blogs/rabbi-huberman

We Waste Enough Food to Feed the World 

In case you haven't noticed, this is the time of the year when television screens are saturated with ads encouraging us to spend our year-end dollars in two specific and very different ways.

The first is on donations to charity: St. Jude's Children's Hospital, Save the Children, and the ASPCA, among other important organizations. Images of suffering children or abused animals jangle us to the core.

The other category is the purchase of cars, particularly higher-end vehicles like Cadillacs, Lexuses, and BMWs.

There is no mystery behind this. On Saturday night, the curtain will fall on 2016, and many Americans will look to maximize their tax-saving opportunities through the lease or purchase of vehicles. We also use this period to donate significant amounts to those charitable organizations which align with our values.

But is there another time of the year when two sets of ads stand in more direct contrast?

The two series of conflicting images remind us that while we are blessed in this country with relative safety and affluence, suffering continues all over the world. The Talmud tells us that we must not turn away when we witness suffering in our midst.

Many of us support charitable causes: locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. Yet in many ways, the idea of writing a check and mailing it to a PO box in Colorado, or donating online, although commendable and righteous, spares us direct contact with human suffering.

Can we do more to directly assist those in need? Are there ways to amend our own behavior to make a difference in this world?

This past week, a report came across my desk which made me pause to consider in particular the issue of national and world hunger.

A recent study conducted by National Geographic concluded that every year, more than 30 percent of food available in the United States, valued at $162 billion, isn't eaten. That statistic is equal if not higher within other countries.

Supermarkets tend to order more than needed to guard against empty bins and shelves. Restaurants and buffets indulge with more portions and choices than we really need. Grocery stores throw out "imperfect" vegetables such as curved zucchinis or bloated carrots, because consumers won't buy misshapen produce.

In Israel, organizations such as Lecket and Shulchan L'Shulchan (Table to Table) rescue enough unopened food from weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, cafeterias, food stores, and the corners of farmers' fields to feed tens of thousands of Israelis each day.

At minimum, efforts such as Lecket and our own Island Harvest are teaching us that there is enough food for everyone, locally and worldwide, if we just pay more attention to the portions we eat, how and what we grow, and how to conserve and redistribute what we don't use.

In this week's Torah portion, Joseph models this understanding. Pharaoh liberates him from jail in order to interpret two troubling visions.

Pharaoh dreams of seven healthy cows being eaten by seven skinny ones.  Pharaoh goes back to sleep only to observe a second dream -- seven healthy ears of grain being consumed by seven meagre ones.

Joseph understands. He shares with Pharaoh that, in the years to come, Egypt will experience seven bountiful harvests, followed by seven years of famine.

And so, upon Joseph's advice, Pharaoh orders that all grain collected during Egypt's prosperous years be stored and drawn upon during the predicted famine.

Says Pharaoh: "Let that food be a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which will come upon the land of Egypt." (Genesis 41:30).  

What Joseph was saying in essence was that each year Egypt produced twice as much food than was actually needed or consumed.

When we look at some of the statistics today regarding food waste, we can conclude that things have not changed that much over the past few thousand years.

There is enough food to feed everyone. What a sin it is that we waste so much of it.

Some restaurants boast about their big portions. But how much of what is ordered and served is actually consumed, and how much left to be scraped into the garbage and forgotten? We as Jews like to joke that many of our holidays center on the theme of "they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat." So much of how we celebrate holidays is linked to large meals.

But how much food produced during our celebrations is discarded? How many ingredients brought into our kitchens never make it out of the package? How much food rots in our refrigerators, or goes past its sell-by date in our pantries?

Many organizations dealing with world hunger have established a target to reduce the waste of food by twenty to fifty per cent during the next fifteen years.

Is it possible that, by ordering smaller portions, composting, freezing what we don't use, donating our excess food, delivering uneaten food to the food bank or shelters, tolerating "misshapen" food, or resisting the temptation to purchase what we don't need, that we can reverse the trend?

A recent New York Times article observed, we often "forget to eat our leftovers, we leave our doggy bags in restaurants, and we suffer little or no consequence for scraping edible food into a bin."

And so as 2016 draws to a close, let us pause for a moment, as we reflect upon the good fortune that we enjoy in this country, and undertake a few New Year's resolutions.

Yes, going the gym is a good step. But let's also consider what we can do within our homes, our businesses, our communities, and even within our religious institutions to redirect the good food which is never opened, but discarded towards those who go hungry.

We can support organizations which are assisting undeveloped countries improve their ability to transport and refrigerate food, but our efforts can begin at home.

In Long Island, an average 64,900 per week receive emergency food. Almost forty per cent of these are those under 18 years old.  Lack of food affects the ability of many students to concentrate at school and ultimately break the poverty cycle.

The statistics, reviewed during this festive time of the year, are sobering. All the more reason, as the window opens on 2017, to recommit ourselves not just to helping those in need, but to taking action to eliminate poverty at its source.

Congregation Tifereth Israel's Social Action Committee is committed to advancing strategies which not only address current need, but assist families -- youth in particular -- to break the hunger and poverty cycle. The committee is always looking for more volunteers.

The story of Joseph in this week's Torah reading reminds us that when we pay attention to not just what we eat, but how we eat and how we conserve our resources, there is enough food for everyone.

Imagine how many social problems could be avoided if there was no malnutrition in the world. How much more could we as a society do, if hunger was not an issue?

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the food discarded by retailers and consumers in the most developed countries would be more than enough to feed all of the world's 870 million hungry people.

The Talmud reminds us that we cannot cure all of the world's problems, but we can affect that which is within our reach.

Lets us therefore resolve this week and every week to be like Joseph. Let us order less, and conserve more. Let us consume less, and feed the many.

In the words of Mother Teresa, "We can do no great things. Only small things, with great love."

The Torah instructs us that the actions which are most important in building a better world are "very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart." (Deuteronomy (30:12)

Let us focus our attention this year, among our many year-end reflections, towards addressing how we approach and utilize the life giving resource of food.

As the Torah reminds us in its closing pages, some of the greatest answers to life "are really not that baffling at all." It is not up to God to feed the world: God has given us all that we need.

Friends, the choices that we make regarding food can make a difference. In a world where it seems so much is out of our control, this is one area where we can affect change, person to person, table to table.

That is within our grasp.

Shabbat shalom, Happy Chanukah, kol tuv (with all goodness)

Rabbi Irwin Huberman