Hungry?

The food crisis is being talked about and talked about and talked about. Climate change advocates have been talking about it for awhile - hotter temperatures, more floods, more droughts - all lead to it being more difficult to provide enough food for the world. Increasingly, people talk about the amount of grain it takes to feed animals we eat as meat. The exploding middle class - which is good, in the sense that fewer people are living in poverty - means that more people are eating more food, and more meat at that. The minimum thresholds for biofuel are increasing demand and competition for food. 

So while a major proportion of the population starves and while food riots are becoming commonplace in increasing parts of the world, what we do in North America is consume more calories in junk food and desserts and fancy coffees every day than the rest of the world eats period. We consume and consume and consume at the expense of those with the least and never stop to think about it. 

There is hunger everywhere.  The obvious contrast between the have and the have-nots, between obesity and starvation is growing, and so much more can be done to stop and reverse it. The solution lies in redistribution: closing the gap from the top to the bottom by cutting excess at the top and making it available to those without enough. Less food consumption here in Canada - say, reducing junk food or expensive coffee - would mean more money for food in places where it is a luxury.  It would also save food packaging, empty calories and all the health problems that come from processed food - not only obesity, but illness that is caused by the preservatives and substitutes that are used. Seems like a win-win situation. And all it takes is a little of self-discipline and some political willpower.