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Waste not, want not....as we "celebrate" 7 billion of us

Read the rather startling and frightening stats in this piece and you will readily appreciate that certainly those with the means in the world not only must do something to address the waste of food, but one can actually save money by being judicious in what one does with the food we have.

"Remember when your parents told you that you needed to finish your dinner, eat your greens or not play with your food because ''there are starving kids in Africa''?

Well, with the world's population set to hit 7 billion tomorrow, there are now twice as many starving kids in Africa and other Third World countries and we are still wasting just as much, if not more, food in the First World.

In fact, a quarter of the food the developed world wastes would be enough to feed the Third World. How's that for a sobering fact. Feel like eating your greens now, or are you still not sure how it relates to you?

Let's look at how fast the world's population is rising. Last week the United Nations released its State of World Population 2011 report, which estimates that by tomorrow there will be 7 billion people on the face of the planet. That's almost twice as many as were sharing Earth's scarce resources in 1959 and seven times the world's population in 1804. So in slightly more than 50 years we've gone from a global population of 4 billion to 7 billion.

The globe's resources haven't increased at the same rate. That suggests that at some time, possibly quite soon, we might reach breaking point if we don't work out smart ways to grow things or consume them in a sustainable way.

There is no better starting point than food. And if you still need a personal connection, let's look at the hip pocket."


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