According to the USDA, no one in America is "hungry."  Some people just have limited access to food and may experience prolonged episodes of finding it missing on their tables (WaPo).

The USDA made the change in terminology because it believes the word "hunger" is scientifically unsound:

Mark Nord, the lead author of [an annual Agriculture Department] report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."

To measure "hunger" appropriately, as opposed to "very low food security," the government would have to ask people if the extended absence of food led them to feel pain, weakness or illness. 

In assembling its report, the USDA divides Americans into groups with "food security" and those with "food insecurity," who cannot always afford to keep food on the table. Under the old lexicon, that group -- 11 percent of American households last year -- was categorized into "food insecurity without hunger," meaning people who ate, though sometimes not well, and "food insecurity with hunger," for those who sometimes had no food.

This way the government can just ask folks if they ever couldn't afford to buy food and not have to worry about the physical consequences of that inability.

I suppose they have a valid point re: the practical scientific application of the word "hunger," but the part of me that is outraged that any citizen of one of the world's wealthiest nations should involuntarily go without food for any extended period of time doesn't particularly care about the semantics of the issue.

I have long felt that buying local food was preferable to purchasing from the industrial agribusiness complex, that buying organic was preferable to conventional, that free-range chicken and grass-fed beef was preferable to caged hens and feedlot cows.  I had a number of reasons for this: added hormones, pesticides, preservatives and other chemicals in the industrial food supply, freshness, taste, and - let's face it, I am an omnivore.  I like to eat meat, and I will continue to do so, but I don't think cows and chickens should been confined to cages and forced to become cannibals before they get to my table.  They should be allowed their lives, as comfortable and normal as possible, before being killed to make my dinner.

Lately I've been reading What to Eat by Marion Nestle.  Nestle, a nutritionist, explores the marketing, politics, and environmental impact of food.  Think you know how to read a nutrition label?  I thought I did, but there's quite a bit that even an educated person can, and often will, miss.  Nestle takes readers aisle-by-aisle through the supermarket to explain labeling, deflate unfounded or hyperbolic health claims, and cut through sales campaigns designed to make you forget what it is you're actually putting into your mouth.