Next Tuesday, October 16, is United Nations World Food Day. It’s difficult to know if one should mark the day by celebrating good food, poor food – or no food.
Perhaps we’ll save good food for another day and come to poor food later, but here are a few shock/horror statistics about no food: over 3-million children a year die of starvation world-wide; close on a billion people go hungry every day; nearly a quarter of the population of Africa is under-nourished; more than a quarter of all South Africans go hungry every day.
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Perhaps the most depressing statistic of all is that enough food is produced in the world to feed everyone on the planet, but the main problems are distribution and wastage.
There may be surplus food available in Texas, for example, but no way of getting it to starving families in Africa.
So much food is wasted between the farmer’s field and the market, and then between the market and food shelves of your local supermarket, corner grocer or spaza shop … and then at home. (I’ve discussed before in this column about home wastage, the stats are disgusting, in some countries up to a third of food bought is thrown away when it is still very edible).
Perhaps we should mark World Food Day as we choose, but let’s remember those who will go to bed hungry tonight.
Now, on a lighter note and moving on to poor food.
We have travelled a great deal and eaten some wonderful meals in the process, on all the continents except the cold one.
But not all foreign eating experiences have been great, mainly because of the financial shock factor.
On our visit to Montreal, Canada, our only meal was a shared chilli con carne (a classical Latin American and US Southern States dish), as the title suggests, it’s supposed to contain meat, but no chance, just hot baked beans.
On the subject of beans, on the French island of Le Reunion, we huddled over a heated up can of that French gourmet delight, cassoulet – no duck, no pork, nothin’ but a slice or two of Vienna sausage and baked beans.
In Paris, gourmet capital of the world, we shared a single tomato, a bread roll and a bottle of plonk. In Afghanistan, the only meal available at one stop was a mound of rice pierced by a chicken drumstick bone.
Iceland saw us sustaining ourselves with a packet of crackers and something almost undrinkable in a bottle. Finally, in Bolivia we were grateful for cheap empanadas, a sort of vetkoek, but here with no filling and very little koek.
Sometimes overseas travel can be a very expensive way to lose weight, but there are compensations – but another time perhaps.
Meanwhile, right here at home, my fetish over reading the small print on things came up with a goodie the other day. Notes on a 50gm packet of peanuts – Ingredients: Peanuts, vegetable oil and flavourants. Allergens: Contains peanuts. And finally – ‘Warning: This product has been made in a factory that uses nuts’. Nuts indeed.
Sources: UN Food & Agricultural Organisation, Statistics SA.
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