Glossary of Terms

The Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice defines basic needs insecurity as “a structural characteristic affecting students, not an individual characteristic. It means that there is not an ecosystem in place to ensure that students’ basic needs are met” (2021). In this project, I may refer to measurements of basic needs insecurity because food insecurity is often inextricably bound to other forms of basic needs insecurity such as housing insecurity and homelessness.

Food Insecurity

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food insecurity is “the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways” (USDA ERS - Measurement, 2020).

Food Security

Food security is when an individual or all members of a household have “access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum:

• The ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods.

• Assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies)” (USDA ERS - Measurement, 2020).

Food Justice

The Food Justice Movement is a grassroots movement that developed in response to food insecurity and the various economic, political, social, and environmental pressures that prevent access to healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food. The Food Justice Movement recognizes that food insecurity disproportionately affects marginalized communities and thus actively works to disrupt structural barriers that prevent the equitable production, distribution, and consumption of food. In other words, food justice is “seeking to transform where, what, and how food is grown, transported, accessed, and eaten” (Gottlieb & Joshi, 2010).

Food Justice Initiative