Review nº 1

Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Source: www.nytimes.com
Date of publication: May 18, 2008

Review nº 1: Article ‘ One Country’s Table Scraps, Another Country’s Meal ‘

As Argentinians we are quite aware of the problems that every housewife has to deal with in order to ensure a dish of food every day for her family. But it seems that people in first world countries are not very conscious of the problems which people in poor countries have to face. These problems are usually related to lack of economic sources to buy food or shortage of food. In the article ‘One Country’s Table Scraps, Another Country’s Meal‘, published in the New York Times, the author deals with the issue of wasting food in countries such as The United States. He also informes about the multiple ways of saving edible food from been discarded in order to donate it to Food Banks.
One point remarked in the article is the fact that Americans generate roughly 30 million tones of food waste each year. About 2% of that food waste ends up in landfills which produces methane, a major source of greenhouse gases. Other important fact mentioned is that in the same country, a group of more than 200 food banks reports that donations of food are down, but the number of people showing up for food has increased 20%. European countries are also part of the problem, such is the case of England and Sweeden. Britons tose away a third of the food they purchase. As a contrast, countries such as Africa and India suffer the lack of food. The main cause of the problem is the lack of technology and infrastructure to maintain the products edible, as well as multiple environmental factors like humidity or insect infestations. The Department of Agriculture of the US estimated that recovering just 5% of the food which is wasted could feed 4 million people a day. Fortunately, in many mayor, including New York, food rescue organizations are working with cafeterias and restaurants. They collect excess food that was never served each day. For food that isn`t edible, many states and cities are offering programs to donate it to livestock farmers or to compost it. There are also efforts to cut down on the amount of food that people pile on their plates.
In my opinion, the information published in the article, as well as the different measures taken to fight against the current food crisis should be put in practice among the rest of the first world countries. In this way they could help to fight the current food crisis. For that reason I agree with Jonathan Bloom, who started a blog to track the issue, when he says “eliminating food waste won’t solve the problems of world hunger and greenhouse gas pollution. But it could make a dent in his country and wouldn’t require a huge amount of effort or money”. I think that this problem must be fought not only by the governmental institutions or ONG organizations, but also by everyone because it is also a matter of education and consciousness. We need to change our eating habits and help those who have less. That is why I also agree with Mr Bloom when he says “ the fundamental thing that he’s fighting against is ‘why should I care? I paid for it’”, especially now that “the rising prices are really an answer to that”.
Finally, I consider that the article well worth reading because the information presented can be quite useful and can be used as an example to copy in the rest of the countries. In that way each of us could do a little in order to make a better world for all of us.