SAY NO TO FOOD WASTE: BE A ZERO HUNGER HERO

By Sahib Zadi - The Lady B Bless Humanitarian Foundation - Guest Blogger Pakistan

Pope Francis said “Wasting food is like stealing from the poor”. I believe it is indeed true. Every second a person dies of hunger. The FAO estimates that as many as 25,000 people lose their precious lives everyday as a result of hunger. More than 1 billion people suffer from hunger. This means that 1 in every 6 person on Earth don’t get enough food to live a healthy life.

Zero hunger; The 2nd goal of the SDGs, growing up in the world, it is one of the most dominant goal to discuss and to be solved.

Nutritious food is a basic human right. No human alive deserves to go to bed with an empty stomach. But we all are abusing our rights by trashing our food, food which starving children would have died for.

Approximately 9 million people in the world die of hunger each year according to world hunger statistics. 98% of those who suffer from hunger live in developing countries. 553 million live in the Asian and Pacific regions, while 227 million live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Latin America and the Caribbean account for 47 million. India has the highest population of hungry people.

According to the report, Pakistan losses thousands of mothers and children due to lack of food. In Pakistan, district Tharparkar is said to be one of the dangerous regions of the country in terms of people’s survival. Every year, hundreds of people die in the area due to food insecurity and malnutrition.

On average, 1/3 of all food produced for human consumption is wasted. Not only food industry but we are all food waster too. Every day, people throwing their meals away, at restaurant, at home, at school and at wedding halls. Many people scraping full plates of food into bins, which millions of people would died for.

The consequences of food wastage are utterly atrocious. Food loss and waste are large contributors to world hunger because people don’t share their food with others. If someone can’t finish food, share it with a person.

A beautiful quote by Mother Teresa “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one”. This may decrease the death rate of hunger in our society. While changing our daily dining habit is the easiest and the most effective way to solve this issue. There are few steps that I strongly believe we are can take. There are some NGO’s that work towards reducing food waste and eradicating world hunger.

Thus, we also need to take action immediately. We need to minimize our domestic food waste and we need to be aware of the consequences of food wastage to humans, nature and the economy and we need to donate money or food to the NGOs who are working for world hunger. This is how we can be a hero, “A Zero Hunger Hero”.