If I recall correctly (and I amost certainly don't) "needs" are just inelastic wants.
I.E. A want that is not diminished by an increase in cost.
For example, air. People will pay *anything* to get air, if they have none. Or food.
I suppose in a psychological sense you could define food as a "want" as in, it's possible to force yourself not to seek this out. A starving person may give their food to their child. A need may be air, a person trapped in a submarine wouldn't stop breathing so their child can breath (although they could do other things to stop their breathing). Morbid, yes. But it's the only way of defining food as a want that I can come up with, and I think it's not a very useful definition. We already have words to describe involuntary actions.
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