Food’s Violent Inflation
April 14th, 2008 by Jonathan
Food prices are on the rise domestically (especially for pizza) and even more so in the developing world. While that may prompt home budget adjusting for some, it causes others to go hungry and/or take to the streets.
This weekend in Haiti, unrest caused by inflation brought violence and death. The Prime Minister (but not the President) was ousted. 
Bad times.
If there’s an upside to this inflation, it may be in forcing us to value food more. I don’t want to play the guilt card–no, there’s no direct correlation to cleaning your plate and feeding a starving child. But it does seem like a decent time to avoid wasting food.
In addition, one could argue that by squandering food, we are all somewhat guilty of driving up the demand and, hence, the prices. This armchair economic analysis is just a theory, but it makes sense to me.
Stumble it! | Posted in Household, International, Hunger |
I think that makes sense. And, like I mentioned on my blog, one of the reasons I want to reduce my waste is so that I can reduce my food bill. With a reduced food bill, I should have some extra cash and with that extra cash I’d like to contribute to some organizations that help to feed the hungry in other countries.
I’ve heard of people who do a weekly fast for a meal and then send the money they’d have spent on that meal to hunger relief organizations.
One other thing I was thinking…while it’s true that there is no correlation to cleaning your plate and feeding the hungry, there is some correlation between putting less food on your plate(and thus buying less food at the store) and feeding the hungry.
Wasting less food doesn’t mean eating more…it means preparing less and buying less.