Dubai: Hunger kills more people every year compared to Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined. The World Food Programme (WFP) says that every 10 seconds, a child dies from hunger-related diseases.
October 16 is marked as World Food Day to raise awareness of the issues behind poverty and hunger. Gulf News takes a look at the extent of the global impact our daily eating pattern makes.
Studies show that a person, on average, wastes around 50 kilograms of edible food every year. If four people cut their food waste, one person can eat for a year and live!
According to a Gulf News report published in July, 2014, 39 per cent of the 1.1 million tonnes of municipal waste generated in Abu Dhabi each year is leftover food discarded by residents, whereas nearly 38 per cent of food is wasted every day, which goes up to 55 per cent during Ramadan.
According to a survery done in 2012 by YouGov, an international internet-based market research firm, 78 per cent of respondents in the UAE admitted that they throw away food each week. Worse, nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) believed their food waste had no or little consequence on the environment.
Saving a life
According to the US Department of Agriculture, it is essential for a person to get the right amount of each macronutrient, carbohydrates, fats and proteins in order to ensure that his or her body is able to run efficiently.
A study published by the Harvard Health Publications, US, said that an adult woman needs to eat at least 1,200 calories daily and an adult man requires a minimum of 1,500 calories a day.
It is recommended that 45 to 65 per cent of an individual’s calorie intake comes from carbohydrates. If a person was on a 1,200-calorie diet, this means he or she would have to consume 135 to 195 grams of carbohydrates, which could come from fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
Between 25 and 35 per cent of fat , which is about 33 to 47 grams of fat, from nuts, seeds or fish. And finally, 30 to 105 grams per day of protein. Dietary sources would include meats, poultry, fish, eggs, milk products and grains. So that is roughly about half a kilogram of food in a day and 180 kilograms in a year.
Lost food
In a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for the United Nations, it was estimated that each year, one-third of all food produced for human consumption in the world is lost or wasted.
This wastage costs food producers around $750 billion (Dh2.75 trillion) annually. An FAO study released in 2012 stated that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world, or one in eight, were suffering from undernourishment. Almost all these people live in developing countries and there’s either a lack of resources or funds to buy proper food. Poor nutrition causes nearly half of the deaths in children under the age of five years.
The WFP calculates that $3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children. That’s less than half the per cent of the cost of food wasted globally.
It is possible to provide a proper meal to four school children in Africa with just 1$ (Dh3.68) a day and $25 (Dh92) provides a month’s food supply to one person.
The food produced annually is enough to provide everyone in the world a proper meal every day, with at least 2,720 calories for each individual.
Increased production
Despite this, by 2050 the food production would have to be increased by up to 60 per cent, as compared to that in 2007, if production is to meet the demand of the increasing world population.
The Food Wastage Footprint (FWF) model from the UN was developed to find out the impact of food wastage.
The average food supply for one person in the world is around 580 kilograms. Of this around 380 kilograms is consumed, 140 kilograms is lost in production and 50 kilograms is wasted by consumers. Of the amount wasted, around half comes from cereals, a quarter from fruit and vegetables and a significant amount from meat.
Producing the amount of food to meet the world’s current demand accounts for at least 10 per cent of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions or carbon footprint, according to the FAO.
The major contributors to the carbon footprint of food wastage are cereals, 34 per cent, followed by meat, 21 per cent and vegetables, also 21 per cent. Products of animal origin account for about 33 per cent of total carbon footprint, whereas their contribution to food wastage volumes is only 15 percent. So a smaller quantity still has more greenhouse emissions when wasted.
A very simple example is cheese. The process includes milking the cows, cooling and transporting the milk, processing it into cheese, packing it and sending it off for sale. If a person then buys it and wastes it, it will most likely end up in a landfill, where it would rot and release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
Meat versus vegetarianism
A meat lover’s diet has a footprint of around 3.3 tonnes CO2e per person each year, which is equal to driving a 4x4 for 7,000 miles (11,265 kilometres). CO2e refers to a number of greenhouse gases collectively.
For the no-meat diet it is 1.9 tonnes CO2e, which is equal to a return flight from London to New York. For the vegetarian it’s 1.7 tonnes CO2e and for the vegan it is 1.5 tonnes CO2e. Each of these estimates includes emissions from food that is eaten, wasted by consumers and lost in the supply chain.
According to the US-based Environmental Working Group (EWG), if everyone in the country chose a vegetarian diet, it would equate to taking 46 million cars off the road.
Over a year, if you eat one less burger a week, it’s like taking your car off the road for 515 kilometres or line-drying your clothes half the time.
If a family of four skips meat and cheese one day a week, it’s equal to taking your car off the road for five weeks, or reducing everyone’s daily showers by three minutes.
If the same family of four skips eating steak once a week, it would be equal to taking your car off the road for nearly three months.
What we eat and waste has a direct impact on another’s life. Perhaps, it is time to wipe out waste.
