I guess it was to be expected from the administration that brought us the global war on terror, but the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Office of Jargon and Nonsense (aka the Economic Research Service) has been working overtime preparing for its annual report. And the product of that effort was nothing less than replacing the hunger — “a strong desire or need for food; the discomfort, weakness, or pain caused by a prolonged lack of food” — with food security — “access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.”

Just like on the Homeland Security front, seems we’re doing pretty well on the Food Security front:

In 2006, 89 percent of U.S. households were food secure throughout the entire year. The remaining households (10.9 percent) were food insecure at least some time during that year, essentially unchanged from 11.0 percent in 2005.

So, while we’re not winning the war on food insecurity, we aren’t losing it, either. And there’s always a semantic solution to delivering the not-so-great news:

The prevalence of very low food security was 4.0 percent of households, also essentially unchanged from 2005 (3.9 percent). In households with very low food security, eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and their food intake was reduced at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food.

At the Food Security Briefing Room, the USDA asks the pertinent question: How Often Are Food-Insecure Households Food Insecure? And then they give the answers:

• About one-third of households with very low food security at any time during the year experienced it rarely or occasionally — in only one or two months of the year. For two-thirds, very low food security recurred in three or more months of the year.
• For about one-fifth of food-insecure households and 30 percent of those with very low food security, the occurrence was frequent or chronic.
• On average, households that were food insecure at some time during the year were food insecure in six months during the year.

Households with very low food security at some time during the year experienced it in seven months during the year and in one to seven days in each of those months.

• On average, households with very low food security at some time during the year experienced it in seven months during the year and in one to seven days in each of those months.

It’s not about solving the problem of hunger, it’s about solving the word “hunger.” Here’s what USDA did to relieve “hunger.” They dropped it in favor of food security, which was defined as having “no reported indications of food-access problems or limitations,” or having “one or two reported indications — typically of anxiety over food sufficiency or shortage of food in the house. Little or no indication of changes in diets or food intake.”

What used to be called “food insecurity without hunger” — reports of reduced quality, variety or desirability of diet, with little or no indication of reduced food intake — is now “low food security,” and “reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake” was changed from “food insecurity with hunger” to “very low food security.”

You might be surprised, but a panel of experts formed by USDA actually suggested these changes, we assume with straight faces.

I remember when President Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Hunger. It was 1966, and Viet Nam was escalating, but Time magazine reported that Johnson unveiled to Congress his “long-awaited proposal to turn agricultural foreign aid into breadbasket diplomacy.”

Of course, that hunger war also was mired in changing semantics, according to Time: “Dubbed Food for Freedom, the plan would replace the 12-year Food for Peace program that expires next December.”

Sounds eerily familiar to the kind of jargon juggling goings on coming out of the current administration, don’t it? At least Johnson’s program did feed people, though lord knows what. In 1965, the U.S. “disposed of $14 billion worth of surplus food and fiber, [and] shipped abroad agricultural products worth $2 billion, equal to 40 percent of all U.S. foreign aid.”

But it was mostly just another PR ploy, the redressing of a tired phrase in a fresher but just as meaningless one. That’s how we got from “peace” to “freedom,” and from “hunger” to “food insecurity.” But changing terms doesn’t put food on the table for the 30 million or so Americans who regularly feel more than just anxious about where their next meal is coming from — they are feeling one of the most basic of human sensations — hunger.

UPDATE: Co-editor Trish weighed in on this topic just a little over a year ago. Check out her post here“.