Waste not want not - pick it up and eat it
(from Waste Not Want Not - by the Pretenders)
I have heard it said before that we are heading for a fall the way the Roman Empire came to a fall - and we may be a third world country some day. I don't know if that is true or not - whether or not it is going to happen - but I tell you one thing - some times our behavior as a whole - disgusts me. I don't know the exact statistics, - so I just checked out the "Worldwatch" website and read this "The 12 percent of the world's people living in North America and Western Europe account for 60 percent of this consumption, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa account for only 3.2 percent." Thanks to Viola for getting me to finally figure out how to insert a link:
World Watch
Speaking of sites - "Jen" passed this one along a few posts down - seems to look pretty legit so here you go
The Hunger Site
I could talk about all sorts of resources here - oil, fuel, electricity - but let's just keep it simple and stick with food. Some of you may not be good with numbers - so let me translate the above statistic into a math equation - you have a room full of 100 people at your local McDonalds restaurant and there are 100 Big Macs available for all of them. A small handful of them - 12 of the privilged ones - get to have 5 Big Macs a piece, and then you get 33 poor homeless people who are hungry - and they each get 1/10th of a Big Mac a piece to get them by. I bet those 33 people are looking at us with just a little bit of anger as the 12 privileged ones gorge themsleves in front of them. I have heard it predicted that some of our next major world wars may be fought over food and resources - and with that type of equation - would you really be surprised if that was the case?
Assuming these numbers quoted are accurate - and I have seen them in more then one place - the numbers are pretty alarming to begin with. It means that because I want to be a pig and eat my 5 Big Macs, someone else in the world has to go hungry. And do I really need 5 Big Macs to begin with? That is the problem - and it starts with an observation I have when I sit in with my daughter for lunch at her 1st grade school cafeteria. I see a lot of food on each kid's plate - and just where does about 3/4 of this food end up? IN THE F**CKING TRASH!!! Forgive me for getting emotional about this - but it sickens me. You take one small school - like us - with the trash cans filled up with food. Maybe the worms are getting a nice meal, but aren't human beings more of a priority? One third of the world - however many billion that is - maybe a couple - is barely getting enough to survive, if anything at all - and we in turn have so much food - that we are placing it in the trash. And you take the one school - where I see it happening -and multiply it by all the schools all over the country - and there is an alarming amount of food - possibly enough to feed those 2 billion people - sitting there going to waste in our trash cans all over the country. It happens in schools, restaurants, homes - constantly. It is happening now. If you ever happen to have a meal with me - please - don't throw it out - give it to me if you don't want it.
It would be bad enough to just think - well we are so hungry that each one of us needs to eat those 5 Big Macs. I know obesity is a problem and I am not immune to it myself. All of us could learn from the healthy aspect of eating in moderation. I could drop 20 pounds myself according to my last physical. I don't like it when food gets lost in the back of the refrigerator and it is discovered with black mold growing on it - it always saddens me to throw it out - so I am guilty of it too. But what I see at my daughter's school - is happening every day, and nobody cares, and nobody does anything about it - and I know it is happening on a large scale level.
So I hate to be an in your face preacher - because on a deep level I believe everyone is free to believe whatever they want - but it is my opinion - that our wasteful trends are not only bad for the world as a whole, but they may be our downfall some day as well. We have gotten "fat" in more ways than one, and if someone pulled the plug on our electricity some day and we had to fend for ourselves, how well would we really do? Seems like we have gotten pretty spoiled and are riding pretty high right now, and without a little humility to balance it all out, we could be heading for "trouble ahead, trouble behind". Not trying to scare anyone here, but it seems like if everyone in this country could practice a little moderation, use what we need and not just what we want, and be mindful of others, maybe the world would be a better place. Is it possible? I would sure like to hope so. My thoughts of my Jewish ancestors, starving to death in a dark cattle train or concentration camp - continue to haunt me. Starvation is not limited to any one race or creed - it is a problem of humanity - and I hate to think that I am contributing to it.
I have heard it said before that we are heading for a fall the way the Roman Empire came to a fall - and we may be a third world country some day. I don't know if that is true or not - whether or not it is going to happen - but I tell you one thing - some times our behavior as a whole - disgusts me. I don't know the exact statistics, - so I just checked out the "Worldwatch" website and read this "The 12 percent of the world's people living in North America and Western Europe account for 60 percent of this consumption, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa account for only 3.2 percent." Thanks to Viola for getting me to finally figure out how to insert a link:
World Watch
Speaking of sites - "Jen" passed this one along a few posts down - seems to look pretty legit so here you go
The Hunger Site
I could talk about all sorts of resources here - oil, fuel, electricity - but let's just keep it simple and stick with food. Some of you may not be good with numbers - so let me translate the above statistic into a math equation - you have a room full of 100 people at your local McDonalds restaurant and there are 100 Big Macs available for all of them. A small handful of them - 12 of the privilged ones - get to have 5 Big Macs a piece, and then you get 33 poor homeless people who are hungry - and they each get 1/10th of a Big Mac a piece to get them by. I bet those 33 people are looking at us with just a little bit of anger as the 12 privileged ones gorge themsleves in front of them. I have heard it predicted that some of our next major world wars may be fought over food and resources - and with that type of equation - would you really be surprised if that was the case?
Assuming these numbers quoted are accurate - and I have seen them in more then one place - the numbers are pretty alarming to begin with. It means that because I want to be a pig and eat my 5 Big Macs, someone else in the world has to go hungry. And do I really need 5 Big Macs to begin with? That is the problem - and it starts with an observation I have when I sit in with my daughter for lunch at her 1st grade school cafeteria. I see a lot of food on each kid's plate - and just where does about 3/4 of this food end up? IN THE F**CKING TRASH!!! Forgive me for getting emotional about this - but it sickens me. You take one small school - like us - with the trash cans filled up with food. Maybe the worms are getting a nice meal, but aren't human beings more of a priority? One third of the world - however many billion that is - maybe a couple - is barely getting enough to survive, if anything at all - and we in turn have so much food - that we are placing it in the trash. And you take the one school - where I see it happening -and multiply it by all the schools all over the country - and there is an alarming amount of food - possibly enough to feed those 2 billion people - sitting there going to waste in our trash cans all over the country. It happens in schools, restaurants, homes - constantly. It is happening now. If you ever happen to have a meal with me - please - don't throw it out - give it to me if you don't want it.
It would be bad enough to just think - well we are so hungry that each one of us needs to eat those 5 Big Macs. I know obesity is a problem and I am not immune to it myself. All of us could learn from the healthy aspect of eating in moderation. I could drop 20 pounds myself according to my last physical. I don't like it when food gets lost in the back of the refrigerator and it is discovered with black mold growing on it - it always saddens me to throw it out - so I am guilty of it too. But what I see at my daughter's school - is happening every day, and nobody cares, and nobody does anything about it - and I know it is happening on a large scale level.
So I hate to be an in your face preacher - because on a deep level I believe everyone is free to believe whatever they want - but it is my opinion - that our wasteful trends are not only bad for the world as a whole, but they may be our downfall some day as well. We have gotten "fat" in more ways than one, and if someone pulled the plug on our electricity some day and we had to fend for ourselves, how well would we really do? Seems like we have gotten pretty spoiled and are riding pretty high right now, and without a little humility to balance it all out, we could be heading for "trouble ahead, trouble behind". Not trying to scare anyone here, but it seems like if everyone in this country could practice a little moderation, use what we need and not just what we want, and be mindful of others, maybe the world would be a better place. Is it possible? I would sure like to hope so. My thoughts of my Jewish ancestors, starving to death in a dark cattle train or concentration camp - continue to haunt me. Starvation is not limited to any one race or creed - it is a problem of humanity - and I hate to think that I am contributing to it.
posted by Zook at 6:15 AM
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