Famine food

A famine food or poverty food is any inexpensive or readily-available foodstuff used to nourish people in times of extreme poverty or starvation, as during a war or famine. Quite often, the food is thereafter strongly associated with the hardship under which it was eaten, and is therefore socially downplayed or rejected as a food source in times of relative plenty.

Foods associated with famine need not be nutritionally deficient. A number of famine foods are quite nutritious—thus their use to nourish and ward off hunger. However, such foodstuffs usually offer limited variability, may tend toward the less savoury end of the spectrum, yet are still consumed in large amounts and for long periods of time because of the nutritional duress. As such, people often remain averse to them long after the immediate need to consume them has subsided. That remains the case even if such foodstuffs might otherwise constitute a healthy part of a more comprehensive diet.