World Water Day - Imagine a life without water.

Today is World Water Day.

I never take for granted the fact that I have clean drinking water that is accessible to me and there are others in the world that don't.

Water is necessary for life:

We need water to:

• Grow our vegetables
• Hydrate our animals and ourselves
• Keep ourselves clean
• Sustain the eco balance of the world
• Cook our food
• Keep us alive.

I live in a multi-story apartment building and every time they shut off the water I realize how much I take having running water for granted.

I wake up everyday and can brush my teeth with clean water,  then go to the bathroom and flush the toilet and take a hot water shower.

Then I can go into the kitchen and boil an egg in water and wash the dishes after I finish breakfast and then use the water to clean up the kitchen.   I can get water to make tea or coffee or to have ice water and lemon even.  I can water my plants and keep moisture in the air.

All of these things are necessary to live a healthy life and are taken for granted by many people in the world.   And then there are those that don't have these things at their disposal on a daily basis.   

Imagine waking up and not being able to keep yourself properly cleaned and be able to have water on hand to drink when you are thirsty or sick or to cook your food or clean your vegetables.   What if you had to walk for miles to get a little bit of water that you had to make last.   I don't know how I could do that after growing up my whole life with it being like having fresh air.

Water is essential to Food and Sustainability.   We can't survive without it.  Our plants feed our animals which feed our plants which feed us.   It's the cycle of life and Water is the Key to this Cycle.

We need to find ways to make sure that we don't lose what we have and find ways to provide for the people that don't have this necessity.

SOME FACTS:

*worldfoodday website

85% of the world population lives in the driest half of the planet.

783 million people do not have access to clean water and almost 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. 

6 to 8 million people die annually from the consequences of disasters and water-related diseases.

Various estimates indicate that, based on business as usual, ~3.5 planets Earth would be needed to sustain a global population achieving the current lifestyle of the average European or North American.

Global population growth projections of 2–3 billion people over the next 40 years, combined with changing diets, result in a predicted increase in food demand of 70% by 2050.

Over half of the world population lives in urban areas, and the number of urban dwellers grows each day. Urban areas, although better served than rural areas, are struggling to keep up with population growth (WHO/UNICEF, 2010).

With expected increases in population, by 2030, food demand is predicted to increase by 50% (70% by 2050) (Bruinsma, 2009), while energy demand from hydropower and other renewable energy resources will rise by 60% (WWAP, 2009). These issues are interconnected – increasing agricultural output, for example, will substantially increase both water and energy consumption, leading to increased competition for water between water-using sectors.

Water availability is expected to decrease in many regions. Yet future global agricultural water consumption alone is estimated to increase by ~19% by 2050, and will be even greater in the absence of any technological progress or policy intervention.

Water for irrigation and food production constitutes one of the greatest pressures on freshwater resources. Agriculture accounts for ~70% of global freshwater withdrawals (up to 90% in some fast-growing economies).

Economic growth and individual wealth are shifting diets from predominantly starch-based to meat and dairy, which require more water. Producing 1 kg of rice, for example, requires ~3,500 L of water, 1 kg of beef ~15,000 L, and a cup of coffee ~140 L (Hoekstra and Chapagain, 2008). This dietary shift is the greatest to impact on water consumption over the past 30 years, and is likely to continue well into the middle of the twenty-first century (FAO, 2006).

About 66% of Africa is arid or semi-arid and more than 300 of the 800 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in a water-scarce environment – meaning that they have less than 1,000 m3 per capita (NEPAD, 2006).

If you have the power to make a difference and give people water for life then what can be better than that?   I don't have financial or political power but I have the power to share this information with you and hopefully you have the power to share it with someone that has the power to make a change.

THINK-EAT-SAVE- The Planet -Food Waste Matters

"One person's trash is another person's treasure"

The theme for this year’s World Environment Day celebrations is THINK-EAT-SAVE to reduce your foodprint.

"1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of 5 die daily from hunger."

  

The Planet needs to Paradigm Shift to change the way we deal with Food Waste and Poverty.    We need to find answers on how to waste less food and re-distibute the food that is wasted to people that don't have any food.   I would say that for all of the people that throw out food, which includes manufacturers, producers, families, individuals and restaurants,  there are the same amount of people that are hungry in the world.   You know when your parents would say "there are people starving in Africa so eat your food", well they were sort of right.  There are people starving or short of food everywhere in the world while others  throw out  food.

FOOD WASTE FACTS

The impact of food waste is not just financial. Environmentally, food waste leads to wasteful use of chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides; more fuel used for transportation; and more rotting food, creating more methane – one of the most harmful greenhouse gases that contributes to climate change. Methane is 23 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. The vast amount of food going to landfills makes a significant contribution to global warming. 

• Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted.
• Every year, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes).
• The amount of food lost or wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the world's annual cereals crop (2.3 billion tonnes in 2009/2010).
• Food loss and waste also amount to a major squandering of resources, including water, land, energy, labour and capital and needlessly produce greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to global warming and climate change.
• In developing countries food waste and losses occur mainly at early stages of the food value chain and can be traced back to financial, managerial and technical constraints in harvesting techniques as well as storage –and cooling facilities. Thus, a strengthening of the supply chain through the support farmers and investments in infrastructure, transportation, as well as in an expansion of the food –and packaging industry could help to reduce the amount of food loss and waste. 
• In medium- and high-income countries food is wasted and lost mainly at later stages in the supply chain. Differing from the situation in developing countries, the behavior of consumers plays a huge part in industrialized countries. Moreover, the study identified a lacking coordination between actors in the supply chain as a contributing factor. Farmer-buyer agreements can be helpful to increase the level of coordination. Additionally, raising awareness among industries, retailers and consumers as well as finding beneficial use for save food that is presently thrown away are useful measures to decrease the amount of losses and waste. 
• Discarded fish alone amounts to as much as 30 million tonnes, compared to total landings of 100–130 tonnes/year.
• In the United States 30% of all food, worth US$48.3 billion (€32.5 billion), is thrown away each year. It is estimated that about half of the water used to produce this food also goes to waste, since agriculture is the largest human use of water. (Jones, 2004 cited in Lundqvist et al., 2008)
• United Kingdom households waste an estimated 6.7 million tonnes of food every year, around one third of the 21.7 million tonnes purchased. This means that approximately 32% of all food purchased per year is not eaten. Most of this (5.9 million tonnes or 88%) is currently collected by local authorities. Most of the food waste (4.1 million tonnes or 61%) is avoidable and could have been eaten had it been better managed (WRAP, 2008; Knight and Davis, 2007).
• In the USA, organic waste is the second highest component of landfills, which are the largest source of methane emissions.

Sources:
Global Food Losses and Food Waste - FAO, 2011
The environmental crisis: The environment’s role in averting future food crisis  – UNEP, 2009

IT"S TIME FOR A GLOBAL FOOD SHIFT

I feel food guilt every time I throw out a bag of garbage that has rotten food in it because I know that I have thrown money wasted into the garbage and have depleted the environments critical resources.  I waste a lot of food because I live alone and find that I don't always use up all of the containers or fresh vegetables before they spoil.   Even with all the preservatives put into food these days the food isn't meant to last forever and if it does it isn't real food.  We need to find ways to keep less food out of the landfills and have it go to the people that need it.

I know that the Food Systems around the world are changing and we may not have enough food to feed everyone on the planet one day.  With the increase of Climate Change and Extreme Weather in the world and the lack of financial assistance for farmers and the shift towards genetically modified food there will be a shortage of farmers producing healthy Organic non toxic foods in the future.   

We need to find ways to manage the food we produce and eat now.

Some ideas that I think might be helpful are:

1.  Have government create more incentives for farmers to grow Organic crops and farm with practices that keep the earth sustainable.

2.  Have incentives for manufacturers to produce Biodegradable eco packaging for all food products.

3.  Impose financial penalties on companies that don't comply with environmental food practices.

4.  Manufacturers get tax incentives to produce chemical laden junk foods that are sold for less money than healthy foods.  The government should provide tax incentives and credits for Independent food producers that focus on local, organic and affordable food that is sold to the public.

5.  Many families struggle with obesity because they survive on high carbohydrate and highly processed foods because they have longer shelf life and are available everywhere for less money.  Healthy food should cost less than junk food because there is a price to pay in increased health care costs as a result of the epidemic of obesity, diabetes and heart disease because of the lack of proper nutrition for many families in the World.

6.  Food education needs to be provided in the schools for children at a young age so they develop healthy eating habits and they learn about the costs to the environment and the health care system in their future.

7.  Manufacturers and grocers and markets should look at ways to sell people only what they need.  I find that I can only buy a whole stalk of celery but I only end up using half of the celery stalk before it goes bad. I am sure that a lot of food is wasted because of the big box packaging of foods.   Even when you buy food at farmers markets you are restricted to certain sized containers of food.  Maybe it's time to rethink how we sell portions of food.

8.  People have lost the skills on preserving foods and expect manufacturers to do it for them.  We need to look at programs that can teach people how to preserve their foods and use foods efficiently so that less food is wasted.

9.  Maybe a tax incentive for people that maintain healthy weights instead of punishing people that are obese.  

10.  Food banks need to be changed to food re-distribution centres where people that have surplus food can donate in their areas so that people that fall on hard times can access emergency food easily.

We need to look at the whole food system differently.   From how it is produced to how it is distributed to how much it costs and what the impact to the environment is.

With the increase of unemployment and climate change and the increasing numbers extreme weather disasters and the increase of health issues and diseases in the world, we need to find new ways to solve some of the issues that occur from all of these factors.   

Once the resources are gone they are gone.  We need to find ways to stop the food waste NOW before it's too late.

Without food there is no LIFE.   

Food is connected to everything on the planet, the health of the people the animals and the environment. 

We need to figure out how to take better care of it NOW before we lose it ALL.

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY is on JUNE 5, 2013 - THINK -EAT-SAVE the Planet on this day.

For more information go to United Nations Environmental Program at http://unep.org/wed/

Life, Food, Death

My mother and me serving cake. I think I was 7.. excuse the bad haircut.

I haven't been able to blog for the passed week because my mother passed away last week from of all things a lack of nutrition because of Dementia.

I never thought that my mother's life would end that way. My mother was a survivor of the Aushwitz concentration camps in Germany during the war and survived on eating very little while she was in the war and afterward but made a point to make sure we always had a fridge full of food and was always trying to offer food to friends and family. My mother was a little forgetful and then a lot more forgetful over the past 5 years and then last year we had to put her into a nursing home because she needed care 24/7 for her safety. I guess my first indication should have been the reduction of the things she would cook or bake. After my mother retired she would bake cookies when she was bored. Then she stopped baking cookies and switched to frying wontons and adding powdered sugar on them and would go to the neighbourhood bank, pharmacy and her doctors office and hand out wontons to whoever wanted them. Then it stopped. The only thing she would make was instant coffee and that started to become confusing. Freezer food would end up in the fridge and fridge food would end up in the freezer. I suppose that should have been clues to the progression of her illness. Before she went into the home she went to a day program where they supplied meals 3 times a day so all she would eat at home was snacks of bananas, yoghurts, mandarin oranges and any chocolates or treats I would leave on hand for her to grab. Everything had to be simplified for her to be able to maintain independence on what she chose to eat.

January of 2010 she was placed in a home where they provided the not so great meals. Myself and my mother's friend would bring her chocolate treats when we visited. Everything changed this past January though. She went into the Hospital for pneumonia and somewhere toward the end of her 2 week stay she started refusing food. They discharged her only to return to the home with a c-difficile virus which would further aggravate her condition. She became very week after her 2 week hospital stay and started eating less and less. She was so week that she fell a couple of times and went back and forth to the hospital for xrays. By the time she went back to the home after all of that she could no longer walk due to swelling of her ankles and then she had more difficulty swallowing and eating food. Thus began the decent. She became dehydrated and her blood pressure dropped and she still had the c-difficile infection so they had to send her back to the hospital. I insisted that she be sent to Sunnybrook Hospital this time. She spend 2 more weeks in the hospital and had the infection cleared up and was placed on an iv drip and rehydrated but the problem was that she refused food more and more until the only thing she would eat was pudding. The doctors told me that there was nothing they could do if she refused food and they had done all that they could do medically so they had to send her back to the home. My mother wasn't happy being in the hospital tied to a bed so I agreed to send her back. I knew that if she didn't eat that she wouldn't have long to live after that. She returned to the home and I would bring her strawberry applesauce and puddings just to get her to eat something. Until she even refused that. There was nothing anyone could do to force her to eat so she just wasted away until her body couldn't support her anymore. My mother was a survivor and fighter all her life but I think this time she stopped fighting and wanted to go on her terms with food being the only thing she could control in her life. It is heartbreaking to watch someone die that way because there is nothing you can do to help change it. So my mother ended her long life of survival at 88 years old. I hope wherever she is there is an abundance of food that she is enjoying again.

This experience made me realize that when we are born the first thing we do is eat to sustain life and we spend our whole life eating for pleasure, pain, nutrition, control and to help or hinder our health.

For a foodie like me it's unbelievable how much damage eating badly or forced starvation can do to your body. I know what foods are good for me but I don't always prefer to eat them. There is a whole mind/body/food connection that is very complex and I don't know if we will ever really just eat to support maximum nutrition for our bodies. There is always a lot more things going on in connection to food.

So my thoughts about this are that we are born, we eat, we live and then we die, so we might as well enjoy every bite of food while we can while not letting food take over our lives. We need to Eat to Live and not Live to Eat.