Is access to healthy food a basic human right?

When talking about inalienable rights, we have not generally been in rush to add to a list that includes such esteemed entitlements as freedom from discrimination, from slavery or torture, to peacefully assemble, to own property, to marry, and to a fair public hearing — which themselves only came after prolonged debate and many setbacks, and some of which are far from settled even now.

These are not, most of us now believe, nice-to-haves. They are necessities.