Remember that old phrase, you know, the one to get you to eat the [insert the vegetable you hated most as a child]. "There are starving people in [name your favorite third-world-country] who would love to have that."
Well...(excuse me while I step on my soap box). I'm here to tell you that there are starving people in our country. Yep, starving, homeless people. Maybe you've seen some of them before. You may even know some by name. Maybe you've prepared and served food to them before.
Did you know that we live in a society where lawyers have prevented our homeless from receiving needed donations of perfectly good food? I have a deep respect for the law and for many lawyers at that. But because of potential lawsuits and lawyer-speak, food is wasted every night by who knows how many places across this country, and the starving keep on starving. For example, certain donation centers will not accept food from restaurants that I am aware of (and also said restaurants will not donate said food but rather throw it away) if it has already been cooked. This is supposedly because of potential contamination. Things like dinner rolls, biscuits, soups -- stuff that the restaurant uses throughout the day and always has an excess of at night. Such items are kept at a safe enough temperature to sell to paying customers but apparently not to donate? It doesn't make sense to me either.
What has happened to the wisdom of King Benjamin?
Perhaps this country wouldn't have so many troubles if there were less waste, less greed, and just a little less red tape.
(Stepping off of my soap box now.)
Did you know that we live in a society where lawyers have prevented our homeless from receiving needed donations of perfectly good food? I have a deep respect for the law and for many lawyers at that. But because of potential lawsuits and lawyer-speak, food is wasted every night by who knows how many places across this country, and the starving keep on starving. For example, certain donation centers will not accept food from restaurants that I am aware of (and also said restaurants will not donate said food but rather throw it away) if it has already been cooked. This is supposedly because of potential contamination. Things like dinner rolls, biscuits, soups -- stuff that the restaurant uses throughout the day and always has an excess of at night. Such items are kept at a safe enough temperature to sell to paying customers but apparently not to donate? It doesn't make sense to me either.
What has happened to the wisdom of King Benjamin?
Perhaps this country wouldn't have so many troubles if there were less waste, less greed, and just a little less red tape.
(Stepping off of my soap box now.)
5 comments:
I couldn't agree more.
Lawyers are also preventing meaningful health care reform, i.e. tort reform, because they are deep down MGBs. I had thought that there was a group that went around and picked up donations from restaurants at the end of the day. Sorry to hear that that is not the case.
Does your restaurant have a lock of the dumpster? If not, I suppose the food is in fact being eaten.
There is something very strange about being able to sell an item but not being able to donate it.
My Dad used to pick up day-old Panera bread and take it to food pantries and homeless shelters. He had to stop because they wouldn't take stuff that wasn't individually packaged. Stupid.
Oh, and we just watched Slumdog Millionaire and loved it. Loved the character of Jamal. Now I have to brush up on my Indian culture because there was some stuff I didn't understand.
Hear hear, Ms. Nation. I, too, get frustrated beyond words when I think of the wasted food that could be given to others in need. It always bothered me when I knew of kids at school who didn't eat, often because of money, knowing that some of them desperately needed it. (Yes, they could get free stuff, but your parents had to fill out a form and fit the income parameters.) It made me so angry one day to hear that one of my students was refused a lunch because he no longer had money in his lunch account. They told him sorry and sent him on his way. I wanted to scream, but decided to keep relations decent. They'd rather have hungry kids than give a free emergency lunch, which some schools have? Or set up a tab which parents would be informed of (if it's like other schools)? That would have been a good day for me to have money. But they don't always take that, either. Has to be on some kind of "credit" system. Lousy system. (Wonder what happens to their leftover food?) I'm glad I learned to keep my classroom stocked with stuff. Only wish I had learned it earlier.
Step on that soap box anytime. Maybe the people who can do something about it will listen and something good will actually happen from it. Like real and practical progress.
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