Culture–Don’t Waste Your Food – All Parts of the Cow!!?
Resources to purchase food can be scarce in many areas of the lower-income pueblos in Latin America. Latin America consists of a lot of developing or so called third-world countries. Because of their low economic resources, Latin people usually don’t waste any of their food. In-fact, many will go to extremes (or what some people consider extreme) to eat a lot of interesting parts of the cow, pig and other animals that most Americans have never even thought of eating.
After living in Latin America for two years and becoming accustomed to their way of life, I was shocked when I returned to the United States and had dinner with my family the first night I was back. It was reverse culture shock for me. The amount of food they wasted was unbelievable. If they couldn’t or didn’t want to eat all of their food, they just left it on their plates and all of it went down the very hungry and ever-ready food disposal never to be seen again. It is interesting to me that I used to do the same thing at mealtime before spending two years of my life living among the Latin people. In Latin America, because of economic conditions and lifestyle, they usually eat every piece of their food.
It may be nice for everyone from more developed countries could have the chance to visit Latin America and live with the people of the poor pueblos. If they did, I believe we would have a changed world. I think people would be less greedy and appreciate what they have much more—they wouldn’t take so many things for granted. I think people of more developed countries would also gain more compassion for the less-fortunate. The mentality of not wasting food has now become part of my life here in the United States—I am more conscious of the things that I have. Sometimes I’ll be eating a meal with my wife and when she is finished, there will still be some food left on her plate. I will usually eat it for her because, after living in Latin America, it’s hard for me to see food go to waste. (I have to exercise a lot to burn off all of the extra calories from eating her food as well as mine – I have an indoor bike I enjoy riding often.)
In certain parts of Latin America, I saw many little children crawling around on dirt floors, putting rocks and dirt in their mouths hoping it was food and I saw some literally starving to death. What an extremely heart wrenching experience it is to see real people and little children dying because of the lack of food—especially when you know there is so much food in other parts of the world. I can’t even explain what it does to you to see someone in that terrible condition.
Living in this type of difficult situation changed my life forever. When I was a little boy, my mother always told me to eat all of my food because there were children starving in China. I never realized the full extent of her seemingly “nagging” phrase until I actually saw children dying of starvation in third-world countries.
Please give me feedback and let me know your thoughts.
Moral of the Story: What can we do to help? There are humanitarian aid programs we can donate to which help children who don’t have food to survive. Most of us have plenty, or we probably wouldn’t be on the internet reading this blog, and it can mean so much to give to those less-fortunate than us. I would love to hear from you if you decide to donate to a humanitarian aid organization or even to your local food bank. If you need a suggestion of humanitarian aid associations, let me know and I can recommend one or two that give a very high percentage directly to those in need.
Sneak peek at next week: “All Parts of the Cow!!? – Part II”
¡Hasta luego! (”Until later!”)
David S. Clark — President / Director
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