THE VICTUALS
Food provides nutrients, energy for activity, growth, functioning of the human body, and a good immune system. It is an essential requirement for sustaining life.
Everyone's life revolves around food, shelter, and money. Where food is indispensable playing a vital role. Basic knowledge about food and its subtopics is known by everyone. But to date, food wastage happens, and it cannot be stopped but controlled.
So, I emphasize always slowing down the wastage of food and to bring to the limelight the importance of agriculture and farmers in our life.
World Food Day is observed to celebrate amazing food from around the globe, raising awareness on starvation, the importance of a healthy diet, the need for food security at times of crisis, implement successful agricultural practices and policies by governments, focus on fishing community, climatic changes, bio-diversity, etc., As the climate changes, food and agriculture to changes and the need for social and agricultural protection have emerged in the global arena. Breaking the cycle of rural poverty, feeding the world, and caring for Earth are the areas that still needed to be worked upon by the FAO and are a social responsibility for every individual in the world.
World Food Day is an initiative by the Food and Agricultural Organization(FAO) of the United Nations. The main goal of the FAO is to create awareness of the devastating effects of hunger and promote healthy eating and a balanced diet.
International Food Day falls on October 2016 to commemorate the founding of UNFAO (United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization).
It tackles global hunger and strives to implement a hunger-free world. The motto of UNFAO is to create worldwide awareness and collective actions to combat the issue of hunger and ensure a healthy diet for all.
“Our actions are our future, better production, better nutrition, better environment, and better life.”
“One cannot think well, sleep well if one has not dined well”
- Virginia Woolf
Objectives of FAO
Today’s agricultural food system exposes inequality and injustice.
Two billion people have no access to safe, nutritious food, and a healthy diet leading to obesity, the most obnoxious factor in the world consuming many lives.
The food lost due to spoiled food during production, transport, and finally thrown into waste at home, at parties, and by retailers, restaurants, etc. leaves poor people hungry.
The generation of GreenHouse gases like methane by food waste makes the world’s landfills which have become an area of concern for environmentalists worldwide.
To fix these collective issues, action has to be taken to ensure safe, nutritious food, food supply chain sustainability, resilience, and inclusive factors.
To make a paradigm shift, the above action plan has to be followed by all including farmers, the private sector, civil society, etc.,
As a red alert, during COVID - 19, there were devastating repercussions worldwide on all general issues - the main thing being ‘food issues’ that added an induced, economic recession.
The initiative taken by Food and Agricultural Organization(FAO) is
“Grow, Nourish, Sustain together”
Global Food Starvation
There are a few countries like Kenya where the price of basic food has sky-rocketed and children starve from food and there have been fund-raising activities by various charities to minimize starvation.
In Cuba, the media supports the eradication of food starvation through awareness and campaigns to exchange expressions and views from the public.
In Mongolia, organizing Food Security Conferences to promote regulations and policies valuing the contribution of researchers and scholars.
Food Security
Food Security is a measure of the availability of food and the individual ability to access it. All people at all times must have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.
To help Food Security, tackling issues like hunger and malnutrition is the need of the hour that keeps people mired in poverty. It is to show compassion towards mankind addressing life-threatening hunger, the need for children in cutting off poverty, and to ease the continuation of long-term health and wellness.
As spear-headed by the FAO, donations have been pouring in from various sources in the form of Food Kits, nutrition assistance has been given to pregnant mothers and infants, medical therapies, income-generating activities, and jobs have been launched, in countries where there is food starvation.
At St. Britto's students work with ‘Hands-on-experience’ in being socially active, to make a giant leap in creating awareness by posting their views using ‘hashtag ≠’ on World Food Day by the FAO. The value inculcated through this cooperation and support from the public enables them to know that it is essential to raise our voice for issues that affect people globally and the versatility of social media in action.
Food Insecurity is the disruption of food intake or eating patterns which arises upon lack of money, unawareness, and other negative resources.
In our country India, during COVID-19, the Union Health Minister, Harshvardhan has reinstated a “renewed focus on food, nutrition, health, and immune sustainability”.
The key focus for this year 2022 is ‘Elimination of Trans-fat from the Food Chain’. Trans fat comprises hydrogenated vegetable oils like Vanaspati, shortenings, margarine, etc., which leads to a rise in non-communicable diseases in our country as said by the Union Health Ministry.
Reducing Food Waste
Cooking sufficient amounts of food for an individual or a family.
Organize your fridge and avoid dumping food materials.
Learn new cooking skills that involve simple, basic ingredients.
Re-use the leftover food by composting.
Plan your meal - buy what you eat.
At St. Britto’s – ‘Food waste weigh-in’, an activity was conducted as a survey to the students by checking the number of meals wasted to be stored in buckets and tallying it for a week or month thereby making the children mindful of how much food is wasted.
“Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of the poor and hungry.” – Pope Francis
Minimizing Food Wastage
1. At St. Britto’s, students created food banks and acted as volunteers by giving away food (like biscuits, fruits, rice, etc.,) to the needy and the poor.
2. The students were taught to know about where the food comes from(Farm table) and to respect it.
Students were encouraged by the teachers to indulge in thought-provoking story-time, to start their kitchen garden as a move to make consumption of food - a chemical-free one, an effort to save money and consider it as a relaxation factor.
An inbuilt curriculum linked with the objectives of the World Food Day
1. Science (a) Ecosystem and bio-diversity – to learn about the importance of the ecosystem, protection and sustainability – The students were taken to a nearby pond for learning and observation.
(b) Working scientifically – Baking bread, pickling vegetables, making butter.
(c) Virtual observation – Looking at the digestive system, and the functioning of its organs by taking nutritious foods through a video presentation.
2. Geography – The students of Std IX were asked to refer to various educational resources to know about plants that produce food in different climatic biomes.
3. English – The students of Std VII and VIII were asked to write about cooking recipes, obesity issues, and food storage. The students were also persuaded to talk in talk shows on various headings like reducing food - wastage, balanced diet, etc.,
4. Art - Designing posters, attractive food packaging, taking photos of different food styles of families around the globe.
5. Maths – To scale food recipes, to know the ratios of every food component, representing a balanced diet by drawing graphs and bar diagrams.
Zero Hunger
“If we can conquer space, we can conquer childhood hunger”
“When it comes to hunger the only acceptable number is zero”
- Buzz Aldren
Zero Hunger 2030
1. This can be achieved by reducing food wastage by getting food plates for those who need and could not afford to buy food.
2. By putting the poorest first by expanding social protection and framing a special program for the most susceptible and vulnerable.
3. By ensuring nutritious food by creating more food supply chains.
4. Prioritising nutritious needs for mothers, infants, children, and adolescents.
5. Increasing nutritious value by joining hands with farmers to cultivate sustainable crops, educating the producers, and consumers about the intake of nutritious food (Rice, Wheat, Corn, and Soya – 60%).
Zero Hunger 2030 – St.Britto’s Future Projects
As proposals laid by UNICEF, a road map to end hunger, achieve food security, give importance to nutrition, promoting sustainable agricultural global health and well-being at all ages has been the ‘ prima- facie ' ’, the need of the hour that has been emphasized to the students through campaigns by the senior students.
Hunger-free future
Every year, four billion metric tonnes of food is produced to feed all, but one-third of the food which is produced accounts for wastage. Inequality, conflicts, environmental conditions, lack of knowledge, and resources make two billion people without food. Hunger, malnutrition, a chronic problem has now become malignant during acute situations of crisis, disasters, epidemics, and pandemics. As responsible citizens, each and everyone must join hands, conserve nature and follow the steps of food heroes to create a hunger-free place for us and the future generation of all times.
So, I feel content that different activities to monitor food wastage has been efficient and effective in my school and have also been carried out by our alumni in other schools too, which have brought a positive note to my thought.
I am Mohamed Faizal.S studying B.Tech IT at SRM Institute of Science and Technology. I have been in this school for twelve years. After seeing many programs in our school, especially about Food Day, I understood the importance of food and not wasting it. I have donated food kits in times of emergency through our college Exnora group. We have kept “food waste weighed in buckets” at the nearby schools to monitor the food leftovers after each meal. Through food day the importance of agriculture and the plight of the farmers were explained to the common people by giving handouts and a puppet show was performed among one such group. Our prime duty was to educate the parents of the slum dwellers about the importance of nutritious food and its impact on the younger generation to lead a healthy life.
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