To Amanda -- Do you really believe that hunger is not a problem in America?

Getting the good food that we are lucky enough to celebrate every day here on Food52 to the masses is a downright arduous slog -- a necessary one that full-bellied, knowledgable cooks need to take on daily if we are going to make any dent in the hunger issue in the US. It's about being the loud mouth at PTO meetings when the local McDonalds offers up 1,000 breakfast sandwiches for middle schoolers' "healthy meal" on standardized testing days and then treking out to the farm to get 1,000 local apples instead. It's about taking the time to answer the cashier at the grocery store when she asks "Kale, huh? How do you fix that?" It's about contacting your food pantry to find out what good foods aren't moving and offering to do cooking classes or demos that feature those foods. There are a million opportunities for us to dig into this problem whether or not it's part of the popularized food revolution.

A civil exchange of views is almost always the best approach to a difficult issue. However, a pointed remark, however awkwardly put, sometimes brings us face to face with a difficult truth. The world of food media—blogs, TV shows, celebrity chefs and their cookbooks, and so on—is a small and rarefied one, worlds away from the decisions most people must make about how to put food on the table or how even to afford a simple meal. Distant too from these concerns is the world of CSA’s, preserved lemons, grass-fed beef, and piment d’espelette. There are deep issues of class, social and economic, that seem to be growing worse, not better, despite the increased interest in sustainable agriculture, eating well, and so on among those who can afford to take an interest in cooking very well. Whatever was said, in whatever spirit, in Seattle, it’s clear that the initial post raises a troubling issue that is bigger than its failure to be properly “nice.”

It definitely seemed to be an unnecessarily aggressive way to pose a question.
Unfortunate as reality is, it takes everyone of us to be involved in decreasing the problem of hunger. Efficient Food distribution is something that has to be done at a local level, Trying to expand it across the world is just not feasible. As much excess food that local eateries in NYC may have AND are willing to donate it to those who need it, it is NOT going to alleviate hunger pangs of the needy halfway across the country leave alone the world. it just costs more than the value of the food to transport it. Going local is one way of ensuring that smaller food sources sprout up in larger numbers and can efficiently be put to good use, vs the big green giants who harvest lettuce in CA & drive it 500 miles across in a refrigerated truck.
I had a similar opinion on how much food is wasted on cooking shows, until I had the chance to personally ask the question to someone at Food Network. They actually donate over a TON, yes over 2200 lbs of produce & dry foods that is left over from their kitchen to City Harvest.. This completely changed my perspective of how the food media operates.

Lets look at the good that is actually being done rather that criticize what is not & what should have, could have.. positive attitudes & approaches go way further than negative ones..

I would say that the answer to the question asked is Yes, part of the "Food revolution" does address hunger, prehaps not intentionally in the manner they would wish tho:
For example, my local wal-mart purchases locally produced foods from small independent farmers in season and are labeled as such. In the spring and summer, local corn, tomatoes, vegetables are available there for cheep. Often of better quality and price than the nearby a Publix.
Without awareness of locally produced foods, I doubt that they (wal-mart) would make the effort to purchase locally.
With the awareness, local small farmers benefit.
In the past I've seen the small road side fruit and veggies stands practically vanish from the landscape. Now with big box stores like Wal-mart and Whole foods, and the soon to be opened Earth Fare as customers, the local farmers are back on the scene and the fruit stands are returning. As I'm sure they're selling that 'over run' on the roadside at a better price than wal-mart pays. And the cost saving to the consumer is passed on by buying directly from a roadside stand.

Certainly it sounded like an attack. When people quote someone out of context or go out of their way to put them on the spot, or write SHAME ON YOU in caps, then yes, I would say that feels like an attack. No one criticizes your concern w/hunger, but your presentation leaves something to be desired and isn't the best way to win allies.

Well, Mittens did say that he wasn't concerned about "the very poor" because there's "a safety net" for that. Ha! And for school kids, pizza is now a vegetable. Okay, it used to be ketchup.

I am surprised that my question was characterized as an "attack" or an "accusation". It was intended as an attempt at clarification, because I was very surprised at what I heard Amanda say.

This is the sort of things that brings out a lot of acrimony in otherwise well-meaning, lovely people. I remember in college a professor asked a question in a class that I still haven't answered satisfactorily for myself--If a homeless person asks you for money, and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt (obviously not possible, but suspend your disbelief for a moment) that he/she is going to immediately spend it on alcohol, should you give it to them?
I know that it's very dangerous and incorrect to assume that the majority of homeless people are alcoholics, and I don't (especially these days when so many are out of work and luck), but the point is that even such a seemingly simple question is almost impossible to answer thoroughly enough. It gives rise to all sorts of other questions--do we know what's best for others? Can we make judgments about people we know nothing about? What IS the best way to solve the hunger problem in America?
My point is simply that this is an ongoing discussion, and expecting any one person to have a satisfactory answer is a fruitless expectation. I agree with SKK--maybe we should be asking new questions.

Food52 is a community interested in sharing and dialogue. Accusations are not useful and used by bullies to start arguments. Amanda was correct in her response given the context of the evening and what she was asked to speak about.

That being said, I live in Seattle and also have over 30 years experience working with and studying hunger, malnourishment and starvation issues world wide. Not going to do a whole lecture here, although I could, and a key issue to ending hunger is the empowerment of women. Also, there are 1 billion hungry people on the planet, and 1 billion obese people on the planet.

Perhaps we should ask new questions.

Fran, had I been asked by the audience member if I thought hunger was a problem in America, I would have said yes; all the statistics you quote are certainly troubling and underexposed. But I wasn't asked that. I was asked what you say above in quotes. The answer to that question is mostly no. And I simply made a follow-up quip that often the discussion in America is not about not having enough food but about having too much food -- a la Supersize Me. I don't mean to sound cranky but it seems unfair to attack me here, when that q&a was fairly light-hearted, and was not the venue to deeply explore hunger issues. I was there talking about food media.