Have you ever experienced hunger? Of course you have. But have you ever experienced the kind of chronic hunger where you can’t physically move because you have no energy? Where you can’t go to school or your job? Where you are so terrified because you know you are a few short days away from death?
Malnutrition and hunger affect about 795 million people globally each year, with every 3rd preschool child (Silent Killer) being malnourished. If a malnourished child grows up and survives, they are likely to grow up to be a stunted individual and have high chances of going blind (Silent Killer). If they are able to get their hands on food, they likely have a parasite in their stomachs so they will not be nourished from the food they consume. This is a vicious cycle that many cannot escape. Each year, 6 million children die due to hunger or hunger related illnesses and around 15 thousand children die per day. To put this in perspective, that 15 thousand is 5 times as many that died from the World Trade Center attacks (Silent Killer).
This incomprehensible and gut wrenching death rate is occurring as I type this, but why has the media stopped reporting on it as heavily? What are we, as human beings (just like those dying from hunger) going to do about this to help? Currently, good, fresh food is wasted on a colossal scale. Massive amounts of food waste occur every day because of cosmetic standards for farmers. If the potato is too small or oddly shaped, toss is out. If the bananas are too small, toss them out. If the lettuce isn’t perfect, waste it. While first world countries are wasting food by the thousands of tons per day, children are dying because they cannot afford to eat. Eating is not a luxury, it is equivalent to breathing air. We must eat to survive. Rather than wondering what to do with the surplus of food in rich countries, we need to be asking ourselves, what are we going to do to get this food into the hands of the hungry and how are we going to cut down on waste? We need to be hungry for a change. 