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 & Hunger Issues
As students, we do not worry much about issues with unobtainable food or snacks and because of this we take food for granted and end up wasting a lot of it. Many countries aside from the U.S. are also not worrying about this matter while other places are. I believe a great solution to the Food & Hunger issue could be feeding our extra foods to animals, opening more food donation stalls and places, no buying more food than we need and knowing our limits, and just not wasting food. Many food wastes are not only caused by just throwing out food or buying extras for no reason. Most of the food waste occurs by being expired, molded, insects eating it, rodents, or even being dropped on the floor. When we waste food in these ways, it may not seem a lot, but if you count the waste throughout your lifetime or throughout your country, these wastes add up in terms of money, effort, and food. This matter is really hard to fix and probably the only solution would be to be careful of your food, watch out for the dates when you buy it, and eat your food on time before it wastes.
Source: https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs
This is a great point Travis. It's super important to not waste food and make the most of everything you buy and not buy more than you need. You went into great detail about why you should not and how to not buy too much. So I would like to add some ways to make the most of food waste. According to epa.gov, some ways to deal with wasted food is to donate and compost it rather than throwing it away. You can donate to food banks and other organizations willing to take your extras or even informally, you can give it to the homeless or stay animals. Composting is easy to do from home and is a great way to reuse these scraps for your own use. But if you do not have the space or time for home composting you can bring it to other places that will compost your scraps. Overall, the best way to deal with food waste is to not buy it at all!
Source: https://www.epa.gov/recycle/reducing-wasted-food-home
I agree with you completely. The importance of us not wasting food is great and people should not buy food they are not going to eat. Also people should not take more food on their plate then they are going to eat. There are lots of starving people in our world and we need to be more aware of the problem. If you have extra food you can donate it to a food bank or give it to a homeless person or someone in need. Also composting your food is really important. It is easy to do and anyone can do it and it is a great way to reuse the things you may see as waste.
Source: https://www.epa.gov/recycle/reducing-wasted-food-home
This is a really good point. The US is absolutely very privileged so we end up taking a lot of our resources for grated, including food. The average person wastes around 218.9 lbs of food per year, so I think that if anything, people should take less food so that they know they are going to eat it rather than taking more and wasting it. It's devastating knowing there are millions of people starving in our world and also knowing that there is so much food getting wasted. That is why I thought it was a fantastic idea that you mentioned opening more food donation stalls. As said somewhere above, composting food is also a really good way to help our earth!
This is a really good point. The US is absolutely very privileged so we end up taking a lot of our resources for grated, including food. The average person wastes around 218.9 lbs of food per year, so I think that if anything, people should take less food so that they know they are going to eat it rather than taking more and wasting it. It's devastating knowing there are millions of people starving in our world and also knowing that there is so much food getting wasted. That is why I thought it was a fantastic idea that you mentioned opening more food donation stalls. As said somewhere above, composting food is also a really good way to help our earth!
I completely agree with you, Miles. I am a very picky eater so this topic really relates to me. As people who have a meal on the table 3 times a day, I think we have to be grateful. According to the Food Aid Foundation, 1/3 of food is wasted. The foundation also says that 1 in 7 people are hungry. When looking at these 2 statistics, it really shows what good could be done if we didn't waste food. I also agree with you that you should donate food to a food bank. Food banks help to feed hungry people, which is much better than wasting your food. Another thing you can do is volunteer at the food bank. This way you have an experience with the people who need the food. Next time you are thinking about wasting food, you will think about those people who would love that meal!
Source: https://www.foodaidfoundation.org/world … stics.html