A Lot Of Food For Thought

So there I was happily munching away at my keema and chapati watching the news when there's a story about research showing how half the food the world produces simply goes to waste. That's right, half. Not a daunting twenty or thirty per cent, but a staggeringly almost unimaginable fifty percent doesn't go into our stomachs - when an awful almost unimaginable number of those stomachs don't get enough food. And it sounded suspiciously like the guys who'd done the research knew what they were talking about.

Noi quite rightly pointed out that we ourselves don't waste food. She's a genius at re-cycling, and making sure left-overs, when rarely generated, go to others. And you've got to begin by looking at yourself.

But then, I reflected, I feel a strong sense that I need to think of the bigger picture and resist the very strong temptation to point the finger and come on all holier than thou (which I know I have a pretty good talent for on occasion.) I'm locked into a system that seems designed to generate waste, as the excellent analysis that followed on Sky News made clear, and, to a considerable degree, I benefit from that system. So the question for me is: Do we know of ways to adjust that system to reduce the waste and get some of that wasted half into the mouths that really need it?

I reckon if we save just ten, fifteen percent, and get it to the right place, we'll all be able to eat our keema with a clear conscience.