Report: 17 million Americans struggled to eat last year

About 15 percent of Americans had trouble getting food on the table last year, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The number of "food-insecure" homes has tripled since 2006, to encompass more than 17 million Americans. Of the 6.8 million Americans who missed meals regularly due to poverty, half a million to a million were children.

One in four households now has at least one family member enrolled in a federal feeding program like food stamps, up from one in five in 2007.