I have reduced my food intake to almost half in the past one week for obvious reasons.

s. But let me tell

you something Hunger by choice is a painful luxury; BUT hunger by force is a terrifying torture.
Globally, human beings produce enough food waste to feed 3 billion people: over 30% of the world's
food supply is wasted. The annual food waste in Italy could feed 44 million people all of Ethiopia's
undernourished population. The annual food waste in France is enough to feed the entire population of
the Democratic Republic of Congo. Just five per cent of United States' food waste could feed 4 million
people for one day.
The annual wheat production last year exceeded the demand by 700 million tonnes. Inspite of land
grabbing, globalization, modernization, industrialization etc., we are still producing more than ever
before. This is because of the higher quality of the grains and the use of technology in agriculture. That
means there is enough food in the world, yet millions are still starving.
So I treid to Think.Eat and Save. I stop wasting food and ask for only a specific amount of rice or
chapatis for myself everyday. So I cook less, purchase less grocery and this would eventually reduce my
food related monthly expense. Thats it! Reducing my food wastage or if we all do it will not solve the
problem of thousands of hungry people going to bed without even a morsel of food.
Can we send our leftovers to starving children in Africa or say in Jharkhand? No, that is clearly not a
permanent or sustainable solution.
Let me introduce to another word called food loss There is a difference between food loss and food
wastage, food loss is something which occurs during the early stage of production i.e. just after the
harvest, during the first storage, transport, and first transformation of grains into something more edible
and which mostly concerns poor countries, and food waste is something, which happens due to our
consumption habits (at home, in restaurants) or because of mismanagement of stores in the retail sector.
Food waste mostly concerns rich countries.
Of course solutions to food waste and food loss are different. The rich countries waste approximately
40% of food produced. This 40% happens at the end of the food value chain by retailers and
consumers. That means along with the food they waste they also waste the energy and resource that goes
into bringing the food from farm to fork. The same percentage of food, 40%, is lost in poorer countries,
though here the food losses happen at the beginning of the value chain.
Thinking, eating and saving will only help us to conserve and store more food at our warehouses. We, at
this stage, can only help to reduce the food waste upto the warehouse stage, which by no means can help
to solve the problems arising due to food loss. But in country like ours where proper warehouses are
only on paper this will just lead to free bonuses for ruling political parties. The problem of widespread
hunger is food loss. The amount of food lost per year in Africa could feed 48 million Africans itself
provided good harvesting facilities, storage, packaging, distribution and stable infrastructure is
provided. Here good food is lost in the fields before it even has a chance to reach peoples' plate. Let's
imagine a truckload of potatoes, grown and produced in a west africa, transported all the way across the
globe to a USA just to be wasted because of some silly cosmetic reason. Imagine a look in the eyes of
the hungry people while telling them that the good potatoes grown in their very own country are being
thrown away just as fast they arrive in the Western world because the shape of the potato is not round.

Ofcourse, an argument can me made that the overconsumption of food is affecting global food prices.
The more we consume (and the more we throw out), the greater global demand for food becomes and
the higher food prices rise globally. But given the current scenario where we are already wasting so
much food, the prices are not sky rocketing. Infact there is a dangerous consequence of an idealistic
reduction in food wastage will lead to lower demand for food, which will lead to higher supply and
lower prices and terrible situation for farmers. Farming will no longer be a profession and lead to a
drastic fall in the supply.
Just donating food to hungry people will only make them dependable and will not provide a permanent
solution. Agriculture Planning, proper trading and appropriate pricing for specific regions can be one of
the viable solutions.
Thus we find that the global food waste problem is a self-perpetuating system. If we ideally save food, it
would lead to lower demand, higher supply, lower cost and terrible situation for farmers. The extra food
when donated, which will have no guarantee of reaching the right empty bowls will give rise to a
depended population. & we cant just waste food too for obvious reasons.
We must remember that food is the most powerful basic necessity for human beings. It is what keeps us
going. It is what is keeping us alive.
A starving child is a frightful sight. A starving vampire, even worse. Lets not force the child to
become a vampire.