What did you learn about dietary choices from using the footprint calculator? Now imagine that you could translate what you learned into an effective societal policy on food- what would it be? And how would this policy effect the need to alleviate world hunger?
925 million people on earth do not have enough to eat according to the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization]. That's almost 1 in 7 inhabitants of our planet!
Food & Hunger >
Food Consumption
Food waste is a major problem. In wasting food, we consume more than we are actually eating, meaning that we are helping to raise the worldwide price of food above what it actually should be. If none of us wasted food, then the worldwide price of food would be much lower and a lot more people in the developing world would be able to afford to eat more. Another major issue regarding food consumption is animal products. Animal products such as meat and dairy limit the amount of food that can be produced worldwide. Livestock in the United States are generally fed wheat or corn. The problem with animal products is that the number of people that can be fed with the wheat and corn that we are feeding livestock exceeds the number of people that the livestock can feed. Therefore, I think that a key part of fighting worldwide hunger is consuming less animal products, which would thus lower the demand for such products.