Why food banks can’t solve the problem of hungry Canadians

In today’s Big Story podcast, in 2021, Statistics Canada reported 5.8 million Canadians suffered some level of food insecurity. As inflation has spiked, so have stories of hungry families needing food banks to fill their tables. But the root cause of food insecurity may not be expensive groceries, nor can the issue be solved with monthly boxes of food.

Valerie Tarasuk is a professor at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and the leader of PROOF, an interdisciplinary research program studying effective policy approaches to reduce food insecurity in Canada.

‘I would say the only solution to [food insecurity] in the bigger scheme of things, is going to be addressing the causes, which is inadequate and insecure incomes,” she said.

So why is it that millions of citizens in one of the world’s richest countries struggle to feed themselves? And why isn’t providing people with free food a viable solution to this problem?

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