One person dies of hunger every 3.6 seconds; 75% of them are children! Around two hundred million Indians go to sleep on a hungry stomach. Yet the amount of food wasted in the country is more than that consumed by the whole of U.K. To say that there`s more fruit in a rich man`s shampoo than a poor man’s plate may be an exaggeration, but the rich world does consume food without much thought for the poor.
As ordinary citizens, we may not be able to do much about the way the world consumes food. We can do little about food grains rotting in government granaries or destroyed by rodents, food wasted due to lack of storage facilities or in transport. But individually, we all have a personal responsibility not to waste this precious resource and can certainly do much in this regards by imbibing good ethical food habits.
After the big fat Goan wedding is done with and all the guests have disappeared with the quick “ one for the road” , what remains is litter – discarded half full dinner plates/glasses/bowls and bins full of excess high calorie food. While on the average a Goan wedding is attended by around 400-500 people, the food wasted is usually enough to feed another 400.
During the good old days of my childhood, buffets were something that the common man had only heard about. ‘Arroz’ and ‘stew’ was served straight from the fire in cute little plates that moved around swiftly through the hands of young maidens and was relished with as much swiftness – not a morsel got wasted! Today, buffet tables with 20-25 dishes laid out is a norm. Fine, but why can’t we take as much as we can consume, or better still, as much as we can enjoy? Gone are the days when surplus, unwanted and unused items like half rusted cutlery, Pressure cookers, thermo flasks , serving trays, photo frames etc could be conveniently dumped on unsuspecting newlyweds by way of gifts. These gifts actually went around in a vicious merry-go-round until some soul found them useful or useless! Today, almost every invitation card carries a small message reminding the invitee not to bother about gifts. Indeed a great Idea that has caught on! Unfortunately nobody has yet given a thought to putting up placards at the buffet table requesting guests no to waste food. A placard that reads: “Please do not waste food – kindly eat what you take and take what you eat” may sound a bit improper at the beginning but would go a long way in sensitizing people as regards to food wastage.
Now a day, most of us know the price of everything but understand the value of nothing! Do we have the right to waste food just because we have paid for it? The value of food goes much beyond the money that we pay and wasting food is akin to stealing it from a poor man’s plate. My late father used to get very upset when we wasted food. These are the people who having experienced acute food shortages at first hand understood its value. In a world of seven billion people, set to grow to 9-10 billion by 2050, food wastage is criminal is every sense – economical, environmental and ethical.
A penny saved is more than a penny earned when it comes to food because when we save food, we save money, the precious resource that is required to produce it as well as our environment. Not wasting food will always remain a great virtue! Simple habits can help us save food… For a beginning we can start by shopping smartly to avoid buying needless food items. We can cook with love and serve just enough – Gluttony, by the way, has killed more people than the sword!
