Food

An Op-Ed piece in the NY Times and another article about food riots this week highlight the major food crisis around the globe. Thirty-seven countries are facing food crises, and this has resulted in a number of riots, and consequently, some deaths. People are trying to get the attention of their government, of the world...and if they don't die in riots, they just may die of starvation. There are many reasons why food prices have risen, partially because of new biofuel technology, influencing corn and soybean costs.

This reminded me of an email that I received a few months ago with photos of families from around the world. The photos are set in the "dining" area of that family's home, with all the food that they eat in a week surrounding them. The photo at the top of this post is an Italian family. At the time of these photos, their weekly cost of food is 214.36 Euros or $260.11.


Above, a family from the US, their total is $341.98.


The photos also show a family from Mexico, totaling 1,862.78 Mexican pesos or $189.00 dollars,

an Ecuadoran family, spending the equivalent of $31.55

and finally, a family in Chad, with their week's worth of food, totaling the equivalent of $1.23.

What is our responsibility as Christians? As citizens? What is our government's responsibility? From the Op-Ed piece, we learn that international aid has decreased significantly over the last year. I'm reminded of the old lecture..."Eat your vegetables, there are starving children in Africa!" How about in addition to clearing our plates and not wasting food, we consider what it means to try to live in solidarity, the Christian call to love our neighbor, to feed the hungry, to understand that we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. This has to mean becoming politically engaged, advocating for more a just global economy, fighting things like huge budget cuts to social programs right here in our own backyard.