This paper starts from an empirical observation that levels of hunger or food insecurity in middle-income and high-income countries are often higher than might be expected, and in some cases are rising rather than falling in recent years. Document levels and trends in selected food security indicators for three case study countries: Brazil, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Argue that, given the availability of resources and state capacity to eradicate hunger in these countries, a process of ‘normalisation’ has occurred, meaning that governments and societies tolerate the persistence of hunger, even when a constitutional and/or legal right to food exists that should make hunger socially, politically, and legally unacceptable.