This weekend on Food First Michigan Dr. Phil Knight and Gerry Brisson, president and CEO of Gleaners Community Food Bank, are doing a 2nd round of myth busting surrounding hunger and food insecurity. Tune in on Saturday at 5:00 AM or Sunday at 9:00 PM on WJR Radio or Newstalk 760 AM.

Myths can be true, but are often less accurate and can lead to a mischaracterization of the subject. [To get caught up on last week’s episode discussing myths #1 - #4 – listen here  https://soundcloud.com/foodfirstmi/myth-busting]

Myth #5 is that hunger is in America is not a real crisis [this is clearly a myth believed by someone who is not hungry]. On average, 10.5% of the American population [relatively 35,000,000 people] struggles with food insecurity. Out of the top 12 jobs in Michigan, only one of them paid a living wage – this is unacceptable! To learn more about what it truly takes to be self-sufficient, check out our Self-Sufficiency Standard: https://bit.ly/3hYyt1K.

Myth #6 is that hunger may exist somewhere else, but it does not exist in my community. People often do not admit that they are food insecure, they WANT to be self-sufficient. On average, a food insecure person misses 5 meals a week. Hunger IS in our community and we have to take care of the people who are going through it.

Myth #7 is that food from food banks is a “stop a gap” and it never really changes anything. Clients having access to healthy and nutritious food enables and empowers them to manage their monthly trade-offs better. Feeding people today does more than “stop a gap,” it helps them overcome the immediate crisis in their lives.

The biggest commodity that the Food Bank Council of Michigan and our 7 member food banks trade in on is not t food, it is HOPE and TRUST! People trust that food from our food banks will be highly nutritious and safe. Food has a tremendous ability to communicate value.

Creating generalizations based on assumptions is dangerous, it creates misinformation and produces one of the biggest challenges facing us as we strive to create a hunger-free community.

It is hard to solve a problem if you are denying the truth.

Find this episode and all past Food First Michigan episodes at foodfirstmi.org, on @ApplePodcasts, or @iHeartRadio.

Apple Podcasts --> https://apple.co/38UUpFk

iHeartRadio --> https://ihr.fm/38WJ2wN

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