The world food scene is dominated by four powerful forces: the population growth, the accelerating affluence in the industrialized countries, the rapidly increasing armies of the destitute in the developing countries, and the unrestraint urban growth. The lack of historical and biological perspectives has led to two basic fallacies in the evaluation of the world food problems. Historically Europeans were able to temporarily resolve their food and population problems through emigration. In biological terms all people living now could get an adequate diet if feed crops were not substituted for food crops. It is shown that such metaphors as triage, lifeboat operations and the abuse of the commons are misleading and that they distract from the real nature and magnitude of the world food crisis.