Global Hunger

You must know by now that the world has a hunger problem.

Do you remember your parents telling you to clean your plate because there were starving children in Africa. That correlation really didn’t make a lot of sense and yet we waste so much food from farm to store to home to table that shows just how incredible we are removed from the resources that go into producing the world’s food and what we are really throwing away (and even composting).

You ought to also know that hunger and the amount fo food are not intrinsically linked. No man, woman, or child should be hungry based on the current global food system and yet it simply ensures that nearly a billion of us will.

A Few Facts on Food Imbalances and Insecurity:

• Our planet produces enough food for everyone, yet nearly one billion of us (1 in every 7 people) still go to bed hungry.
• About a third of the food produced for our plates ends up lost or wasted between farm and fork.
• One pound of ground beef for your family uses more than 28,000 cups of water to produce—that’s enough to fill 20 bathtubs to the brim, and then some!

Today is World Food Day 2012.

Food is still an integral part of our daily lives whether we have first-world problems over food deserts, GMOs, and “modern and inventive cuisine” we have the luxury to criticize OR developing world issues over walking miles for access to clean water and finding enough nutrition to keep our children starving to death. Broad generalizations for both and still real all the same.

OXFAM is supporting World Food Day in part by rolling out its GROW Method: a brand new way of thinking about food – and the way we buy, prepare, and eat it based on five simple principles.

What Can You Do Today?

Save the world? Change our food system with a single bound?

Take action to make simple changes in the way we grow, cook, eat and store our food to be more sustainable. That is all we can do and when we use our collective power to do so, the world will take notice.

• Sign up to host a World Food Day dinner discussion. It’s not too late! OXFAM will send you everything you need for free, plus recipes, so gather up a few friends and make a difference through dinner. Can’t do it tonight? Global hunger isn’t going away any time soon.
• Make a sustainable meal by finding out what’s in season near you and only buy fairly traded products that ensure small scale food producers and farm workers get a fair deal.
• Share a GROW method recipe on OXFAM’s Pinterest board using the tag #GROWmethod.
• Snap photos of your World Food Day meal to share on Instagram and tag them with #WFD2012.
• Submit your best idea for a more sustainable food experience to our GOOD Maker Challenge for a chance to win $1,000!

What will you do today to celebrate World Food Day and start putting changes in motion for a more sustainable food system for the future?

This post was written for the Global Team of 200, a highly specialized group of Mom Bloggers for Social Good members who focus on maternal health, children, hunger, and women and girls.