure and cook it? Or will it be free and already cooked? I thought about the term briefly at first, and troublesome questions multiplied.

The definition I got when Googling (from Oxford Languages) "food security" is "the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food." The USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture states, "Food security means that people have access, at all times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. At a minimum, this includes: 1) readily available, nutritionally adequate, and safe foods and 2) assured ability to acquire personally acceptable foods in a socially acceptable way." 

Who is defining an "active, healthy life"? Will there be a healthy life for people harvesting/processing the food? What about the animals producing or becoming food? Will crops be grown in a way that continues to damage the earth and our future living on it? Food security's definition can't be assumed and isn't in isolation. I've used the term food security or said that I want people to have secure access to food. What kind of food? Who is making those decisions? How is food connected to time (to cook and eat), housing (a place to cook), mental and physical health (the ability to cook), and education (cooking skills)?

Today's essay is not about answers. It's about accountability – in my writing and learning. I want to write about the local food systems I'm in and to do that, I need to be rigorous in my approach and rout out vague language and assumptions. I also need to do more work in my local food systems – be more and more a participant, not a bystander. 

I've been thinking about a quote from Sinead O'Connor shared by a handful of writers I admire after her death: "There's a tradition among Irish artists of being agitators and activists – whether they're playwrights or poets. An artist's job is to create the difficult conversations that need to be had." I'm convinced that most difficult conversations around food are things people notice and think about but don't get top billing (or get published at all) in traditional food media. If most of us stopped to think about what food security means, what it looks like, and how it can be accomplished, we'd understand it to be complicated. Here we are back at the problem of people not having enough time to stop and think.

In The Oyster War, Brennan makes the point that when European settlers came to CA for the Gold Rush, they weren't arriving in a wilderness like they thought but a recently violently depopulated area long-maintained by Indigenous peoples. What level of food security was there before the Europeans arrived? From my reading, it sounds like there was plenty of food and that it also was a lot of work to cultivate it, and/or forage for it. There were probably times when people went hungry depending on weather, bad luck, or other variables. Food security, as the general term, is a modern invention along with food as an industrialized commodity. How easily can people procure some food items from the store? That is food security, the USDA might think. But how secure is that, really? 

As the Cranberry Beans simmered on the stove, I tasted – and kept tasting – them. They were shockingly good. So much better than other (generic) beans I've made. I used my usual method: Sauteed onion, carrot, and celery. Added the beans, two cloves of garlic, half a bunch of cilantro, one jalapeno. I have preserved lemon in the fridge and added a quarter of one of those. Then, water to cover the beans by two inches. Heated to boiling, held there for 15 minutes, then lowered the temperature and cooked for a few hours. I salted as I tasted. 

It follows that if the way I cooked the beans was the same, the beans themselves must be special. The broth was more flavorful and rich, even compared with beans I've made using bacon. Late at night, before putting the empty pot into the sink, I ate the remaining broth, using a piece of bread to get every last drop. I doubt the blanket term "food security" factors in savoring the sensual pleasure of food. Like with so much else in the US, the focus is on pragmatism and industrial answers. And so often, the food produced with those values at the helm isn't as good, invoking hurried consumption, not savoring.

Through many people writing and talking, there can be a sustained reminder that food can be better (for us, for the earth), it is meant to be enjoyed, and that there is and must be enough for everyone. Yes, really. Even in the face of the USDA reporting that millions more people are hungry when, at the same time, the government has plenty of money to spend on weapons. I'm reminded of Toni Morrison's essay in the April 6, 2015 issue of The Nation, No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear, about what artists must do in times of dread. It's always worth a re-read, and I'll leave you with my favorite part: "No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."