There is certainly the possibility to be food secure (enough to stop you feeling hungry) and nutrition insecure (not sufficient nutrition to keep you healthy). Generally this would occur due to an excessive dependence on limited range of food stuffs, usually because a specific essential amino acid is missing from the diet or an essential vitamin. Niacin deficiency, a cause of pellagra, is often seen in diets consisting of maize and little else. I have also heard that rabbit is said to not contain all the essential amino acids, so it can't be used as a sole source of protein in the diet. The other possible concern with diets with little variety is the overconsumption of certain vitamins and minerals, although I don't have an example for that which didn't occur because of food insecurity.

Thanks a lot Terri,...I however don't seem to get the connection here....Are food insecure people always nutritionally insecure....Are nutritionally insecure people always food insecure?

I don't think nutritionally insecure people are always food insecure, however I can't think of a situation where someone could be food insecure, but nutritionally secure. It may depend on the exact definitions. I am assuming that food secure means that they can afford and have access to food with sufficient calories all year round (and from year to year), whereas if they are nutritionally secure they can afford and have access to food containing sufficient essential nutrients all year round (and from year to year).

It's an interesting topic, which I hope other people will join in with.

According to the FAO food security exists "when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life". Hopefully, indeed, food security is not seen anymore as a matter of "quantity", but rather as a matter of "availability, accessibility and adequacy" of food.

I would not look for boundaries, I would rather assume that nutritional security (as well as food safety) is part of food security. In other words, it would be a mistake to consider people who have access to "a lot of nutritionally bad" food as "food secure".

This is not of course only matter of definitions, as food security programmes should be implemented based on this approach and, vice-versa, we cannot address food security without addressing nutritional security, or food safety, or access to food, properly.

All the best

Thanks a lot once again Terri for the clarification..Your suggestion is well noted and appreciated

Thanks a lot Costanzo for the opinion shared. Your point is well noted

I agree with Ambrogio: "access to sufficient, safe, nutritious and affordable food at all times" is pretty comprehensive as a definition. Food security thus encompasses nutritional security + caloric security + food safety + access and affordability issues.

One often comes across the argument that food security is "just" about access as the world produces enough calories to feed everyone. Whilst this may be true for calories, I have not seen a similar analysis with regard to nutrition - my gut feeling is that there probably remains a global micronutrient deficit...

Thanks a lot Tim for the opinion shared. Your point is well noted

I think food security has to do with quantity while nutrition security associates with quality. Quality is closely linked to diversity. Sometimes a household might have a full grannery of maize. Nutritionally it is insecure.

Thanks a lot Oswell for the opinion shared. However, the World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. With you suggesting that food security has to do with quantity while nutrition security associates with quality, what happens to the "Nutritious" world in the World Food Summit's definition of food security?

I think nutrition security is a component of food security but it has much to do with quality. In the WFS definition sufficient seems to measure quantity and nutritous measures quality. I do not know whether nutrition security can adequately measure 'hunger' and 'starvation'. The problem of hunger can solved by eating enough (quantity). In real world, there is a close relationship between eating enough food and eating nutritious food. There is an element that the person can afford a diversified diet.

I think many have been doing important efforts to see and address problems in a comprehensive way. Food security is (finally!) seen as quantity + quality + access. I really don't understand the importance of deepening in these definitions and distinctions as "food = quantity and nutrition = quality".

There are places in the world where quantity is a problem (let's say during a famine), other places where quality is the problem (let's say in the "civilised" western world where you die of eating bad and too much) and other where people are starving because they don't have access to an amount of food that, however, exists (let's say 50% of world population) and the three aspects are NOT independent!!

Why loosing ourselves in these distinctions? What would be the relevance of telling a person dying because of bad and excessive food "well, you've been food secure anyway"?

As people involved in research we have a great responsibility. We can either help builiding up solutions or create new, heavier problems if we confuse things.

Let's take the challenge of seeing things in a comprehensive way, and to address them. There will be time to find the boundaries between nutritionally secure, quality vs quantity, etc... let's aim to just get people live better. This is my point of view.

Have a nice day

@Ambrogio Costanzo. I understand what your point. I think l approached the issue from the developing world situation where undernutrition is the problem. I did not take into account of what is happening in developed world. Overall, I understand the point. These concepts do not operate independent of each other.

Thanks a lot Oswell and Costanzo for your respective opinions shared. Your points are well noted

Hi Oswell,

that's the point: we should address the problem of "unsufficient availability" and of "unsufficient quality" at once, there will be no separate solution. Your example with diversification was really relevant: the issue is that many african farmers (I met several ) who have plenty of cereals are not "food secure" because they only have this!

On the counterpart I met, and shared meals with, several farmers' families for months in west Africa. These families had not much food and very very few meat. The surprising thing was that they had such a variety of cereals and vegetable, thanks to their agroforestry systems, that you don't eat the same thing twice a week! This made me reflect deeply on the concept of food security... and the hot question is:

How many times such agricultural and food nutritional diversity - which is a big part of food security - has been sacrificed to ensure a "quantitative" food security, that after all has never been achieved !?!?

All the best

I also agree that it is unnecessary to separate food and nutrition if you expand the definition of food insecurity "access to sufficient, safe, nutritious and affordable food at all times". I realize this typically is used as the official definition as given in may places, but it is missing a key word after affordable - "appropriate". It is ridiculous that we assume that just because food is available it is appropriate. Foods should be culturally appropriate, acceptable, and able to be prepared by those who are supposed to eat it. The word "appropriate" covers those scenarios.

Brilliant...in my opinion, you've hit the nail right on the head Edgar. I very much appreciate your response on the issue under discussion. Your suggestion is well noted

Food security assessment is increasingly being expressed in terms of outcome instead of cause - thus most organizations around the world have been expressing current food security status using the Integrated Phase Classification (see www.ipcinfo.org). The IPC is a set of standardized tools that aim at providing a common way of classifiying the magnitude and severity of food insecurity. Most of these are focused on nutrition outcomes and 'evidence based' assessment that is comparable across cultures, economies and political systems. Thus nutrition is central to food security assessment.

Thanks a lot Molly for the wonderful opinion shared. Your point is well noted and very much appreciated