Every
morning when the clock strikes 9, my mom yells loudly from kitchen in an
alarming tone ‘Everybody is invited for the food, do please trouble yourselves
and eat.’ We rush towards dining hall as if we are released from the dark
dungeon.
My mother
has a strange habit, every time she serves food, she always gives us lesser
than we need. And I always used to demand her more as I need heavy appetite ;)
I would like to quote her saying, “I would prefer to serve lesser food than
wasting it carelessly.”
I used to be
pissed off often but ironically I always had to eat much, quite full indeed. I
was the only child whose stomach is composed of transitional muscles so you can
stretch your belly as much you want, while others had quite inflexible ones.
Hence, I had many nicknames like Miss. Humpty Dumpty, Miss Baby elephant, Miss
Food Almighty, Miss Food rescuer, Miss. Scooby Foodie Doo but the most widely
known was “The Living Dustbin”. Here comes the giant the living dustbin who
never waste any food, don't worry if you can’t finish your food coz Anisha,
comes to the rescue (imagine myself wearing superman’s costume with spoon and
forks clinging on my long thick hair).
Do you think
it’s cool? Ummmm, maybe or maybe not. I used to give a don't mess with-me
look if sometimes any tom, dick and harry start teasing me. But, I agree
that I love to devour like a hungry lion and I had no control over this
feeling. When I see the sweet, salty, sour, spicy multi-colored, multi-flavored
dishes spreading their arms (I mean smell) and calling me so gently. I just can't say no, it would be so rude, right?And this became my habit or say addiction. I am happy for my love for food since the day I came to know about this:
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO),every year 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted. This is equivalent to the same amount produced in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, 1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of 5 die daily from hunger.
Not only that, if food is wasted, it means that all the resources and inputs used in the production of all the foods are also lost. It is really frustrating to see the facts indeed. On one hand, people are dying just because they don't have food to eat and on the other hand people are throwing food like its nothing.
Do you know how much hard work, patience does it require to produce a single grain?
Only the farmer can better understand the value of the grain he produces. only a starving person knows the value of food. While people of Humla and Jumla have to wait for a helicopter loaded with some bags of food to fulfill their hunger, we the Kathmandians have problems with our waste. The situation is very very dire and we gotta act very soon.
Stressed? Of course, after such eyebrows raising dialogues everyone should feel guilty. But does it suit for the most so called 'intelligent' creature of the earth to be mute spectators and stare the whole self created problems with the hands crossed? Or are we waiting for the problems to be overwhelming?
We have a habit of taking chill when the problem can be addressed and later when everything slips out of our hands, we start trumpeting far and wide. The issue will get a political attention and turn out to be another burning issue.
"It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little- do what you can"- Sydney Smith(1771-1845) Writer, Clergyman.
And I am really happy to be called whatsoever coz I have been doing what I can do from my side. C'mon I am not asking to do hunger-strike or stop eating foods you love. That's rubbish if you expect so. The thing is why we don't turn ourselves into our own dustbins rather than turning this earth into a massive dump site. We can reduce our diet little bit rather than throwing it in the bin which ultimately mixes with the environment. One grain reduced is hundred saved, and see we can also control famine. If we wait until all is perfect to move, we'll never move ahead.
So, are you ready to share my nickname? For that, Think before you Eat and help Save our environment!
Reference:
No comments:
Post a Comment