food and poverty have a weird relationship in this country. food is more abundant than its ever been, it's other parts of a poor person's budget that are more the problem now. the poverty line calculation is one example of the weirdness. Poverty line = (cost of a minimum basket of food) X 3. That's because way back in the 50s or 60s, food was 1/3 of the average poor person's budget. The rest was 1/3 housing and 1/3 everything else. Food is much more affordable now, housing and "everything else" (primarily healthcare and education) much less affordable, so the poverty line calculation overestimates the difficulty of obtaining food and underestimates the difficulty of housing and everything else.