Just Do It

All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?

by Natalie Hope McDonald

Feb. 10, 6:30 p.m., free, University of Pennsylvania Fisher Fine Arts Library, Fourth Fl., 220 S. 34th St., joelberg.net

More than 36 million Americans are hungry. Joel Berg answers the big question —why? — in his new book, All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America? The thought-provoking investigation delves into the political and economic impact of food insecurity, including what causes it and how we can realistically eradicate it.

Berg, a former Clinton administration official and executive director of New York's Coalition Against Hunger, is passionate about what he sees as government failure on behalf of millions of Americans who may not know where their next meal's coming from, and for communities who rely on charitable agencies to shoulder the responsibility. "If the Ben Franklin Bridge fell down," Berg says, "you wouldn't expect a bake sale to fix it." The same rule applies to food, he says, especially as food pantries and soup kitchens are forced to turn people away for lack of resources.

Fortunately, Berg is adept at balancing facts with reflection, and humor with the seriousness of such a widespread concern among both the poor and middle classes in cities, small towns and rural communities. "People expect hunger books to be maudlin," admits Berg, from his office near Battery Park. Instead the book is more of a cross between Super Size Me and Nickel and Dimed in the way he honestly confronts social malfunction.

"Politics have changed considerably since I started writing the book," says Berg, who credits President Barack Obama's campaign with shedding light on the serious, often ignored problem of hunger. "He's the first president in history to grow up in a family who received food stamp benefits." Berg, who'll be speaking at Penn, believes this administration is aware of the dire consequences of choosing between food, medicine and shelter, making a case that hunger is a political and economic problem, not a personal one.