The below list provides a very brief overview of some of the food insecurity and food charity literature. Given that this body of work is extensive, this list is by no means comprehensive – rather it is designed to point interested researchers to some introductory texts.
Country measures of household food insecurity
Coleman-Jensen, A., Gregory, C. and Singh, A. (2014) Household Food Security in the United States in 2013, Economic Research Report 173, Washington: US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1565415/err173.pdf.
USDA household food insecurity monitoring website: http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us.aspx.
Health Canada food insecurity monitoring website: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/surveill/nutrition/commun/insecurit/index-eng.php.
PROOF, ‘Research to Identify Policy Options to Reduce Food Insecurity’ website: http://nutritionalsciences.lamp.utoronto.ca/food-insecurity/.
Collections of research on food insecurity and social policy
Dowler, E. and Jones Finer, C. (eds.) (2002) ‘The welfare of food: rights and responsibilities in a changing world’, Social Policy and Administration, 36, 6 (special issue) (also published as book, 2003, The Welfare of Food: Rights and Responsibilities in a Changing World, Oxford: Blackwell).
Köhler, B. M., Feichtinger, E., Barlösius, E. and Dowler, E. (eds.) (1995) Poverty and Food in Welfare Societies, Berlin: Ed. Sigma.
Research on the right to food
Chilton, M. and Rose, D. (2009) ‘A rights-based approach to food insecurity in the United States’, American Journal of Public Health, 99, 7, 1203–11.
Dowler, E. and O’Connor, D. (2012) ‘Rights-based approaches to addressing food poverty and food insecurity in Ireland and UK’, Social Science and Medicine, 74, 1, 44–51.
Riches, G. (2011) ‘Thinking and acting outside the charitable food box: hunger and the right to food in rich societies’, Development in Practice, 21, 4–5, 768–75.
Riches, G. and Silvasti, T. (eds.) (2014) First World Hunger Revisited: Food Charity or the Right to Food?, 2nd edn, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ziegler, J., Golay, C., Mahon, C. and Way, S. (2011) The Fight for the Right to Food: Lessons Learned, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
About the current Rapporteur: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/HilalElver.aspx.
Olivier De Schutter (Rapporteur between 2008–2014) resources: http://www.srfood.org/.
Country case studies of food charity (individual publications and collective works)
Caraher, M. and Cavacchi, A. (2014) ‘Old crises on new plates or old plates for a new crises? Food banks and food insecurity’, British Food Journal, 116, 9, doi: 10.1108/BFJ-08-2014-0285.
This special issue of the British Food Journal includes articles from Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada and the UK.
Castetbon, K., Me´jean, C., Deschamps, V., Bellin-Lestienne, C., Oleko, A., Darmon, N. and Hercberg, S. (2011) ‘Dietary behaviour and nutritional status in underprivileged people using food aid (ABENA study, 2004–2005)’, Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 24, 6, 560–71.
Lambie-Mumford, H. (2013) ‘“Every town should have one”: emergency food banking in the UK’, Journal of Social Policy, 42, 1, 73–89.
Loopstra, R., and Tarasuk, V (2012) ‘The relationship between food banks and household food insecurity among low-income toronto families’, Canadian Public Policy, 38, 4, 497–514.
Pfeiffer, S., Ritter, T. and Hirseland, A. (2011) ‘Hunger and nutritional poverty in Germany: quantitative and qualitative empirical insights’, Critical Public Health, 21, 4, 417–28.
Poppendieck, J. (1998) Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement, New York: Penguin.
Riches, G. and Silvasti, T. (eds.) (2015) First World Hunger Revisited: Food Charity or the Right to Food?, 2nd edn, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
This edited collection includes case study chapters from: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, UK and USA.
Tarasuk, V. and Eakin, J. M. (2005) ‘Food assistance through “surplus” food: insights from an ethnographic study of food bank work’, Agriculture and Human Values, 22, 2, 177–86.
Tarasuk, V. and Eakin, J. M. (2003) ‘Charitable food assistance as symbolic gesture: an ethnographic study of food banks in Ontario’, Social Science and Medicine, 56, 7, 1505–15.
Webb, K. L. (2013) ‘Introduction – Food banks of the future: organizations dedicated to improving food security and protecting the health of the people they serve’, Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition, 8, 3, 257–60.
This special issue has papers from across the USA and also from Canada.
Food charity websites
Feeding America, national network of food banks in the USA: http://www.feedingamerica.org/.
Food Banks Canada, national network of food banks in Canada: http://www.foodbankscanada.ca/.
European Federation of Food Banks (FEBA): http://www.eurofoodbank.eu/portail/index.php?lang=en.
Trussell Trust Foodbank Network, UK's largest network of food banks: http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-projects.
