FRIENDS OF THE IAAH

Please forward this message to all your friends and relations to stop wasting food. In your browser click 'send this page by email' or 'send link...' or copy and paste the text into an email message.

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International Women’s Day, 8th March 2008

Stop Wasting Food: Save a Life

Dear Friend,

Please pause for a moment on International Womens’ Day – Saturday 8th March – to think whether you can do something simple that saves you money, helps to save someone else’s life and is good for the environment. Read this, and, if you agree, please forward it to all your friends, women and men, to your favourite restaurant and to the shops where you buy food!

Facts

1. For the first time in human history, the world can feed all its people – all 6.6 billion of us – but fails to do so.
2. One in 8 fellow humans is still short of food – every day. Almost one third of the world’s population suffers from malnutrition: nearly as many over-eat as under-eat.
3. Poor nutrition in the womb and infancy needlessly causes one third of children’s deaths in developing countries.
4. This year world food demand temporarily exceeds supplies. This has led to a sharp rise in global food prices.
5. High food prices are great news for farmers around the world and will stimulate greater production in future. But now price gains are being captured by speculators.
6. High prices also mean that millions more poor people cannot buy the food they need for a healthy life for themselves and their children: the higher the price, the more people who will die young or fall ill.
7. One reason for the rise in food demand and prices is the huge growth in food wastage in developed countries. In USA, Canada and some European countries, families throw out between one third and half the food that they buy.
8. This waste is “criminal” because, in a globalised market, the upward pressure on prices kills people.

Act Now!

1. Set yourself a zero food waste goal. Don’t be tempted to buy and cook more food than you need; store it safely before it goes off; stop and think before you throw out any edible food – can I create a tasty soup, stew, curry, risotto, pasta sauce, fruit smoothie…..? Start today!
2. Learn more about how to end hunger and malnutrition or cut food waste (click on www.iaahp.net for links.
3. Raise your voice to encourage your government to do everything it can to eradicate hunger and malnutrition: it can be done, and everyone wins.

International Alliance Against Hunger