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FOOD
Food is one of our most basic needs. We eat to live, to grow, to keep healthy, and to
get energy for play and work. One way to discover if a person is getting enough food is to
look at his or her calorie intake. An average person needs 2,400 calories a day to remain
fit and healthy. This table compares average calorie intakes (to the nearest 100) in
different countries:
Denmark 4,000
UK 3,200
Philippines 2,200
Kenya 2,000
Bangladesh 1,900
Haiti 1,900
Ghana 1,500
More than 1 billion people throughout the world people suffer from serious hunger.
This deprives the body of basic nutrients, causing disease and sometimes death.
What do we need for healthy living?
 Body-building
foods: proteins (found in meat, fish, milk, and nuts) replace and repair our body cells.
Energy foods: fats
(found in oil and butter), sugar, and starch (found in bread, cereals, and potatoes).
Protective foods:
vitamins and minerals (found in fruit and vegetables) protect our bodies against disease.
A good, healthy diet consists of a balanced combination of these foods.
Healthy eating
If we eat too much or too little of the foods we require we become ill. In the rich
countries of Western Europe and North America, many people overeat and suffer from heart
disease, high blood pressure, liver disease, and tooth decay.
In the poorer countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, people
suffer from undernutrition and malnutrition. Undernutrition results from not getting
enough food, especially energy foods, while malnutrition is caused by not getting a
balanced diet of the different types of food. The following diseases are related to
malnutrition:
Nightblindness - caused by a lack of vitamin A. This can be
prevented by eating fruit and vegetables. An estimated 250,000 children a year lose their
eyesight because they lack Vitamin A.
Anaemia - caused by a lack of iron, and leading to extreme
tiredness. More than half the pregnant women in the developing world suffer from
iron-deficiency anaemia.
Kwashiorkor - caused by lack of proteins, and leading to
swollen hands, legs, and stomach, as well as sores, and loss of hair.
Marasmus - caused by a severe overall deficiency of food,
resulting in a wasting of the body, diarrhoea, and a general weakness that makes it hard
to fight other diseases. ORT (oral rehydration therapy) is a simple method of preventing
diarrhoea. It has long been available, but 60 per cent of children in the Third World
still do not have access to it.
Is there a world food shortage?
The simple answer is no. The world today produces enough grain alone to provide
everyone _ about 5.4 billion people _ with 3,600 calories a day. The real problem is one
of access to food, not a shortage of it.
Why do people go hungry?
 Poverty
Poor people go hungry when they do not have enough money to buy food. In 1992,
Mozambique suffered severe drought. The effects of the drought were compounded by
widespread human displacement and a shortage of farming supplies caused by years of civil
war. Returning refugees and displaced people did not have enough money to buy food, seeds,
or tools, and more than 2 million had to rely on government food-aid.
Land and environment
About 70% of the world's people live in rural areas. To grow their own food they need
land, but many people are denied the right to own or farm land of their own. Brazilian
government figures show that 500 landowners control 137 million acres of the richest land,
while some 7 million peasant families are landless.
Trade before people
Developing countries use much of their land to grow "cash crops" (food for
export). Some of the poorest African countries rely on selling commodities such as tea,
coffee, cocoa, and sugar to earn "hard currency" to pay off their debts. Cash
crops are grown at the expense of producing food for the local population. Prices for cash
crops are controlled by the richer countries: in 1992, African coffee producers lost US$1
billion [0.6 billion] when prices fell on the world market.
War
Conflict and war disrupt lives, exhaust public funds, destroy infrastructure, create
refugees, and displace people from their homes and livelihoods. The civil war in Sudan,
for example, has displaced up to 4.7 million people.
Natural disasters
Many developing countries are prone to natural disasters, and cannot afford to protect
themselves against them or to repair the damage they cause. The Bangladesh cyclones of
1991 left 140,000 people dead, and more than 10 million lost their lands and homes. The
total damage was estimated at $2 billion _ a crippling burden for a poor country.
Giant Corporations
Transnational Corporations (TNCs) often use their enormous size and power to dictate
the rules of world trade. Many poor countries depend on them to invest in factories and
services, and so create jobs. The TNCs prefer to operate in countries where they can get
the best tax deals, and the cheapest materials and labour. So little wealth stays these
countries, and the workers often have few rights.
What is CAFOD doing?
CAFOD supports development projects that aim to help people become more
self-sufficient in food production.
 In Mozambique, CAFOD
supports 200 food producing co-operatives, 90 per cent of whose members are women.
In Brazil, CAFOD funds the
Pastoral Land Commission (set up by the Church in 1975), which provides information on
land rights and helps peasant communities to defend their livelihoods against commercial
interests.
Reforestation is just one
of the self-help projects that CAFOD supports in Josefina, in the Philippines. The
reforestation programme has established nurseries, planted trees, contoured farmland, and
produced organic fertilisers (chicken dung) to enable subsistence farmers improve their
harvests.
Things to do
1. The next time you go to a supermarket, look at your shopping trolley and make a
list of all the items that are produced in the Third World.
2. Collect a range of pictures and food labels to make a display showing what is
needed for a balanced diet.
3. Arrange a class debate on "The causes of hunger". Keep a record of
all the responses, and classify them into "natural causes" and "human
causes".
4. Carry out surveys in your school to find out:
 | How much food is wasted each day in the dining room.
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| How much each person in your class spends on sweets, crisps, chocolate, etc.,
per week.
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| How much money your families spend on pet food each week.
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Display these results next to some facts about poverty in developing countries.
Further Resources:
We ask Why they are hungry - a Christian response to World Poverty. CAFOD/Christian
Aid �5.00
It's not Fair - activities and simulation games exploring world development issues.
CAFOD/Christian Aid �5.99 (1091 words)
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