Warning: This may be a little too preachy for your taste.
The day before Christmas, my husband and I rushed to a mall for a last-minute Christmas shopping. I wasn’t feeling particularly well the days prior that we had to delay doing the shopping.
Just like the two of us, throngs of last-minute shoppers littered the mall, in a frenzy to get the best value for their money on clothes, shoes, accessories, children’s toys, cellphones, electronic gadgets, you name it.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
A lot also lined grocery checkout lanes for their Noche Buena goodies.
We got books for the kids, as had been indicated in their Christmas wish list, a quick trip to the supermarket and some other little presents that would straightaway be wrapped the moment we hit home.
Better not eat out if …
Before we decided to go home though, my husband and I stopped by the food court. We both were famished, and we thought since it was just the two of us – the kids were already vacationing at my in-laws’ place at this point – and there wasn’t anything prepared for dinner at home yet, we could do away with eating out, er, stuffing our faces silly with Mang Inasal’s rice-all-you-can promo.
My husband loved both the chicken and the rice-all-you-can.
Now seated next to us was a family of eight or nine, about half of which were children. They came ahead of us, and so they were served ahead of us. Slightly less than an hour later, my husband and I were still eating, and the family was ready to leave.
What bothered both myself and my husband was the fact that the plates they left behind were still half-filled, others almost untouched.
“What a waste!” cried my husband, shaking his head. “A lot of people are dying of hunger.”
People are going hungry
Indeed, a lot of people are going hungry, not just in the Philippines, but the entire world. Please, if we have little children, let’s NOT order full meals for them when eating out. For adults, let us not waste food, for children learn from what they see us do.
The money we would have otherwise saved on the wasted food, if instead given to charitable causes, can go a long way to help others.
I had watched a video somewhere documenting what happens to food thrown away by fast food chains. I can no longer recall how I came across this video. Shared on Facebook is my best guess.
According to that video – whether true or not, I cannot confirm but definitely a possibility – the food thrown in waste receptacles are retrieved by people who had nothing to feed their families.
There, someone might argue, the food is not wasted after all. It is still consumed by other people. Then again, wouldn’t it be better if the food was handed out to them in a sanitary way instead of them scurrying for it in litter bins?
As had been repeatedly stated by Sister Cora, a missionary nun I had the fortune to meet several years back:
“Live simply so others can simply live.”
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I agree with your thoughts. I used to be guilty of not finishing my food so what I did was to get small servings or just share with my mom. Its sad to see people wasting food knowing that others cannot eat food even if they want to. 🙁
By the way, have you seen the feature on pagpag? 🙁 It’s sad how some had to resort to eating leftover food and I hope they would not get sick from it.
Hi, Ms Maricel. Mark here. Ngayon ko lang po nakita na you also often write about health-related stuff. I will be writing about my story with gallstones po kasi soon. 🙂
Hey, Mark, yes, I do write about health-related stuff, too. Sige, I’ll be looking forward to your story.
And by the way, I hope you’re much better now. 😀
Karla, hey, thanks for visiting. Yes, sharing food is always better than throwing away. I’m not sure I’ve seen the feature yet, but I’ll go check it out. Thanks for letting me know.