To follow yesterday’s idea of Homeland Security through eating local, the US Department of Agriculture is playing a little 1984 Big Brother doublespeak mind game with “hunger” by renaming it “very low food security.” Twelve percent of Americans (35 million people) suffer from this condition. TWELVE PERCENT. They way the Department of Agriculture redefines the issue, “very low food security” is a result of lack of money to buy food. These Americans just have “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.” “Hunger,” on the other hand, is a more serious condition “beyond the usual uneasiness.” Usual? Usual to those writing the report? Usual as in, they’re used to it so don’t worry?

The annual USDA report used to be released in October. One presidential candidate from Texas in 1999 said he believed the report was fabricated and aimed at his candidacy. This year the report was released mid-November, just before Thanksgiving–and a week after mid-term elections.

I wonder how much money was spent as the Committee on National Statistic of the National Academies to “to ensure that the measurement methods USDA uses to assess households’ access — or lack of access — to adequate food and the language used to describe those conditions are conceptually and operationally sound.” Not everyone is happy about the latest addition to US doublespeak.

So, if you hear the words “food security,” it might not mean what you think it does.