by George McGovern

About the author: George McGovern was a U.S. senator from 1963 to 1984 and the Democratic candidate for president in 1972. This viewpoint is based on excerpts from his book The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time.

It is impossible to evaluate with dollars the real cost of hunger. What is the value of a human life? The twentieth century was the most violent in human history, with nearly 150 million people killed by war. But in just the last half of that century nearly three times as many died of malnutrition or related causes. How does one put a dollar figure on this terrible toll silently collected by the Grim Reaper? What is the cost of 800 million hungry people dragging through shortened and miserable lives, unable to study, work, play or otherwise...