The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Agriculture teamed up to shine a light on veteran food security at this year’s Veteran Food Security Summit in Washington, DC.
“The summit's objectives align with the whole-of-government approach to meeting the White House commitments to promote the National Strategy to End Hunger by 2030,” said Dr. Christine Going, senior advisor, Veterans Health Administration Food Security Office. “It focuses on increasing quality assessment and interventions related to veteran food insecurity and will highlight women and rural veterans' unique needs.”
The summit, held July 23-24, focused on increasing quality assessment and interventions related to veteran food insecurity and highlighted the unique needs of women and rural veterans.
Going noted that VHA personnel are undergoing training on various food security topics, including identifying food-insecure veterans via screening, clinical interventions, best practices in food insecurity, community partner opportunities, veteran whole health, producing prescription programming, and developing food hubs.
VA has been screening for food insecurity since 2017, but until last fall screenings were only required during primary care visits, Going said. She added that not all Veterans who receive VA care receive it through primary care. That led VA to add food insecurity screening to the nursing admission note for inpatient care in August 2023. Food insecurity screenings have significantly increased since.
“Our current screening suggests about three percent of veterans are screening positive for food insecurity,” said Going. “We know that there is a stigma associated with veterans admitting they have food insecurity. We also know that the definition of food insecurity varies amongst veterans.”
Going said some veterans respond “no” to the food insecurity screener when asked if they worry about running out of food even if they depend on food pantries and other services to supplement their food and nutrition needs.
“The dependence on food pantries and other similar services indicates food insecurity,” she said. “According to research done by USDA reports, the overall rate of Veteran food insecurity is around 11 percent.”
Data also shows that post-9/11 veterans seem to be at a higher risk for being food insecure, followed by women veterans.
“We are also focusing on rural veterans since so many veterans live in rural America, and the challenges differ depending on where you live,” Going said.
During the summit, VA Secretary Denis McDonough and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack competed in a live, friendly cooking competition where they created cold meals using a limited budget. This year’s competition focused on ways to prepare nutritious meals with a limited budget – using ingredients found in food pantries, grown in individual or community gardens, or purchased at discount stores.
McDonough used fresh herbs from VA’s new Patriot’s Garden, a hydroponic garden located in the canteen at VA Central Office. Vilsack used fresh produce grown in USDA’s People’s Garden. Each had a sous chef who is a veteran and an executive chef at one of the VA’s medical centers.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.