Let's Just Throw It All Away!

Today, America is considered to be one of the most wasteful countries in the world, especially when it comes down to food.  We, as Americans, spend close to $200 billion a year just on waste and obesity alone.  Most American households dump anywhere between 20-25% of the food they buy each year.  This adds to an alarming $43 billion a year that is, metaphorically speaking, just going down the drain! Not only do households waste alot of food, but grocery stores and restaurants do as well! It has been estimated that grocery stores and restaurants throw out over 35 million tons of food each year at an annual cost of $30 billion! And what's really sad is almost 12% of the food waste that are in our landfills (see image below)  come from unharvested crops that were never picked due to there not being a high demand for the crop at the time.

With these wasteful habits taking a toll on our economy, something needs to be done! Even though there has been a gradual increase of food price (currently sitting at about 8%), maybe the food price should continue to increase until people realize that food is too precious to waste.  Maybe there should be a limit put on the amount of food a farmer can grow or the amount of food grocery stores can have in stock at a time.  While some states have implemented programs to encourage businesses to compost or serve smaller portions, it's not doing anything! The problem is only getting worse. People are still WASTING food!

There is NO reason, whatsoever, why so much food, that is perfectly edible, should continue to be dumped into our landfills considering that we have so many hungry children out there.  We, in America, are at the point now where food donations have decreased by 9% while food banks demand for food has risen to 20%!  But yet we are still throwing away billions of dollars worth of food each day?  Restaurants and grocery stores could easily donate day old products or leftover chicken to many food banks.  Many households could donate extra food that they might have leftover instead of throwing it out.  The problem is, we choose not to. But whether we choose to stop the food waste in those two alternates or not, one factor still remains childhood hunger is still a major issue and it is crucial that we find an immediate solution to this problem! Because if we don't, God knows what type of problems we could run into in the future.

An Attempt to Make A Change

Although it might seem like this "Great Recession" has made alot of things worst in our economy, one thing that has been ongoing for years is child hunger. In 2008, 16.6 million children (about one in every five) lived in homes that lacked the funds to provide a sufficient amount of food. The number of children suffering from food insecurity hasn't changed much over these 4 years, because as of right now it sits at around 17 million. Even though it's not that much of an increase, in my eyes that is still a VERY BIG DEAL! And thankfully it is also a big deal in the eyes of President Obama (see image below text), because even though I might have a loud voice (literally speaking), his voice houses power over our nation and can also make things happen with just an appearance.

 

President Obama has partnered with the USDA, or U.S. Department of Agriculture and has set a national goal to end childhood hunger in the United States by the year of 2015.  While researching this proposal, I also found out that by ending childhood hunger, the poverty level of the United States would be reduced by half within 10 years.  This is ABSOLUTELY wonderful because by ending childhood hunger and reducing the rate of poverty by half, we are kind of knocking out two birds with one stone by taking care of the primary goal for the "Half In Ten Campaign" as well as providing the proper nutrition for our children.

 

Even though the outcome of the proposal sounds wonderful, the process to getting there will be long and painstaking considering that the budget proposal includes an additional $1 billion extra for a total of 10 years.  The proposal also argues that in order to end childhood hunger by 2015, the government will also have to make the child nutrition programs more sufficient by reducing the paperwork and bureaucracy associated with applying for the programs.  Obama also suggest that incentives be given to the states who have improved performance of reducing child hunger.

I personally feel like the dishing out of an additional $1 billion per year could definitely be a struggle amongst Americans who are already feeling pretty roughed up around the edges as is, but it could also on the other hand be worth the struggle if it means ending child hunger and cutting poverty in half.  This proposal could also save us alot of money in the long run if the meals the children were offered were strictly healthy because that could cut down on obesity and health care cost so that the money being saved could be put toward the "Half In Ten Campaign", allowing for poverty to hopefully be eliminated altogether one day near.

 

 

 

 

 

The Loss in Future Imagination and Ingenuity

For every 1,000 people, 13 babies are born in the US.  These babies do not choose to come and explore the world, they are forced.  Moreover, they do not come here housed with little memory chips loaded with knowledge preparing them to fend for themselves nor do they come equipped with a strong, nutritional foundation. These babies are born with the sole purpose to become dependent on their creators for the first, crucial years of their lives. So when they are born into families that cannot properly take care of them, especially nutrition wise, they suffer extremely steep consequences for something that they simply cannot control.

When babies, particularly ages 0-3 years of age, do not receive the proper nutrition that is required to build a strong foundation, their future pretty much consists of complications with physical and mental health, academic achievement, and economic productivity (the ability to get a job).  Not only does food insecurity drastically affect the children who fall victim to it, it also affects America as a whole in terms of robbing the nation of imagination and ingenuity in future leaders.  And due to America being robbed of this imagination and ingenuity, other countries are starting to become the "best of the best" causing the American economy to lose its competitive edge.

So the question now is whether or not we risk the well being of our future leaders and continue to ignore a problem that is smacking us right in the face or do we take action and stop allowing other countries to kick our asses in the competition of ingenuity? Because whether we want to admit it our not, our country is continuously giving out our knowledge and skills to other countries everyday by graduating more foreign exchange students (from some of the most prestigious universities) than that of our own due to the lack of nutrition we provide our youth on a day to day basis.

The Strong Bond between Poverty and Childhood Hunger

When I think about child hunger, the first thing that comes to mind are the sketchy PSAs (Public Service Announcements) that are always collecting donations for malnourished children in foreign countries (see commercial by clicking on link below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwThgRYMJJw

And as I tune into commercials like the one above, the only thought that runs through my mind is...

However, once I started researching the topic of "Child Hunger", I realized that the problem of food insecurities is not always just a scam that helps the rich get richer, it is actually a HUGE ordeal. An ordeal that is not only common overseas in foreign countries, but an ordeal that hits very close to home (America).  While I surfed through the numerous crannies of the internet, I found out that there are over 17 million children, nationwide, that suffer from the constant pains of hunger.  These children are the victims of households that fail to acquire the proper resources that are necessary to  fight food insecurities due to insufficient funds or other circumstances that has led them to food impairment.

As shown on the chart above, 42% of the children with families who were food insecure, earn somewhere around $17,000 a year (for a family of three) which is below the poverty line. 10% earned around $22,000 a year (for a family of three) which puts them between 100%-130% of the poverty line. 6% earned about $32,000 a year (for a family of three) which placed them 130%-185% of the federal poverty line. And 21% earned an income above 185% of the poverty line which is also still around $32,000 a year (for a family of three).

As you can see most of the families do not make very much money but due to the outdated formula that our government uses to calculate the poverty line, most of these families are considered to be "wealthy" in the eyes of our government.  The outdated formula that is used to configure the poverty line is based on food prices alone, it doesn't add up other expenses that most of us encounter today such as housing, health care, child care, gas, transportation, and the list goes on and on and on.  So due to this outdated system, most Americans live in poor, food insecure conditions that lead to OUR children (as a country) going without food (See Picture Below).