Food Waste

Someone recently asked me, "What are some things that remain constant in your day-to-day life?" After a moment to ponder, I replied, "My religion, my family, and food." This person was a little taken aback by my response and asked, "Why food?" I said, "God programmed our bodies to be in need of energy, which we gain by eating food. We would not survive for long without eating food. A large number of people throughout the world are malnourished because of the meager food they eat due to being in poverty. Meanwhile, other more fortunate people waste large amounts of food daily." When you waste food, you are also wasting money (which was used to buy the food), you are wasting time (which has gone into buying and preparing the food), and you are harming our environment by enlarging landfills (which is where the food you waste ends up). For these reasons, we should avoid wasting food at all costs. 

Food Waste - A Story of Excess:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwVuz0UJl2A

When you waste food, you are obviously wasting money as well. You go to the grocery store, pick out food from various aisles, and then pay for that food at the check-out aisle. Basically, you gave your money in exchange for that food. And when you go home and prepare that food, you throw away the leftovers or put it in the fridge where it remains forgotten until you smell the stench of rot. How is that acceptable? So many people in our great, big world are in need of that food and the money which you bought it with. The solution is simple: don't buy more than you need. Therefore, you won't have excess food to throw away, and you won't be wasting money. 

Food waste = money waste:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGTPKKOVoz4 


Furthermore, when you waste food, you are also wasting time. You are wasting the time in which you bought the food from the grocery store and then the time it took to prepare the food. From my experience, I would say it takes about an hour or so to prepare dinner for the average American family. Add that to an hour (at the maximum) for grocery shopping, and you have around two hours right there. Therefore, the next time you open that trash can lid to throw away some food or leftovers, think about those two hours. Personally, I could get plenty done in two hours and I wouldn't want to waste that time. I could get most of my homework done, watch an entire movie, or finish reading a novel. In essence, don't waste food because you're wasting valuable time spent into getting that food onto your plate! 

Lastly, wasting food is harming our environment by enlarging landfills. All of your food scraps eventually make it to a landfill (unless you compost it), and landfills are seriously having a negative impact on our environment. The food disposed of in these landfills rots, which, in turn, releases methane into the air. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. So it's safe to say that food waste is a major contributor to the rising global warming levels nowadays. Thus, if we stop wasting food, we will be protecting and preserving our environment in the long run. 

Food Waste: a shame for humankind and for the environment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QbHlWNoyp4

Most people are familiar with the phrase, "You don't know what you have until it's gone." However, I assume that most people don't think about the truth of this statement because it can easily apply to the food we eat daily. Many people eat whatever they want, whenever they want and many others are very picky about what they eat. A lot of people (myself included sometimes) say, "I don't feel like eating that food today" or "I'm craving this today." What if we were to lose access to food for just a single day? I'm pretty sure that in the following day, no food would go into the trash. And this is a reality. A vast majority of people around the world don't have the basic necessity of eating three square meals a day, much less choosing and eating from a variety of foods. All the while, people living in wealthier countries are wasting immense amounts of food as if it's not of much value. We need to stop food waste because when we waste food, we are wasting money, wasting time, and harming the environment. Let's all start from this point forward! 

Making Food Waste History:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVkaYxJDqmI 

Always and forever,

Aisha