Wednesday, July 23, 2008

If you're not outraged...

Have you heard that expression before: If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention?
Every once in a while, something comes along and really bothers me and I have to rant about it. The latest in this series comes via XUP's cucumber post. Go read it here.
Done? Good, now let's discuss. So, how many people in the world are currently malnourished, underfed, suffering from hunger and starvation? I don't know. I don't have the statistics, but I know, know, know for absolute certainty that the number is high. That too many go without food. That too many have nothing and would take anything just to survive. But we can't eat crooked cucumbers? We can't even display them on our grocery shelves? At least in the EU, they're going to start selling them again, but what about here?
People, let's think about this, food is eaten, i.e. chewed up, turned into a pulp, gets digested and will look much more disgusting by the time we get any nutrients from it than anything we could imagine on our grocery shelves, so does it matter if it's not perfect when our privileged hands select it at the store? How spoiled are we? How far removed are we from what our brothers and sisters around the world are suffering?
I'm going to put out a request regarding food: Let's all be more careful. Let's buy as much as we need and cook in the right amount and serve ourselves as much as we need and not throw any away. Let's not buy twice what we eat and dump the rest in the garbage. Let's remember those poor kids with convex stomachs because they have nothing. It's the least we can do. Really, it's minuscule.

4 comments:

VioletSky said...

Excellent post. Though I really wanted to vent about that issue after reading XUP's post, today was a day of not thinking clearly.

I rather like seeing deformed veggies. It makes me smile and actually think about the food. Perfection is boring. And sometimes tasteless.

noha said...

A few years ago, I heard about genetically engineered cubic-shaped tomatoes, because - get this - they'd be easier to ship more in a box...
I was like, "my God, what level of convenience do we need that we can't just eat the things round. Like, so much trouble that they're square," you know. Can you imagine the amount of effort and energy spent on stupid things like this when it *could* be spent figuring out solutions to get food to poor people, or, oh, I don't know, find ways NOT to kill us with poison through pesticides on fruit, etc?
I get mad, and then I'm relieved that at least I still get mad, and then I get apathetic, and then I'm disappointed in myself....

Anonymous said...

the number of people in the world without enough food is close to 900 million. About 13% of the earth's population.

noha said...

I never knew the exact number. Thanks. And the worst part is, there's more than enought food supply to go around, it just doesn't go around, is all.