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Third World vs First World
Okay, have to do this dig because I happen to be in the world of the third variety: I'm hoping that a decent majority of participants in the forum are from the United States because good lord, you people know how to consume food.
I'm not talking in a personal sense here, I mean in general - the quantities served at restaurants... the denominations of weight and volume sold in supermarkets... Aside from the fact that I'm starting to think I should have posted this in the flame wars section, I have to ask: where the hell does it all come from and why on earth do you need so much? It's not like you have starving masses to feed - social welfare is pretty good over there (based on my recent visit to Chicago).
Before posting though, my recent visit did debunk the "All Americans are overweight stereotype" - which actually serves to raise another point - it follows logic that a large amount of this food must be going to waste. Justifications? Reasons? Responses? I'm literally on the edge of my seat in anticipation of a response. Okay, not literally.
I'm not talking in a personal sense here, I mean in general - the quantities served at restaurants... the denominations of weight and volume sold in supermarkets... Aside from the fact that I'm starting to think I should have posted this in the flame wars section, I have to ask: where the hell does it all come from and why on earth do you need so much? It's not like you have starving masses to feed - social welfare is pretty good over there (based on my recent visit to Chicago).
Before posting though, my recent visit did debunk the "All Americans are overweight stereotype" - which actually serves to raise another point - it follows logic that a large amount of this food must be going to waste. Justifications? Reasons? Responses? I'm literally on the edge of my seat in anticipation of a response. Okay, not literally.
Comments
As to justifications for waste? How would we get the "leftovers" to another nation? Spoilage and distribution issues. Also, when going out to restaurants that serve large portions, I know that most people only eat ahalf and bring the rest home for the next days meal. Food is (relatively) inexpensive in the States. Despite this, we do have a hunger issues. The biggest problem is that the food that is worst for people (processed foods with high caloric/fat content with limited nutrients) is the cheapest food available or the easiest to prepare (frozen meals and the like).
As for the "leftovers" - the hotel where I was staying won't even transport "leftovers" down the street to a homeless shelter for fear of being sued because they aren't willing to refrigerate trucks to transport the food. Aside from the humour aspect from a third world perspective (getting sued by homeless people - hilarious concept), distribution of leftovers is a universally infrequent event regardless of the distance required to transport the food across - I generate them and I haven't gone down to the "townships" and handed out food.
ex. "That level was stupidly hard."
TheWhaleShark: Do you know the laws, regulations, and standards for donating food?
City Harvest
Sarai, it's all very simple, the US, or better, the first world is just a bunch of power hungry insignificant specks. In the case of the US 40% of the insignificant specks that don't have a position with 'power' (and even some who do), are left with being just hungry. These stuff their faces with crap and more crap whilst ignoring their health.
I would be delighted if suddenly every unhealthily living fuckhead imploded and their daily consumption of food got spread to the people that actually need it to wake up tomorrow.
We can't just send our extra food there. In the past, we've found that doing so makes things worse, driving down prices locally (thus preventing local farmers from even bothering to grow anything to become self-sufficient) or suplying warlords with money.
Fun fact: At least in New York State, "Sell By" dates have no legal bearing whatsoever. Stores are not required to take down food that is past its "Sell By" date. They are required to remove food that is obviously unmerchantable (spoiled food, moldy bread, etc), but they're not actually required to remove food that the manufacturer advises has expired.
By the same token, please note that food isn't necessarily expired after its "Sell By" date, nor is it guaranteed to be good up until that point. It's simply an advisory from the manufacturer.
May I ask where you come from, which third world country?
No, seriously, it's not that Americans are eating all the food in the world. They are using all the resources, and energy, but that's another problem.
Part of America's problem is the the people with the lowest incomes get the unhealthiest food (It is basically empty calories and chemicals) whereas the more well-off have natural, fresh food available to them. Notice how in America, fatness does not correspond to wealth. In fact, the opposite is true. Our lower classes have a higher rate of obesity.
To say that OH AMERICANS ARE GREEDY is a terrible oversimplification. Sure, there are some greedy fat people, but believe it or not, there are other far more wasteful things that Americans do than eating lots of food.
For example, eating a lot of meat is bad not because it directly deprives Africa of their meat, but because it pollutes, uses energy, and requires a lot of money.
Is it fair that some families have to decide between food or soap, while others can buy Ferrari's without even a second thought?
EDIT:Careful, dem be killing words. Killing of you that be.
Also, every once in a while when I see my parents do grocery for the week I would tell them "you guys bought too much, we didn't use to buy food like this when we were in Peru", their response would normally be "Well, we are not in Peru anymore". Also, something that I notice just recently is that Peru is one of the few countries that would eat anything with rice, and if there is no rice we would put potatoes. I also notice that it is way cheaper to buy orange juice than making your own orange juice here in America, back in Peru I would get like 15 oranges for 50 cents of a dollar, that would make me a nice jar or orange juice. Fruits expensive here in the USA, well at least in Virginia
I agree with the poverty aspect, although I don't agree that the political instability is as much of an issue. Fair enough, in places like Zimbabwe (where I was born) the war vets send their lackeys out into the rural areas and they clobber people to a pulp, which means less subsistence farming due to a lack of manpower - but in general, politics don't play an overly large role.
Modern farming methods - a good idea in theory, but I still don't think production would be even close to the scale of production in the US. Distribution doesn't play much of a role either. Obviously there are more (and larger, and better stocked) supermarkets in urban areas, but I have never seen remotely similar quantities of food available here - the fresh fruit and vegetable section in the store I went to in Chicago was the size of an average supermarket here. Also - I saw what I presume to be gallon bottles of vodka on sale in the shops, and the packets of chips were easily over a kilogram. I agree that efforts to distribute food are often not received well, but the general first world stance of not wanting to make things worse is disproportionate to the severity of the problem. The other explanation is usually that the people in the country wouldn't eat donated food because they are unfamiliar with it and it doesn't form part of their staple diet.
Give a person who lives off a diet of maize products every day anything with protein in it and I guarantee that they will eat it - and since the only food that you could potentially send would have to be preserved or canned, I don't believe that would have an effect on local food prices to a degree that would lead to local farmers throwing in the towel. It might lead to a mentality of dependancy, which I have found is a problem.
Which brings me to: Modern efficiency should be shared to solve the world's hunger problems in the ideal world, but I'm guessing that would also make that same efficiency less profitable in the country of it's origin. I do think the US is power-hungry, although not in this context and that's another topic for another discussion (which perhaps I'll start at some point).
Gomidog: you raise an interesting point that I have oft debated with friends. Lower social classes having access to less nutritious food - that is completely a first world phenomenon that I feel is slowly spilling over into the third world as fresh food preservation methods become more advanced. Fresh fruit and veg used to be incredibly cheap here because we live in a country that is relatively agriculturally dominant in Sub-saharan Africa. While it is still cheaper here than living off take-aways, access to decent, long-lasting fruit and veg tends to have dropped dramatically for the majority of the population. As a relatively affluent member of African society, however, tend to shop at Woolworth food for the primary reason that their fresh fruit and vegetables will stay fresh in my fridge for two weeks (I would guess that some sort of irradiation is involved) but it cuts a deep gash into my entertainment budget for the month. I could live off tinned foods and save enormously.
Phew - I'm done for now.
Lets look at the problem this way. Lets say we have supply of food that can go to a group of poor hungry people. We can choose to feed 100 people somewhere in the world, where do you think we will send that food. To a failed state in Africa were the food might not get to those people who need it or should we send it to a country that has poor people but is political stability would (like China) or a country that we have a network for food distribution on the ground (Iraq or afghanstan).
Distribution issues are far more than spoilage and corruption. It takes massive amounts of energy to transport food from one nation to another. If we use the example of 'canned goods', then the sheer tonnage of food will require energy (which isn't cheap, nor always available). The best form of aid is helping to build stronger infrastructures, forgiving debt, and not requiring third world countries to collect ludicrously high taxes in order to have enough revenue to secure loans future loans.