Essay: Wastage of Food is wastage of the planet
Food is one of those essentials humans need to exist on Earth. Literally, Food means any substance that organisms eat to sustain life. Generally anything we eat either to satisfy our appetite or taste is food. Food also means nutrition which is the only source of energy to manage the arduous tasks of the world. Further, Food does not mean our appetite but taste as well. How does life look like without taste?
Food waste means to make the eatable material useless. When some portion of food is left uneaten and disposed of considering useless is the food waste. This form of waste is very common at domestic level, at hotels, food festivals and during celebrations when food is available easily at larger scale. We may waste food at different stages production, processing and retailing. Overeating, eating unnecessarily, I irregular meals, social customs, burning of eatable during superstitions are all factors contribute to the wastage of food in one way or the other.
Sadly 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year worldwide. The National Defence Council and NRDC claim that the USA alone wastes 40 % and 50% of food respectively every year. IME (The British Institution of Mechanical Engineers also makes the same claims that 1.2 to 2 billion tons of food remains uneaten.
Hunger has always been a major issue of the world which could never be solved by increasing food production only but saving the available supply of food. 50 % women in the third world do not receive proper maternal care and give birth to 30000 "deaths" instead of "lives" every year. Sub-Saharan countries of Africa bear the loss of 2.6 million deaths caused by hunger related diseases.
Food is the basic human right and wastage of food means ignoring the said right. The denial of rights brings nothing but chaos. Food is the rare gift of our planet as it grows nowhere else. One can find minerals, rocks, metals, perhaps everything else on other planets but not food. Today we may waste some food considering it extra, tomorrow we will have to beg for it for survival.
Had we been sensible enough regarding the use of food, neither the Global Food Crisis 2008 nor the Somalian Famine would have occurred only some years back. The Sub-Sahara countries hardly produce 230 million tons of food annually while the richer countries waste 222 million tons of food every year! The entire population of the 'Third world' could be fed with the food wasted by the 'First World'.
The food that we waste can save millions of lives, help the poverty stricken humans with the sole aim of survival. Anyone who believes in co-existence has an aim "Eat to live", not "Live to Eat". Production of food must be according to the proportion of the people living in a certain area.
Food wasting means unjust distribution of food, some with excess to waste and the rest to starve. "A hungry man is an angry man." will never let peace in the society simply by violating law of the country simply to acquire a single bite of food. Such a person is nothing to society and, as consequence, society is nothing to him. The flame of crimes get spark from hunger and burn the whole society. Likewise, a person suffering with malnutrition because of unjust distribution of food resources will always think but negative. Why do the poor fight more than the richer ones? What happens first of all when fields stop growing crops? Bloodshed.
He would have neither any religion nor any country. His all efforts of 'patriotism' will be directed towards 'sinicism' making him an ideal 'land' to grow 'weeds of sin'. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization claims that 870 million people of our present day world are suffering from chronic undernourishment. What about these three quarter billion hungry souls?
Food is the resource which is already a scare resource, how can it be wasted. Is food right of those only who earn or have resources? If so, what about innocent children, war victims, helpless natural disasters' victims and crippled people? Do they have no right to live on this planet Earth? What is this distribution of resources that only one human eats and wastes while the rest die with hunger? Has someone sold this planet to the rich countries or the rich have some heavenly right to 'eat, live and be merry'? Can the same seller be asked to kindly sell the sun, the stars, the moon, the sky or some other heavenly bodies? Progress and possession of resources may be the right of the hard working people but not at the cost of others' existence. Live but let others also live!
Though our enemy, yet Gandhi said something very wisely: Earth provides enough to satisfy everyman's needs, but not every man's greed. Bernard Shaw once said: There is no sincerer love than the love of food.
Humans realize the worth of something when it starts ceasing to exist. Let Food perish, everyone will realize.
Food does not fall but it is grown with labour and prepared with skill. Wasting it means rejection of all the efforts made behind it. Food is such a vital element that humans may eat even dry tree leaves when starved. It is so vital that in most of the cases it is the only goal of millions of people on Earth.
Wasting means keeping someone else hungry and what will that hunger result in one day? Food is one of the top secrets to stay peaceful on Earth. Feed others and win friends, snatch and make foes!
Religions also teach us the importance of food by making ‘Fasting’ obligatory. Islam commands us to eat lawful and good things and in good manner, not as animals eat. We are advised to be moderate in all affairs of life, so eating no exception. If we are really sincere to this planet and our coming generations, then we are bound by all the norms of sense to save food because ‘Wasting food means nothing but wasting our own home planet, our Earth!
