Food and Security

Has the world gone mad? Have we as citizens taken leave our senses and put our lives in the hands of governments that front for greedy capitalists? Why are people fighting for food in many third world countries that once were exporters of food? In the Philippines, for example, there is a shortage of rice, the mainstay of that society, in Haiti people are fighting for food. These were countries that once were self-sufficient. Any tropical country that face food shortages as a result of anything but natural disaster needs their political heads examined.

The author of Diet for a small planet, Frances Moore Lappe, rightly concludes that this dilemma we find ourselves in is because people no longer have a say in what they produce. Many poor third world nations unthinkingly pander to western need for all kinds of non essential goods, such as coffee for chocolate and lattes and teas - produce that take up valuable land space that could be used for food.

How fat and indulgent are we going to become in the West before we stop and look at what we are doing and how we are using the world's resources so recklessly?

No one is really looking out for the ordinary people and the ordinary folks are looking upon their political leaders to help them. It's time for the ordinary folks to take matters in to their hands and start taking care of their food. There are several things each of us can do to counter the multinational corporation. A country that cannot feed itself and depends on other countries to supply its citizens with basic food products puts those citizens at risk. What if heaven forbids that something happens that that food cannot reach us, where would we be? According to Moore-Lappe, the world is not short of food it is short of communities, food cooperatives, small farmers, and the ways in which food are distributed. Communities have to come together and work in cooperatives and take the economy back to the grass roots. Here are a few suggestions:

- Plant food amidst the flowers

- Support your local farmers

- Revisit the ways of the old and start canning your own fruits and vegetables. Buy cheap during the summer and use sparingly in the winter

- Buy only the basics in supermarkets e.g. milk, cheese and the occasional meats

- Start eating lots of beans and lentils - they're good for you and lots cheaper too

- If you have a yard start a compost heap to enrich your land. You can find information on how to do this on the internet or from your local
agriculture/conservation officer.

- Do not buy food with more than that five ingredients in it

- Cook your own food - it's cheaper and healthier

- Eat foods that grow in your own country and in your own province - these are the foods that will best sustain you in that environment save exotic foods for
occasional treats

- Grow your own herbs on windowsills throughout the year and use more herbs and less salt/sodium

I hope you will take some of these ideas and try them. Food is too important to leave to politicians and multinational corporations. Look where that has gotten us. We are eating more chemicals than food and are paying dearly for the non-foods that we eat, foods that are making us sicker than anything. The Pharmaceutical corporations and the big business are the only ones benefiting from our poverty and sickness. Let us make a change and that change has to start with you and me and how we choose to live and spend our hard earned money in this world.