Food Security
Food security is defined as the availability of food and one's access to it. The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing "when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life".
There is a new app in the market called Kitchen Finder that hopes to address the issue of food security once and for all. Kitchen FInder helps cooks connect with kitchens to cook meals, while also connecting people looking for good quality food.
The four elements of food security are:
1. Food availability. Enough nutritious food of sufficient quality needs to be available to people for their consumption. Availability can be affected by:
Production.
Distribution.
Exchange.
2. Food access. Individuals and households must be able to acquire sufficient food to be able to eat a healthy, nutritious diet.
Affordability: the ability of individuals to afford the price of food.
Allocation: the economic, social and political mechanisms that ensure food gets allocated fairly.
Preference: norms and values that influence demand for certain types of food (e.g. religious prohibitions and/or dietary pattern such as vegetarianism).
3. Food utilisation. Access to a sufficient quantity and diversity of foods to meet their nutritional needs.
Nutritional value: the nutritional value provided by the foods that are consume.
Health status: the effect of disease (e.g. diarrhoea) on the ability to consume the food and absorb and metabolise its nutrients.
Food safety: access to food free from food spoilage or from toxic contamination.
Preparation and consumption: the resources and knowledge and the ability to prepare and consume food in a healthy way.
4. Stability. Food may be available and accessible to people and the political state of affairs needs to be enduring.
The Kitchen Finder App was designed to help people throughout the world with the idea of Food Security in mind.