That appalling food insecurity report explained
We could say that these numbers are appalling:
One in four low-income households struggles to eat regularly or healthily because of a lack of money, according to the first substantial survey into the scale of food insecurity in the UK.
The survey showed that food insecurity was more highly concentrated among the unemployed, over a third of whom reported that they had either reduced the quality of their diet, or missed meals out altogether, because they had insufficient cash to buy food.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) carried out the survey as part of its biennial look at consumer attitudes to food. It categorised 8% of all respondents as having low or very low food security, suggesting that almost four million adults regularly struggle to put food on the table.
But we should be more accurate and concentrate upon the appalling misuse which will be made of these numbers. It is not - although this is what we'll be told it is - that 25% of low income households are starving themselves in their garrets. This is a UK version of an American survey which defines itself thusly:
An estimated 12.7 percent of American households were food insecure at least some time during the year in 2015, meaning they lacked access to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members.
One household member misses their 5 a day once in a year, that falls into this definition of food insecurity. One person misses one of the previous 1,000 meals for lack of money and that's food insecurity.
Actually, the British definition seems to imply that if people worried about either of those two possibly happening then they're food insecure.
Thus we must note what the figures actually are. They are not of people continually being in such a state - they record any one episode in a year as being part of that total. And it's also not the number of people starving it's the number of people who might not have had 3 squares on any of those one days.
It might even be a real problem but it's not the problem we're all going to be told it is.