In the world that we live in today, it’s very sad to see how much food we waste while others are starving every day. Today, around 795 million people suffer from hunger and are not living a good healthy life. That’s roughly around 1 in 9 people. There is also around 1 million people in developing countries who are underweight. (World Hunger Statistics) The Rise Against Hunger organization hopes to end world hunger by 2030, but could we resolve this problem sooner? It’s a very atrocious thing in this world but it’s sadly reality. World hunger is a serious problem but can be aided if countries decrease wasted food, help out with charities, and use their voices for good.
To begin with, the definition of hunger is “A feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat.” ( Definition of Hunger in English by Oxford Dictionaries) This is a perfect way to define what millions of people are experiencing today. It’s depressing to see many young and even older people desperate for anything they can get their hands on to eat. A huge cause of the world going hungry is from bucket loads of food waste every day.
The USDA stated in a report in 2014 on food loss that the United States loses or wastes 133 billion pounds of food each year. (World’s Food Waste Could Feed 2 Billion People) The USDA goes on to say that from this food waste, it was worth about $161.6 billion at retail prices. This is huge amount of wasted food that we need to decrease, or even better, put an end to it all. The amount of food wasted globally is estimated to be around 1.3 billion tons of food. (Arsenault, Chris) Around the world, it is shown that a lot of food is wasted, but the United States definitely wastes the most food. Many people probably wonder why we are so wasteful? What is causing all of this?
There are so many reasons why food is wasted. Some people stock their pantry’s full, fill their fridges, and buy too much food that won’t be eaten. This results in lots of food expiring, spoiled milk, moldy cheese, and rotten meat. They don’t know what to do with it so it ends up in the trash. Sadly, majority does it though because we’re all human and it’s just a bad habit. It’s a hard thing to change but can slowly be progressed into better habits. Together as a whole, we need to shift our thoughts and actions and learn to decrease the amount of food we are wasting. We can all learn to buy less, store food more carefully so it lasts longer, cook with leftovers, and consider donations.
I personally have witnessed lots of food waste which led me to try and do better myself. I work at Costa Vida which is a Fresh Mexican Grill restaurant and I’ve seen so much food wasted everyday. After a long day of work, we cleanup the store and have to throw away lots of food such as chicken, beans, rice, guacamole, limes, chips, queso, etc. We end up filling up a huge garbage with food that could have been used for a good cause. We’re required to do so, so that the customers always get the freshest food. I believe that the Costa crew and I could do a lot better than just wasting all this good food. We could take some food to our families, not cook as much food that will just get wasted, and even find a way to donate this food to people in need or charities who will find use to it. Finding ways to be less wasteful will definitely help in the long run. Strive to waste less to help end hunger.
There are many other causes of world hunger but here’s nine of the top causes of world hunger (The Top 9 Causes of World Hunger): The first one is poverty. Hunger and poverty fit right by each other. Many people struggle to afford food for their families and even themselves. This is a huge reason why the world is hungry. Second, is food shortages. Some people in the world rely on farms to feed themselves and usually don’t get enough while others can’t afford food all the time. Next, is war and conflict. This cause is known to be the leading destroyer of food which makes it very hard for people.
