SAVE FOOD - SAVE PLANET

Food is the substance which is needed for survival by everyone on Earth. But on other side it is also wasted in tonnes in our daily routine. Food left over on your plate; too much food prepared and not used; food past its sell-by date; food past its use-by date; food gone off. These all generally land up in the dustbin!

Many of us don't give a thought to the quantity of food we waste daily, weekly monthly and yearly. We may think about it for a moment when we're scraping the leftovers off the plate, or when we dump some rot fruit in the bin. But it has become so "normal" to throw food away that we just do not give it any real thought, and we do not think how the quantities add up over the year. But this is very much harmful for our planet.

 The environmental dilemma behind food waste concerns all of the natural resources that are intensively used in food production.When we waste food, we waste resources and wasting resources is the biggest threat in a global sense. Producing food and bringing it to the consumers requires a lot of resources, which are used for agricultural raw material production, for processing, for transportation, for distribution. Wasting food implies wasting all these resources. Food waste means water and energy waste, material waste. We should try to save our natural resources by not wasting our food and if food is in excess so we should recycle it.

Nowadays, recycling of paper and yard waste has become increasingly routine, removing food waste from the trash stream cost very high. This is an issue not only with regard to trash costs, but for environmental reasons. In landfills, food waste begins quickly to rot and generate methane. This gas is a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. It is the result of the anaerobic decomposition that occurs because municipal solid waste is buried and does not receive oxygen. Food waste landfill sites are source of methane which is harmful for our planet.

Instead of wasting our plant-based resources, we can recycle them into compost and use that compost to grow our food and beautify our gardens. Compost helps replace top soil,  a resource that washes away in amazing quantities every year and is not being replaced. We can also focus on smart shopping by planning meals and making lists about what we actually need to purchase.

We can limit our portion sizes and increase our knowledge of food. We can also volunteer at food recovery programs that redistribute extra food to people in need. Food is precious gift given by good but some people are unable to get food so we should thankful to God for this and should try to not to waste the food.  Food wastage is also very harmful to our planet to save our planet we should avoid those things which are harmful for our planet because out of all planet life is only on earth so, it is considered as our home so we should take care of our home and keep it clean and green.

This composition won "Bronze Medal" in HRCA Essay Competition.

Ailya Kazmi

XI- C

BSS North Nazimabad Cambridge Branch

Save Food - Save Planet

Food is one of the basic necessities of life without it a person can not endeavor to survive. It is what makes a person healthy and energetic. It helps to fill in the body with proteins and essential nutrient so that a person can do his everyday work with ease. The limitation of food intake differs from person to person depending upon his day to day activities.

Though food doesn’t hold meaning in so many of the people’s life but one way or another everyone requires it at the end of the day. It’s just like sleep, no matter how hard a person tries to resist the temptation of sleeping he/she eventually gets forced into sleeping by the tiring body. Food also helps in increasing height of the person and possesses the power to cure certain illness “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” declared Hippocrates.

Similarly, Virginia Woolf  stated, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” This shows how essential of the element food is .Without its blessing the whole human race would have been extinct by now. The growth of our body and in general the whole mechanism of the body is mainly dependent on the type of food we intake. Just like a tree that requires water and proper sunlight to grow, a human body requires a proper nutritious diet which can only be found in food. In accordance with some people’s views food is one of those things which are looked upon as petty and insignificant. These are those people who tend to waste food simply because they don’t understand its vitality.

One of the most heartbreaking news is, that the people around the world heartlessly wastes 1.3 billion tons of food annually while an estimation of 870 million people go to bed hungry every night due to the un-presence of food and lack of income .To further highlight the results of food wastage the recent studies show that the food which is produced but not eaten adds 3.3 million tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere every year which is one of the disastrous effect because it contributes in polluting the air we breathe and hence encouraging diseases such as lung cancer, asthma etc..

 As they say “many of us don’t understand the importance of the thing until it’s no more and often lose track of the moon in counting down the no of stars”. This is the case with the us when it comes to food, many of us have been blessed with the pocket full of sunshine that is why we do not respect its presence and are eventually unintentionally wasting it without keeping in view the harm it is causing around us as our minds are devoid of the possible importance of food and the consequences of its wastage.

In order to make a positive impact on the society it is essential for us to bring a certain degree of change in our perspective so that we can avoid unnecessary human sufferings out of hunger and pollution plus, benefit from the food that have been produced from the face of the earth through different processes to provide us with essentials required by the body. So from now on we should emphasis more on saving food so that our mother earth can also remain protected in return.

This composition won "Gold Medal" in HRCA Essay Competition

Yumna Mobin

XI- E

BSS North Nazimabad Cambridge Branch

WASTING FOOD IS WASTING THE PLANET

Food is the basic necessity of every living thing. No creature can survive without food. In the world some people consume more food than needed and some people do not get enough food to eat. The one who eat extra are also taking the share of food of others and that’s why poor people do not get the required amount of food. People who are richer consume more food; they eat some of it and throw away the other. If instead of throwing it away they take less on the first hand someone else will get it and it will fulfill his requirements.

              Inevitably, we can clearly see that we are wasting a lot of food not day by day, but every minute. People who have access to more than enough food are not caring what will be the consequences for wasting that food. Indeed, they are totally unaware that they are actually harming themselves. For example; if we throw away a burger , we not only waste the ingredients of the crop, but we also waste the water given to that crop. If we will think in detail we will clearly get to know the meaning of the sentence, "Wasting food is wasting the planet''. 

            Moreover, the poor and needy people living on the planet are increasing day by day due to these wastages. Squandering so much of we grow does not just waste food; it also wastes the fossil fuel that are consumed into growing, processing, transporting and refrigerating. This shows that we are continuously destroying our mother planet despite having all the knowledge, which is useless if you do not study it and learn from it. Some people might think that this is a trivial problem as there are some places where food is wastage, but, in fact, this is happening everywhere. It will be strange for many of us to know that it is also happening rapidly in most developed and most educated countries too, which include; USA, Canada, etc. 

            It is estimated that, 30 to 40 percent of food is either wasted or left uneaten by the people. We are continuously harming our planet, which although is not noticeable, but can be dangerous for the upcoming generation. If we go in detail, we will find more shocking results which is done only just by wasting food. 

            However, every problem whether big or small has its solution. All we need to do is to minimize our food waste.  If you buy it and bring it home, eat it. That alone is one of the easiest ways to aid the sustainability of our environment, but we just need to understand this and then automatically we will be able to see a change. Not only cutting your food waste help the planet, but it also will make you a slightly more ethical person. Avoiding wastage of food will also save you money. This all shows that, food waste crosses racial, class and gender lines. It's a systemic problem rooted in our culture of abundance and busy lifestyle. But it's also one we can change. And, happily, that change starts with simple actions.

            It all concludes that, it is our inborn habit to waste food and we will not stop unless we will undergo its consequences. So, it is better to react and understand now that, we are, in fact, destroying the place where we live and where our future generation will live. It is simple and clear that saving food will save our planet. If you cannot do bigger actions you can star off with smaller actions. Similarly, it is also the responsibility of the government to take positive steps towards this issue so that it can be resolved and our future or upcoming generation could live a comfortable life rather facing the consequences and effects. It all ends with the two sentences: "Wasting food is simply wasting the planet'', but,"Saving food is saving the planet".

This composition won "Silver Medal" in HRCA Essay Competition
Taha Naveed 

XI- F

BSS North Nazimabad Cambridge Branch