Starving Children Eat Bugs to
Survive!
Globalization Will NOT
End World Hunger
This is an
excerpt from Anita Roddick's book "Take it Personally."
"The globalization of agriculture fails to address
the world's hunger crisis. In fact it makes it worse. During the past two
decades, the total amount of food in the, world has increased, but so has
hunger.
The main problem is that globalization of food
production pushes small, self reliant farmers off their lands and replaces them
with large chemical and machine-intensive corporate farms. It does not emphasize
food for hungry local communities. Instead, it encourages exports resulting in
monocultures - a single crop grown over thousands of acres. These crops are
usually luxury items cultivated for export and are notoriously vulnerable to
insect blights and bad weather, and cause soil infertility.
Starving children searching for insects to eat
in Sudan
From 'Take it Personally' Anita Roddick.
Global biotechnology companies claim they have the
answer to world hunger. But biotech production does nothing to solve local
hunger problems. Does anyone believe that the invention of biotech plants whose
seeds are sterile - forcing farmers to buy new seeds every year - has anything
to do with stopping hunger? The biotech industry's goal is not to feed the
hungry, only to feed itself."
A recent United Nations study confirms that the
world already has enough food. The problem is one of distribution. Global trade
rules put food production and distribution in the hands of agribusiness giants,
supplanting the traditional system of local production for local consumption.
The world is producing the wrong kind of food, by a
process that leaves millions of people landless, homeless, cashless, and unable
to feed themselves.
Is it any wonder that there is huge resentment
against the west?
END
Researchers have found that the average
American family
throws away 1.28 pounds of food per day, for an annual total
of 470 pounds per household, or 14 percent of all food brought
into the house...
Garbage Galore
The Osgood File
(CBS Radio Network): 11/28/03
The Osgood File (CBS Radio Network): 7/4/03
A
new study reveals that American households throw away some 470 pounds of
food per year.
Most people don't give a second thought to
the half eaten dinner that finds its way to the trash, or the expired
milk that's poured down the drain when it starts to smell funny. But to
Tim Jones, a researcher at the University of Arizona's Contemporary
Archaeology Project, this kind of garbage is fascinating stuff. In fact,
Jones and his students spent the past year sifting through the garbage
of 200 American families for the express purpose of finding out how much
edible or once edible food gets thrown out each day.
Jones's study
is part of a partnership with the US Department of Agriculture designed
to find out how much food is lost on its journey from the farm to
supermarkets, restaurants, homes, and eventually, to our bellies.
Previous studies estimated that Americans tossed about 150 pounds per
household per year, but these figures are 25 years out of date, and
researchers suspected that the real number may be higher.
Learning how
much food people throw away each day sounds easy – just ask them, right?
Not so fast, says Jones. "The everyday kinds of behaviors that we do
over and over again are not well remembered," he says, and most people
aren't even fully conscious of repeated behaviors like preparing and
serving food. So rather than depending on self-reported behavior, Jones
and his researchers needed a way to actually measure the amount of food
that ends up in the garbage.
To do so, the
team rounded up families in Delaware and Arizona and interviewed them
about their eating habits, collected grocery receipts, and then dug
through their trash to catalogue and weigh every last lima bean, chicken
nugget, and slice of cake that ended up in the garbage.
The results,
Jones says, were eye-opening. "Some people believe that you cannot
really store food safely in the fridge. Anything that's left over
automatically gets thrown in the trash," says Jones. "Then there are
households, where, well, as long as it's not gooey or furry, you can eat
it. It you take a bite and it tastes OK, you can eat it." Overall, the
researchers found that the average family throws away 1.28 pounds of
food per day, for an annual total of 470 pounds per household, or 14
percent of all food brought into the house. That's three times the
amount previously estimated – and Jones expects the number the climb
when researchers add in food that's washed down the garbage disposal or
fed to the family dog.
Why do people
throw away so much food? The reasons, says Jones, are varied. Some
people practice poor planning, and some are influenced by the perception
of what they should be eating. "People think oh, I should eat well, so
they buy all these fruits and vegetables," Jones says. "Then they come
home at 10:00 after work and pull out a frozen dinner." By the time the
weekend rolls around and people have time to cook, the vegetables have
turned to mush. In part because of this "guilt buying" Jones says,
people end up throwing away about a third of the fruits and vegetables
they buy.
Other factors
that affect food loss are warehouse stores that encourage customers to
buy in bulk, and moving habits. Jones found, for instance, that
low-income families, who tend to move a lot, throw out the largest
amounts of packaged food.
Jones agrees.
"The big cost of food loss is environmental," he says. "Growing stuff on
a farm reduces the productivity of the land. You have to use pesticides
that cause more pollution...Loss of that food means losses of nutrients
out in the fields."
SOURCE:
Garbage Galore
The Reason Why You
Shouldn't Give Money to Big Charities
I am disgusted with America's charities, who pay their executives 6-digit
salaries.
Children International asks for donations of $22 per child to provide
food, medical, education and other needs. Yet, their CEO was paid
$347,381 in 2007! It is appalling to me that an organization that
stresses how far a mere $22 will go per month, pays their CEO $347,381
a year! That's just plain wrong in my opinion. Anything can be
justified, but that doesn't necessarily make it proper or ethical.
The Salvation Army isn't quite as bad,
they only paid their CEO $175,050 in
2004. No doubt, they have all
kinds of excuses to justify such outrageous salaries; but no one needs that
kind of salary, and it is certainly unbecoming of a so-called “charitable
organization.” I realize that top executives are often paid high salaries
for their fund-raising abilities and expertise; yet, it's just inconsistent
with all the plethora of ads we see begging for our donations, which might
mean “life or death to some child.” If that's the case, just think how many
more children's lives could be saved if the CEO's of these fat cat charities
were to give back 80% of their salary, God forbid, and actually have to live
on $75,000 a year! My, oh my, how would they survive?
What gets me is that a charitable organization
can actually pay their CEO $375,000 a year and still be rated by the BBB as
a great company. Not in my book! The BBB is a joke in America! Many
companies who support the BBB are given preferential treatment. In my
opinion, you can't trust information from the BBB, nor from America's big
charities.
Red Cross and United Way are even
worse. The top CEO at Red Cross pulled down a $651,957 salary
in
2003! According to Forbes, United Way's top executive made $629,950
in 2004!
Why do people support these fat cat charities?
A lot of people give money to charities to
boost their public image, feel good about themselves or to find a tax
write-off. It is a sore evil in America. While an estimated
18,000 children continue to starve to death
daily throughout the world, and others
eat bugs to survive, America's
biggest charities continue to pay their top executives outrageous salaries.
It is a false balance in God's eyes. Few people realize these days that
America's charities have become lucrative businesses.
My advice to people is to find some poor person
and give the money directly to them. There are many poor people today, and
others who have lost their jobs, or are homeless, and you can be a blessing
to them directly. And best of all, you know that 100% of the money is going
to charity, and not helping to pay someone's $600,000 salary! Really, it is
insane to pay someone that kind of money in a so-called “charity.”
Who do you think will appreciate your money
more... some fat cat charity or a struggling family who has no income?
If you DO decide to support any charity, demand
a financial report of where the donations are being spent. This way you can
see first hand where your money is going, and can make sure that you're not
buying someone a mansion in the suburbs. Don't accept a vague summary,
kindly ask for specifics. If they don't disclose such information, give
elsewhere. Honestly, too many people are abusing the system today, living
extravagantly on donations, because people don't think.
I just can't in good conscience drop my money
into a Santa Claus's bucket at Christmas time, when I know the top dog at
the Salvation Army is getting paid $175,000 a year!
I cringe when I hear ads telling people how
much their $22 a month can do to better a poor child's life, knowing that
the CEO of that charity got paid $347,381 in 2007! Yet, so many people sit
at home, staring at some picture of a child they're supporting for $22 a
month, failing to realize that the CEO of that company makes 15-TIMES
what the average American family gets paid annually. No CEO of a charitable
organization ought to be paid more than $47,381 a year, which leaves
$300,000 remaining from this guy's salary. For $22 per month, $300,000 can
help an additional 1,136 poor children! Yet, the charity appeals to
the American public, from families who are struggling financially to live on
$30,000 a year, to give $22 per month. The whole charity scene in America is
enough to make one want to go vomit.
Please stop giving to big charities and start
giving money directly to the poor.
Furthermore, most of those big charities don't
share the Gospel with the people being helped. Even the Salvation Army
is more Army than Salvation these days. When you give money directly to the
poor, you can witness to them concerning Jesus Christ, or give them a Gospel
of John. Just think how much further your money can go by giving it directly
to the poor. I am a firm believer in helping the poor, but not through some
fat cat organization that keeps back $600,000 a year for it's CEO. That's
crazy!
END
