World Hunger?

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Permalink Reply by Zadi on November 23, 2008 at 4:58pm

This is a great question -- and one that I was asking myself when I moved to Los Angeles. I found this out when I went to my local Starbucks as they were closing and they gave me some of their sandwiches for free (ones that were expiring that day). When I asked them why they don't just give it to the homeless people, they said that they weren't allowed to. Apparently since Los Angeles is a very litigious state, restaurants can't by law give their food to random people on the street for fear of being sued for something like food poisoning, etc.

It's a bit retarded. I think all restaurants should legally pair up with shelters and have citywide programs. But then you get into the discussion of tax payer's dollars, who is paying for the service, etc.

It's definitely a problem that needs a solution.

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Permalink Reply by frank on November 23, 2008 at 10:52pm

I think the solution might lye with the human beings on our planet that truly knows what it is like to starve. And not just hungry pan handling type deal, I mean bones showing, vultures best friend type deal. i think?

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Permalink Reply by tubejay on November 24, 2008 at 9:51am

"Now serving New York City for over 25 years, City Harvest is the world’s first food rescue organization, dedicated to feeding the city’s hungry men, women and children. This year, City Harvest will collect 23 million pounds of excess food from all segments of the food industry, including restaurants, grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers and farms. This food is then delivered free of charge to more than 600 community food programs throughout New York City using a fleet of trucks and bikes as well as volunteers on foot."

"Rachel's Table volunteers will pick up good, unused, nutritious food from businesses and food institutions in Greater Worcester and deliver it to agencies that have feeding programs for hungry people. No money is charged for the meals."

"Jack’s Bill, officially titled the "Jack Davis Florida Lending a Helping Hand Bill," which will allow restaurants to give their unused food to the homeless, just passed in the Florida House of Representatives."

"Tomato Cafe has been putting its leftover food to good use for the past six years. The restaurant donates unused food to the Desert Harvest Food Rescue Program, which helps feed the clients of two Albuquerque homeless shelters every week. Tomato Cafe has donated more than 60,000 pounds of food since 2002."

so that's new york city, worcester, mass, florida, and albuquerque new mexico, but i was unable to find an umbrella organization. you have to do searches per city, or, one city at a time. a good website to start would be one that collected this information. there are lots of people that have seen the bones exposed, please-for-god's-sake-help-us kind of advertising for non-profits, and it depresses people and makes them more pessimistic. i think images of starving people being fed and getting healthier are not only more reasonable, but more effective. that would be a good study for a graduate thesis. what moves people, hope, or hopelessness? i dunno, look at the 2004 and 2008 elections.

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Permalink Reply by Robbie H on November 25, 2008 at 5:30pm

I had a discussion with one of my manager's about a year ago and he told me a story about Coca-Cola which may or may not be true:

Coke makes their syrup in big vats and tests each vat for sweetness. They have strict quality control rules so if something is too sweet or not sweet enough, it gets thrown away. Apparently, one day, they decided they would give away these batches (there's nothing wrong with these batches, they're just slightly too sweet or slightly not so sweet) to ophanages to use in their drink dispensers.

Well, after a few months, a class action lawsuit was filed against Coke for giving 'bad product' to kids.

Again, I don't claim this story to be 100% true. It's just something I heard, and just ridiculous enough that I believe it could happen.


Back to your question though: I don't mind eating left overs, and I really think it's a good idea. The problem comes with lots of people looking to make a quick buck

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