By the Numbers: Food insecurity, poverty and hunger in Canada

Toronto – August 9, 2013 – The definition of "food insecurity" is inadequate or insecure access to food because of a lack of money to buy enough food to properly feed yourself or ypur family.

The impact of food insecurity is very apparent to the about 1.6 million Canadian households where hunger defines their daily reality. With the growing inequality gap between the rich and the rest of us, the problem of food insecurity is growing according to a new report* based on data from Statistics Canada.

The data was collected from 60,000 respondents who were asked 18 questions, ranging from: whether they and their families ever worried about running out of food; to whether they had gone a full day without eating; to how often did the children go hungry because there wasn’t enough money for food?



*Source: Tarasuk, V., Mitchell, A., Dachner, N. Research to identify policy options to reduce food insecurity (PROOF). (2013). Household food insecurity in Canada 2011.