Tummy Adventures

“Finish your food! Don’t you know that there are starving children in Africa?” If this sounds familiar to you, you probably grew up in the developed world, and chances are you probably retorted “Send it to them! They won’t eat it either.” Although nobody believes that finishing your plate would actually benefit the starving children in Africa, could it be that doing so actually harms them instead?

While the act of getting children to finish their food is well-intentioned, I would say it actually does more harm than good. Most leftovers are generated as a result of overly generous portions, and instead of saving them for another meal, many of us are taught to finish it off rather than waste food, leading us to consume far more than we actually need.

In fact, most people consume far more meat and dairy than necessary, and many consume more than is healthy, according to the World Resources Institute, a research organisation dedicated to sustaining natural resources.

These days, the average portion sizes in America are up to five times larger than they were in the 1950s. Obesity rates in the developed world are soaring. Until recently, before they started to be phased out, the prime example of this excessive consumption in our diets could be found in McDonald's, where the Super Size meal options allowed people to meet their daily calorie intake in a single sitting.

Yet at the same time, over 800 million people are food insecure, which means they are periodically hungry. How is this possible? The world’s middle and upper classes consume the largest share of meat, dairy and other resource-intensive foods. The rich simply out compete the poor when food supplies fall short of demand, and the consequences of this food gap are felt most acutely by the world’s poor. Perhaps it’s time to admit to ourselves that we in the developed world are obese simply because we eat too much.

In fact, it’s not just we in the developed world who eat too much. With the fast progression of urbanisation in the passing years, those in the developing world are catching up quickly. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, meat consumption in developing countries has been steadily increasing from a humble 10 kilograms annually per person in the 1960s to 26 kilograms in 2000, and will reach 37 kilograms in 2030, just a mere 14 years away. Multiply to that to the population of developing countries, and we end up with a simple conclusion: excessive meat eating is no longer an option if we don’t want to cannibalise ourselves.

Besides being bad for our waistlines, the over-consumption of food is also bad for the environment. The raising of livestock contributes a whopping 14% to global greenhouse gas emissions. In comparison, the transport sector, including dirty, gas-spewing trucks and huge jumbo jets, contributes about 13%. That char-grilled Argentinian steak you have on your dinner plate? It takes more than 9000 litres of water to produce it. Contrast that with 1 pound of wheat, which requires only 95 litres of water. While I’m not advocating for a vegetarian crusade, it seems to me that a more efficient way of consuming edible calories is to switch from an overwhelmingly meat-based diet, to a largely plant-based one.

If we wish to even have a world to live in anymore, we simply cannot afford to continue this culture of excess. Parents and children alike should learn more about how to eat more sustainably, and how to portion food appropriately. More importantly, we need to start eating much less meat. That hypothetical starving child will thank you more for that, than for finishing off your Big Mac.