Monday, May 19, 2008

Wasted Food

I subscribe to the New York Times Learning Network. Each weekday I get an e-mail with a link to a current article from the New York Times and links to lesson plans, vocabulary words, geography links, etc. The topics range from politics and religion to science and art. It's interesting, it's relevant, and it's something different.

Today's article was about the increase in worldwide food shortages and wastefulness in industrialized nations. Most of us grew up with moms who said that there were children starving in India (or Africa if you were my mom). My smart-mouthed reply was to not give me as much and Fed Ex it to them. While there are logistical challenges to that scenario, the harsh reality is that starvation and malnourishment continue to plague many parts of the world while in others wastefulness is the norm.

The article makes some suggestions on how to minimize waste and one important one is portion control. One of the principles of my blog is properly tailoring portions, so I was glad to see that this was mentioned. Not only is managing portion sizes better for nutrition, it's less wasteful. As much as I loathe those 100-calorie packets of cookies and crackers, at least in theory, they are starting to get it right, nutritionally and economically. There is a link to a photo essay on Time magazine's web page from a book called Hungry Planet. It is about what families around the world eat and what their weekly expenditure is. It's interesting and astonishing, at both ends of the financial spectrum.

I'll forgive the writer's comment "frugal mommy blog" comment because the article points out just how widespread the problem of waste really is.

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