Investigate former lover and uncover extreme shortage of food (7)
I believe the answer is:
examine
'investigate' is the definition.
(I know that investigate is a more specific form of examine)
'former lover and uncover extreme shortage of food' is the wordplay.
'former lover' becomes 'ex' (ex-lover).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'uncover' indicates the central letters (I've seen 'uncovered' mean this).
'extreme shortage' becomes 'famine' (I've seen this in another clue).
'of food' becomes 'e' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The central letters of 'famine' are 'amin'.
'ex'+'amin'+'e'='EXAMINE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for examine that I've seen before include "Inspect, peruse closely" , "Set papers" , "Inspect carefully" , "Question, test" , "Inspect, study" .)