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Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups
Food banks and food pantries have proliferated in response to an economic emergency. The loss of manufacturing jobs combined with the recession of the early 1980s and Reagan administration cutbacks in federal programs led to an explosion in the growth of food charity. This was meant to be a stopgap measure, but the jobs never came back, and the “emergency food system” became an industry. In Big Hunger, Andrew Fisher takes a critical look at the business of hunger and offers a new vision for the anti-hunger movement.
From one perspective, anti-hunger leaders have been extraordinarily effective. Food charity is embedded in American civil society, and federal food programs have remained intact while other anti-poverty programs have been eliminated or slashed. But anti-hunger advocates are missing an essential element of the problem: economic inequality driven by low wages. Reliant on corporate donations of food and money, anti-hunger organizations have failed to hold business accountable for offshoring jobs, cutting benefits, exploiting workers and rural communities, and resisting wage increases. They have become part of a “hunger industrial complex” that seems as self-perpetuating as the more famous military-industrial complex.
Fisher lays out a vision that encompasses a broader definition of hunger characterized by a focus on public health, economic justice, and economic democracy. He points to the work of numerous grassroots organizations that are leading the way in these fields as models for the rest of the anti-hunger sector. It is only through approaches like these that we can hope to end hunger, not just manage it.
From one perspective, anti-hunger leaders have been extraordinarily effective. Food charity is embedded in American civil society, and federal food programs have remained intact while other anti-poverty programs have been eliminated or slashed. But anti-hunger advocates are missing an essential element of the problem: economic inequality driven by low wages. Reliant on corporate donations of food and money, anti-hunger organizations have failed to hold business accountable for offshoring jobs, cutting benefits, exploiting workers and rural communities, and resisting wage increases. They have become part of a “hunger industrial complex” that seems as self-perpetuating as the more famous military-industrial complex.
Fisher lays out a vision that encompasses a broader definition of hunger characterized by a focus on public health, economic justice, and economic democracy. He points to the work of numerous grassroots organizations that are leading the way in these fields as models for the rest of the anti-hunger sector. It is only through approaches like these that we can hope to end hunger, not just manage it.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 19, 2017
The most important book I have read this year.
This book does a fantastic job detailing the current landscape of food in america and asking tough questions.
Is hunger a lack of (food) calories or a lack of nutrition?
Do we end hunger by feeding the need (via charity) or by shortening the line (via policy change)?
Social, economic and environmental justice are covered through the lens of hunger, this is a true food and culture sustainability book
This book does a fantastic job detailing the current landscape of food in america and asking tough questions.
Is hunger a lack of (food) calories or a lack of nutrition?
Do we end hunger by feeding the need (via charity) or by shortening the line (via policy change)?
Social, economic and environmental justice are covered through the lens of hunger, this is a true food and culture sustainability book
April 16, 2023
Some chapters resonated more than others, but I found all these critiques of the anti-hunger industry to be fair. As I volunteer a bit at a food pantry, I also felt this book’s impact in the cognitive dissonance it created for me as a proud volunteer sharing metrics of numbers served and lbs. of food distributed. Fisher offers an entirely different angle on the pitfalls to this model. 4 stars though, as I found this rife with grammatical errors — enough to question the editing scrutiny. That shit really annoys me.
June 11, 2022
I wanted to learn more from this than I did. I was rather put off by the writer’s attitude toward the food people could/did eat. I understand that your diet shouldn’t be all cookies, but kids are allowed to have some. The fact your food bank has chips ahoy is not some black mark against the food bank.
September 16, 2017
Read this if you want to understand the disaster that is our response to hunger.
Food banks are not only a band-aid response (as they freely admit in their own words), but they are clearing houses for Halloween Count Chocula in May and Easter candy in December. They provide a false sense of alleviating poverty, allowing employers to continue to pay poverty wages while their employees use food banks, which have never claimed to meet families' food needs. Their boards are stacked with corporate donors who make sure their companies continue to have a clearing house for their waste and the public perception of being charitable.
The emphasis needs to be on improving economic justice and fair wages, good work and the end of the economic class system that pervades North America. Too bad we've backed ourselves into a corner such that emergency aid is required, not just for emergencies, but for every day for our neighbours and friends to eat. So for now we need to retain food banking. We should understand what it is, how it is driven and how to change it to work for improved health for all.
The book is packed with examples and great stories about how we got here and ideas for how to address the mess we are in, shape the agenda and innovate our way to better health and food access. At times the book felt dense, but perhaps that is only because I can only read for a few minutes before my eyes shut at the end of the day. As a Canadian, I found the chapter on the SNAP program less interesting than the rest, with soooo many acronyms, but that is hardly the author's fault. Other chapters include:
* Occupy Hunger
* The Charity Trap
* The Politics of Corporate Giving (What a stew!)
* Innovation (2 chapters -- both within and outside the Anti-Hunger Movement)
Well worth reading!
For another great read along the same lines, read Janet Poppendieck's Sweet Charity. You'll never look at food charity the same again!
Food banks are not only a band-aid response (as they freely admit in their own words), but they are clearing houses for Halloween Count Chocula in May and Easter candy in December. They provide a false sense of alleviating poverty, allowing employers to continue to pay poverty wages while their employees use food banks, which have never claimed to meet families' food needs. Their boards are stacked with corporate donors who make sure their companies continue to have a clearing house for their waste and the public perception of being charitable.
The emphasis needs to be on improving economic justice and fair wages, good work and the end of the economic class system that pervades North America. Too bad we've backed ourselves into a corner such that emergency aid is required, not just for emergencies, but for every day for our neighbours and friends to eat. So for now we need to retain food banking. We should understand what it is, how it is driven and how to change it to work for improved health for all.
The book is packed with examples and great stories about how we got here and ideas for how to address the mess we are in, shape the agenda and innovate our way to better health and food access. At times the book felt dense, but perhaps that is only because I can only read for a few minutes before my eyes shut at the end of the day. As a Canadian, I found the chapter on the SNAP program less interesting than the rest, with soooo many acronyms, but that is hardly the author's fault. Other chapters include:
* Occupy Hunger
* The Charity Trap
* The Politics of Corporate Giving (What a stew!)
* Innovation (2 chapters -- both within and outside the Anti-Hunger Movement)
Well worth reading!
For another great read along the same lines, read Janet Poppendieck's Sweet Charity. You'll never look at food charity the same again!
May 7, 2023
I am not truly a socialist, at least not in the purest sense of the word. I recognize that the impulse to make big piles of money is one of the prime motivators for innovation (second only to military applications, which are responsible for, among other things, antibiotics, computers, and the internet).
But it seems clear that capitalism in the western world, and in particular in the United States, has led to a state of nearly unparalleled inequality and inequity, or at the very least it has become more blatant in these latter days. When three of the wealthiest people on the planet are the children of Sam Walton while the employees of Walmart can't afford to pay rent and buy food is, by any measure, mind-boggling. When Jeff Bezos is buying ever-bigger yachts while his employees at Amazon are treated as disposable, can't make a living wage, and are repeatedly stymied while attempting to form unions, we know we have a rather enormous problem.
Of course, this problem is as much political as it is social; the interweaving of political influence with money is so pronounced that it hardly needs to be articulated. What would seem to be self-evidently in need of government regulation is considered entirely off-limits, any attempt to legislate an increased minimum wage or minimally safe working conditions decried as socialism and interference with "the market."
All the while, the people of the United States are practicing a form of socialism, or at least subsidies (in addition to actual taxpayer subsidies in the form of "tax incentives"), toward American businesses in the form of externalized costs. These are the costs of running their companies that are borne by workers and taxpayers. When you pay less than a living wage the difference must be made up somewhere, usually through taxpayer-financed subsidies to workers, which is a de facto subsidization of those businesses. When the clean-up of the pollutants you release into the world is not paid for by your corporation, society at large must pay for them in the form of increased health care expenses and amelioration of the pollution. When you add to climate change but pay no price for that activity, the rest of us pay it instead. And so on.
Hunger is one of these externalized costs. Most of those who are hungry in the United States are either working or are too young, too old, or too disabled to work. We need to put to rest the fallacy of the "lazy poor" who are reaping the benefits of government payments and community charity while lounging about. Food stamps (now known as SNAP in most of the country) are overwhelmingly used by those who are doing their best to provide for themselves and their families and falling short through no fault of their own. Some corporations, Walmart included, have a history of encouraging their employees to apply for SNAP benefits while carefully jiggering their schedules to avoid any benefits accruing to full-time employees.
Food banks have become one more cog in this hunger machine. Let us stipulate from the get-go that these institutions are extremely well-intentioned; what could be more altruistic than providing food to those who are hungry? Sadly, though, these have gone from being stopgaps to being a permanent part of the American economic landscape. Large corporations can keep their costs down through poverty wages and discarding employees who are injured on the job or cannot perform for other reasons, then donate a tiny fraction of the profits gained from these practices to food banks to supply food to those underpaid and discarded workers. An added bonus is that, as food banks grow in size, they increasingly fear they may lose their corporate sponsors and engage in self-censorship to avoid angering them.
The only way to fix the broken food systems in this country is for every agency providing even a small amount of food to the hungry to ask why that hunger exists in the first place. There is no moral, rational reason why everyone in this country should not have access to adequate, healthy food. Every single food bank and pantry should be in the business of putting themselves out of business through active advocacy for living wages and adequate nutritional support. Corporations should be billed for their externalized costs, including SNAP benefits accessed by their employees.
Will any of this every happen? Andrew Fisher is optimistic about the future, or so he seems in this excellent book. It covers much of the landscape of the food insecurity regime in this country and pokes at the places where it has failed most egregiously. This is backed up by his decades of personal involvement in this movement and firsthand knowledge of its failures. He outlines in great detail the organizations who have fallen into the money trap of dependence on corporate donors and those who have resisted and are pushing back.
I did take issue with a few of the opinions Fisher advances here. Though these are fairly minor flaws, I do think they are emblematic of a broader trend in these organizations. The first is a fair amount of paternalism underlying many of the assumptions he makes about hungry people's ability to make wise choices. He advocates rather strongly, for instance, for the elimination of sugary drinks from food banks; while this might be a healthful choice, it is not a choice that should be made by an authority figure looking out for those who, in this way of thinking, are less capable of choosing for themselves. I also take exception with his wholesale swallowing of myths around three things: the lack of wholesomeness of so-called "expired" food, most of which is entirely edible and safe—the USDA has even published a report saying this is the case; his (to my mind, anyway) rather naïve acceptance of the idea that organic food is inherently more healthful (there's no evidence for this); and his animus toward GMO food, which is not only generally perfectly healthy, but which in many countries has been instrumental in improving food security. It's not so much that I see these as major flaws as that the author's credulity in these matters somewhat undercuts the overall authority of his presentation.
Nonetheless, this is a truly wonderful explication of the state of hunger in this country and the indisputable fact that it is a choice being made by those in power and not at all inevitable. To the degree that those of us working to solve food insecurity are complicit in this crime we need to do some close self-examination and fight back to end hunger once and for all.
But it seems clear that capitalism in the western world, and in particular in the United States, has led to a state of nearly unparalleled inequality and inequity, or at the very least it has become more blatant in these latter days. When three of the wealthiest people on the planet are the children of Sam Walton while the employees of Walmart can't afford to pay rent and buy food is, by any measure, mind-boggling. When Jeff Bezos is buying ever-bigger yachts while his employees at Amazon are treated as disposable, can't make a living wage, and are repeatedly stymied while attempting to form unions, we know we have a rather enormous problem.
Of course, this problem is as much political as it is social; the interweaving of political influence with money is so pronounced that it hardly needs to be articulated. What would seem to be self-evidently in need of government regulation is considered entirely off-limits, any attempt to legislate an increased minimum wage or minimally safe working conditions decried as socialism and interference with "the market."
All the while, the people of the United States are practicing a form of socialism, or at least subsidies (in addition to actual taxpayer subsidies in the form of "tax incentives"), toward American businesses in the form of externalized costs. These are the costs of running their companies that are borne by workers and taxpayers. When you pay less than a living wage the difference must be made up somewhere, usually through taxpayer-financed subsidies to workers, which is a de facto subsidization of those businesses. When the clean-up of the pollutants you release into the world is not paid for by your corporation, society at large must pay for them in the form of increased health care expenses and amelioration of the pollution. When you add to climate change but pay no price for that activity, the rest of us pay it instead. And so on.
Hunger is one of these externalized costs. Most of those who are hungry in the United States are either working or are too young, too old, or too disabled to work. We need to put to rest the fallacy of the "lazy poor" who are reaping the benefits of government payments and community charity while lounging about. Food stamps (now known as SNAP in most of the country) are overwhelmingly used by those who are doing their best to provide for themselves and their families and falling short through no fault of their own. Some corporations, Walmart included, have a history of encouraging their employees to apply for SNAP benefits while carefully jiggering their schedules to avoid any benefits accruing to full-time employees.
Food banks have become one more cog in this hunger machine. Let us stipulate from the get-go that these institutions are extremely well-intentioned; what could be more altruistic than providing food to those who are hungry? Sadly, though, these have gone from being stopgaps to being a permanent part of the American economic landscape. Large corporations can keep their costs down through poverty wages and discarding employees who are injured on the job or cannot perform for other reasons, then donate a tiny fraction of the profits gained from these practices to food banks to supply food to those underpaid and discarded workers. An added bonus is that, as food banks grow in size, they increasingly fear they may lose their corporate sponsors and engage in self-censorship to avoid angering them.
The only way to fix the broken food systems in this country is for every agency providing even a small amount of food to the hungry to ask why that hunger exists in the first place. There is no moral, rational reason why everyone in this country should not have access to adequate, healthy food. Every single food bank and pantry should be in the business of putting themselves out of business through active advocacy for living wages and adequate nutritional support. Corporations should be billed for their externalized costs, including SNAP benefits accessed by their employees.
Will any of this every happen? Andrew Fisher is optimistic about the future, or so he seems in this excellent book. It covers much of the landscape of the food insecurity regime in this country and pokes at the places where it has failed most egregiously. This is backed up by his decades of personal involvement in this movement and firsthand knowledge of its failures. He outlines in great detail the organizations who have fallen into the money trap of dependence on corporate donors and those who have resisted and are pushing back.
I did take issue with a few of the opinions Fisher advances here. Though these are fairly minor flaws, I do think they are emblematic of a broader trend in these organizations. The first is a fair amount of paternalism underlying many of the assumptions he makes about hungry people's ability to make wise choices. He advocates rather strongly, for instance, for the elimination of sugary drinks from food banks; while this might be a healthful choice, it is not a choice that should be made by an authority figure looking out for those who, in this way of thinking, are less capable of choosing for themselves. I also take exception with his wholesale swallowing of myths around three things: the lack of wholesomeness of so-called "expired" food, most of which is entirely edible and safe—the USDA has even published a report saying this is the case; his (to my mind, anyway) rather naïve acceptance of the idea that organic food is inherently more healthful (there's no evidence for this); and his animus toward GMO food, which is not only generally perfectly healthy, but which in many countries has been instrumental in improving food security. It's not so much that I see these as major flaws as that the author's credulity in these matters somewhat undercuts the overall authority of his presentation.
Nonetheless, this is a truly wonderful explication of the state of hunger in this country and the indisputable fact that it is a choice being made by those in power and not at all inevitable. To the degree that those of us working to solve food insecurity are complicit in this crime we need to do some close self-examination and fight back to end hunger once and for all.
November 3, 2020
The address of hunger has transformed from a temporary relief (stopgap) to a multi-decade, multi-billion dollar industry. Why?
The author posits that the corporate co-opting of the charitable food system actively hampers resolution of underlying causes of hunger. Corporate affiliations (donations often compensated with board seats) serve to politically neutralize hunger away from less corporate-friendly, anti-poverty activism. Therefore larger advocacy (or even support) for issues such as minimum or living wage increases are actively avoided. Comparatively, corporations transact an enormous benefit from the false pretense of alleviating hunger through spectacle donations (while coincidentally perpetuating impoverished workers wages). Overall a large concern remains in the facade of a gratuitous private-sector alternative to hunger than the steadfast federal safety net programs; sadly realized in prompting political maneuvers towards their de-funding.
The author posits that the corporate co-opting of the charitable food system actively hampers resolution of underlying causes of hunger. Corporate affiliations (donations often compensated with board seats) serve to politically neutralize hunger away from less corporate-friendly, anti-poverty activism. Therefore larger advocacy (or even support) for issues such as minimum or living wage increases are actively avoided. Comparatively, corporations transact an enormous benefit from the false pretense of alleviating hunger through spectacle donations (while coincidentally perpetuating impoverished workers wages). Overall a large concern remains in the facade of a gratuitous private-sector alternative to hunger than the steadfast federal safety net programs; sadly realized in prompting political maneuvers towards their de-funding.
March 13, 2018
There have been books very similar to this written (by Poppendieck and Eggers, which Fisher references heavily), but this book is an important continuation of their arguments updated for the current political climate. Fishers highlights the need to take policy change and advocacy seriously, even though it is the more difficult path for hunger relief organizations which are often funded by larger, more conservative organizations. He talks about how mobilizing and involving the recipients of hunger relief is vital to reforming the industry, and gives multiple examples from other industries and movements where this has been the case. He lays out a clear path forward for organizations and citizens to break out of the hunger-relief trap we've gotten ourselves into.
February 25, 2018
Unfortunately, this was a manifesto with an agenda that was poorly researched and supported, read like a conspiracy theory, and was reduced down to very "hand-wavy" policy recommendations. Though I agree with a lot of his perspective (e.g. minimum wage needs to be raised, there are complicated incentives and interests in the provision of services for food insecure Americans), I felt it was severely lacking in some overarching frameworks to more rigorously and comprehensively diagnose the problems he articulates. The causes were cherry-picked, partially conspiratorially framed, and incomplete, though the problems are real.
Important topic, this isn't the book to read to engage with it.
Important topic, this isn't the book to read to engage with it.
January 15, 2018
The author presents a challenging point of view to the anti-hunger charity sector, that in fact the very act of institutionalizing emergency food aid props up the powers-that-be so the inequalities in our system can continue with a softened edge.
It's written in an academic style, so it's highly repetitive and you could just read the intro and conclusion to each chapter for a summary. I didn't enjoy reading this book, but it was an important challenge to my thinking.
It's written in an academic style, so it's highly repetitive and you could just read the intro and conclusion to each chapter for a summary. I didn't enjoy reading this book, but it was an important challenge to my thinking.
January 30, 2018
This is a detailed exploration of the problems facing the anti-hunger movement as it relates to community food security and the anti-poverty movement. Fisher also provides real-life examples and other possible solutions that could help to disentangle anti-hunger groups for big corporations. I hope that leaders in the anti-hunger movement read this and try to affect some change in their organizations.
May 31, 2018
Yes! Gotta love a book that puts in writing the things you perpetually felt crazy for suggesting. I want to keep a stock of these to hand every person who wants to start a free food distribution. wake up sheeple.
January 4, 2020
Phenomenal book. Covered many really import issues about the United States food system in a beautifully comprehensive manner.
A must-read for people who want to alleviate food insecurity or poverty in general. Added plus that its narration is politically non-partisan.
A must-read for people who want to alleviate food insecurity or poverty in general. Added plus that its narration is politically non-partisan.
November 6, 2025
This was a really fascinating take on a topic that I thought I understood! I recommend it, but it reads a bit like a textbook so it's definitely time-consuming. I am marking this read even though there were some sections that I skimmed.
September 2, 2017
Useful; not too doom and gloom, but not offering many solutions either.
December 22, 2017
Revelatory in how the institutionalisation of hunger relief has contributed to the avoidance of structural changes required to alleviate poverty.
September 28, 2018
Great look into the root cause of hunger in the US and the current systems in place.
April 23, 2019
It's a must read for anti-hunger advocates. It does get a bit redundant for people already well versed in the subject, but the first half is entirely earth shattering
May 23, 2019
important but so dry
February 5, 2023
3.5. A solid overview of the challenges with our current approach to food security. Some of this is already dated and some sections were quiet dry. More attention needed on the ag production side.
September 10, 2024
5 star content, 3 star writing. Someone local in anti-hunger recommended this book and Toxic Charity.
January 15, 2025
kinda goes off on tangents but appreciate the passion. calls out corporate greed and exploitation of vulnerable populations by explaining the woven upstream factors, historical events, and corporate food companies idolization of profit masked by an insincere helping hand. this becomes a cycle of dependence for people who are working to be self sustaining but can’t find a way out.. because it was designed with that goal in mind. as someone who has worked for a food pantry i wish i had been more educated about these issues. what’s sustainable and not stripping dignity? large food companies donate billions of dollars to food pantries and send their own employees to those food pantries instead of increasing their wages so they can afford to buy their own food. discusses various corrupt marketing schemes & policies as well as the lack of consumer education about nutrition and inaccurate perspective of hunger in developed vs less developed countries
July 8, 2021
Fisher isn't messing around and I love it. This is an excellent book in that he clearly shows the ways in which the anti-hunger regime can do better and be a better source of hope and justice for our communities. Highly recommend if you are interested in food insecurity, policy, and economic inequality.
June 28, 2017
Excellent. A quick and dirty synopsis is that this book gives a grest overview of how the anti hunger nonprofits are a business and perpetuate hunger by not advocating against poverty.
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