Thought for Food and Food for Thought

If you are sort of a person who passionately indulges in any discussion pertaining to general problems being faced by human beings, but never really does something about it than please stop reading immediately. Because last line of the next paragraph will promulgate a fact, which, if only “discussed” in your next after dinner meeting will give you overwhelming feeling of guilt.

In last sixty minutes, while earth rotated around it’s axis for about 1,000 miles, Bill Gates added 102.93 Dollars to his wealth, 6,345 new websites emerged on world wide web, 6,000 new cars came out of the factories , United States spent 17 Million Dollars in its war against terrorism, on the same planet 1,000 people died because of hunger. Yes, a thousand people died in last one hour because they were not lucky enough to be able to have food.

Aforementioned number is an estimate made by “World Food Program” and is based on research done in 2003-2004. Considering relatively recent inflation in international food prices and shortage in food production, this number can be a lot more than 1,000 per hour/ 24,000 per day.

One may think that these unfortunate “animals” must be dying in African countries, as our towns are so abundant in food that even a stray dog can get something to eat from any of the road side dumps, but this is not the case. According to a survey done in Pakistan by UN in July 2008; about 50 percent of child mortality in Pakistan is food related, the poorest households now need to spend 70% or more of their income on food, 28% population of Pakistan comes in the category of “Severely Food Insecure” and 7 million households are struggling to get enough food to eat.

One can also very rightly blame all the rich countries in the world like America for fighting fiercely against obesity but doing nothing about hunger, Japan for worrying why people there are not dying even after reaching age of 70 while not thinking about why people are dying before age of 7 in other parts of hunger and United Arab Emirates for striving to make the tallest skyscraper in the world but not doing something about the skyscraper of skulls created every day. This blame game, however, will not change the destiny of one thousand human beings who are going to die in next one hour.

The only person, who can do something about this, is “You” and the only instruments which can be used are a “Stopwatch” and “Calculator”.

Next time you take your family/friends to KFC or McDonalds or to any other place preferred by you, take a stopwatch and a calculator with you. If you happen to be (and most probably you do) one of the Millions of mobile phone subscribers in this world, you will not need the required apparatus as it is readily available in almost all the handsets. Start the stopwatch as soon as you enter the restaurant and stop it when you finally pay the bill. The watch will show you the total number of minutes consumed, that number than, should be multiplied by 16.66. The answer will be the total number of people who died of hunger while you were enjoying your food. Since you are one of those people who continued reading this article even after the warning in first paragraph, than it is most probable that you will be a little peeved after watching the final score. If you didn’t have fresh lime with your food, it is also expected that you will feel a little indigestion in your stomach. But don’t worry; this feeling is good for you as it validates the discovery made by your doctor that “you still have a heart”.

Whatever that total number may be, start giving names to all the people who just died. You can give them any names you remember, just make sure that you name at least half the people. If you cannot complete this simple task (and I bet you will not), than take out the receipt of the bill you paid few minutes back and see the total amount. Now divide that amount by any number you prefer ranging from 1 to 5. This will give a number, which should be noted down a piece of paper.

When you step out of the restaurant and you see someone rushing towards you to beg for money stating that he/she is hungry, take out that piece of paper from your pocket and give that person money equaling the amount written on it. Do not let your rational mind come in your way telling you that these are professional beggars who always keep lying about their hunger and just give the damn money.

If beggars are not available outside ( it can happen if you are not in Pakistan or India or any other developing country) than give the money to any charity, religious or non religious, government or non government, just make sure that it is involved it giving food to the needy. If you can’t find any charity of that sort (it can happen if you live in any of the G-8 countries) just go to the website of world food program and donate the money there.

Just repeat the procedure recommended above every month, thank God for not making you as one of 8,640,000 people who die every year of hunger and spread the message around, as the clock is ticking.