# Is it basically impossible to starve to death in an industrialized country? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 18, 2015, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-basically-impossible-to-starve-to-death-in-an-industrialized-country/710147 "2015-01-18T09:09:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-basically-impossible-to-starve-to-death-in-an-industrialized-country/710147/21 "2015-01-19T00:32:32Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The most common cause of famine is war and/or corrupt governments. We have enough food to easily feed the population of earth, and if large numbers of people are starving to death, it’s because some agency is preventing food aid from getting to people who need it. Corporate greed IMO is a bigger problem. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-basically-impossible-to-starve-to-death-in-an-industrialized-country/710147/22 "2015-01-19T00:36:21Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Yes, because people largely dependent on herding, hunting and gathering the wild plants of Africa will automatically recognize the edible plants of Montana despite never having seen them before, have the skills to hunt the particular wildlife there, and be ready to deal with sub-freezing weather for half the year. > > :rolleyes: Hunter-gatherers are vanishingly rare, even in Africa. We are talking just a handful of communities worldwide. Herders are more common, but still very much a minority. Most Ethiopians are farmers, and most of the rest are in the 17% of the country that lives and works in the city. So yeah, not likely to be very useful in Montana. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-basically-impossible-to-starve-to-death-in-an-industrialized-country/710147/23 "2015-01-19T01:41:59Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Actually… the Food Depository of Chicago DOES have refrigerated trucks, allowing some of that food to be captured and distributed to soup kitchens and shelters. So someone actually did do that. Generally, though, you’ll only see it in a major urban area or region. New York also has a service like [that](http://www.cityharvest.org/programs/food-rescue), that collects food that would otherwise be wasted and doles it out. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-basically-impossible-to-starve-to-death-in-an-industrialized-country/710147/24 "2015-01-19T02:42:40Z")
In my limit experience, people can get sufficient calories to survive in the U.S., but not the most healthful diet. Most chain grocery stores donate packaged processed foods to food banks within a week of the Best Before date, but that just isn’t a convenient options for foods like kale and milk. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-basically-impossible-to-starve-to-death-in-an-industrialized-country/710147/25 "2015-01-19T05:02:49Z")
It’s possible to die of malnutrition even if you have enough food to fill your belly. I’m not a nutritionist or anything, but I would assume that living on, say, day-old bagels wouldn’t provide someone with all the nutrients they need. For example, I don’t think bagels provide much in the way of vitamin C. Scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C, and if left untreated is eventually fatal. [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy#Cause) cites several medical articles (which I haven’t read) describing cases of people living in the industrialized world who did develop scurvy from not having a balanced diet. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-basically-impossible-to-starve-to-death-in-an-industrialized-country/710147/26 "2015-01-19T05:29:24Z")
I doubt if anyone starves to death as in say, Andersonville, simply since unless one stayed home alone one would collapse in the street and be taken to hospital where they would try to save one’s life: if they didn’t succeed it would be classified as heart failure. Recently, it was revealed that British supermarkets destroy 98% of food they don’t sell. However even if there’s plenty of free food on the streets of San Francisco, that won’t help someone starving in Montana. I once read the last person to officially die from starvation in Britain was a carter’s lad around 1908. But a hell of a lot died in the 1880s and 90s, mostly in London, before the Welfare State. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-basically-impossible-to-starve-to-death-in-an-industrialized-country/710147/27 "2015-01-19T06:05:03Z")
I’m glad to read in this thread that there are some places in the world where day-old baked chickens didn’t die in vain. ---
**Author:** ![Sasquatch\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8491ac/32.png) [@Sasquatch\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sasquatch_1)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-basically-impossible-to-starve-to-death-in-an-industrialized-country/710147/28 "2015-01-19T07:04:48Z")
If you haven’t seen the Dirty Jobs episode about the Las Vegas pig farmer, you should. That said, I wonder if it would be economically feasible to collect waste human food and consolidate it for animals. Maybe something less smelly than pigs, but even Chicken Chow would be useful. One problem is the non-food waste mixed in, unfortunately there is no real social tradition to separate waste food from other garbage. For the Vegas pig farmer, and for any other organization trying this, that might be the biggest hurdle. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-basically-impossible-to-starve-to-death-in-an-industrialized-country/710147.md?page=1)