It’s Time to Forget about the Children in Africa

I was about 7 years old. I was at my best friend’s house and we took a break from playing with our Barbies to have a snack. I ate about half my yogurt and didn’t want the rest. My friend exclaimed, “What about the children in Africa?!”

“What?” I asked, incredibly confused. I barely knew that Africa was a continent.

“The children in Africa, they’re starving,” my friend tried to explain to me.

“Yeah, okay. Why are you telling me this?” I stated, even more confused.

“You need to finish your food to help the kids in Africa,” she further explained.

I was so confused. How was I helping children in Africa by finishing my yogurt? I didn’t enquire any further and I didn’t finish my yogurt.

You’ve heard it said, “Stay in good company.” I am convinced that one of the purposes of this statement is because if you hang out with people who say idiotic things, their ideas will stick in your mind forever unless you make a conscious effort to validate those ideas as ridiculous. Sadly, this preposterous notion that I was hurting someone if I did not finish every ounce of food on my plate stuck in my head for a number of years.

My parents, and society as a whole, did not help this thought process. If I didn’t finish my food not only was I starving little African children, but I was wasting money.

“So you’re just going to waste your food?!”

Well not if this is the reaction I’m going to get, I’d think to myself.

I didn’t really even realize that I was thinking this. I just found it polite to always finish all my food, even if I didn’t want to. This seems to be how many Americans think.

“Oh, there’s only one more piece left, I’ll eat it.”

“Does someone want the rest of this, there’s only a little bit left.”

“Here, take the rest of this, I don’t want it to go to waste.”

Well today I’m telling you that you don’t have to eat the last piece and you don’t have to finish your food; it’s not going to waste money and it most certainly is not effecting some child across the globe in any way.

When you are full and you have that little bit of food left in front of you, you have two options. You can eat it or you can throw it away. Both options result in the food being gone or disappearing. If you throw it away, it effects no one. If you eat the food, it causes you to over eat, which leads to weight gain, which leads to heart disease, diabetes, etc. And guess what, those kids are still starving and now you’re fat; everyone loses.

So the next time you think you don’t want your food to go to waste, think about it, you already bought this food, the money is gone, I can either throw it away or overeat. Would you rather throw away the food, or have it reappear on your waist line?

--And yes. There is a third option. Save the food for another day J