The most important part of the national economic security of an individual, family, social groups, nations, peoples, cities, regions, the entire state have always been problems of food security. This problem is exacerbated by the country's significant food dependence on food, which leads to such negative macro-economic consequences as "leaching" of foreign exchange reserves, growth of external debt, export of scarce raw materials and non-renewable energy and other mineral resources. Food security is an important component of national security as a whole and is not limited to the "spatial" framework of economic security of the state or countries.

The aim of the paper is to summarize the definition of food security, to ascertain the genesis of the concept and to form own opinion on it. During the research, a terminological principle was applied, which envisaged the study of the history of terms and their notions, the development or refinement of the content and scope, the establishment of relationships and subordination, their place in the conceptual apparatus of the theory on which the research is based. Methods of terminological analysis and operationalization of concepts help to solve this problem.

Some normatively-legal acts of Ukraine that define the concept of food security are analyzed in the article. It has been proved that a country can be considered a country with socially oriented economy if the conditions for a healthy lifestyle are created. As a result of the study, it is formulated a definition of food security, which emphasized that high-quality, environmentally friendly and energy-efficient food should be accessible physically and economically to all segments of the population, regardless of income, public or private sector economy.