By Francisco Peyret
World Food Day is celebrated on October 16 of each year. During this day, the importance of food in the world is highlighted. The day has been celebrated since 1978, when it was proclaimed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO), with the goal of reducing hunger in the world, a purpose that the 2030 Agenda also seeks with its zero hunger goal.
This year’s theme is “Safe Food, Better Health.” Access to safe food is essential for the health and well-being of people, animals, and the environment. But what does food safety mean? The dictionary tells us, “This turns out to be the absence—at safe and acceptable levels—of danger in food that can harm the health of consumers.”
It has now been 44 years since the UN promulgated this commemoration. In the times that we now live, the process of global warming continues unabated and social inequalities continue to grow worldwide. To this, international tensions and the war between Ukraine and Russia directly affect global food security.
But it happens that even when we live in a climate of prosperity and world peace, humanity has the mission of feeding the almost 8 billion inhabitants of the planet and all the animals used for food. We’re facing a tremendous dilemma because, to feed that number of living beings, producers are resorting to genetically modified inputs to increase the productivity of the food industry. But it’s naive to think we can all access organic food. According to the World Bank, with data from the FAO, the total cultivated land globally in 2009 reached 1,381,090,000 hectares, or 13,810,900 square kilometers—9.3% of the earth’s land. On the other hand, according to an Antama Foundation report, the global area of genetically modified (GM) crops has already reached 170.3 million hectares in 2012 and is growing at an annual rate of 6%, while the area that organic agriculture occupies currently reaches only 75 million hectares.
The FAO says we need to build a sustainable world where everyone, everywhere, has regular access to enough nutritious food. Once again, we need to appeal to humanity and technology, which plays against us because we can produce more food but not necessarily healthier. Although experts say that we can produce enough food to feed the entire planet, what’s missing is access and availability, which, to tell the truth, are becoming increasingly difficult due to the conflicts that many countries are experiencing, like pandemics and climate change, among others.
We currently have an alarming number of children and adolescents globally who suffer the consequences of poor nutrition and a food system that ignores their needs, warns the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in its report “The State World Children’s World 2019: Children, Dood and Nutrition,” which reveals that at least one in three boys and girls under the age of five—some 200 million—suffers from malnutrition or obesity, and points out that, in Mexico, one in three children aged 6 to 11 years old are overweight or obese.
Globally, about two out of three children between the ages of 6 months and 2 years do not receive foods that support the proper growth of their bodies and brains, which can impair their development, interfere with their learning, weaken their immune systems, increase their vulnerability to infections, and more.
In the ’60s and ’70s, obesity in Mexico and the United States was not the common stereotype. But we are currently the champions of the obese in the world, and the intensive consumption of processed foods and misinformation is killing us. In both countries, the rate of obesity exceeds 30% (the United States is 38%, and Mexico is 32%, according to Saludiario magazine). And as my grandmother used to say: “Of gourmands and gluttons, pantheons are full.”
But the subject of healthy eating isn’t a new thing. Here, we present some famous phrases:
“Keeping the body in good health is a must. Otherwise, we will not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.”—Buddha
“If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.”—Common sense
“He who takes medication and refuses to diet loses the expertise of his doctors.”—Chinese proverb
“Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are our gardeners.”—William Shakespeare
“Real health reform starts in your kitchen, not in Washington.” —Anonymous
“The only way to maintain your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and not do what you prefer.”—Mark Twain
“Lack of activity destroys the fitness of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save and preserve it.”—Plato
“The mind has a great influence on the body, and illnesses often have their origin there.”—Jean Baptiste Moliere
“One billion people in the world are chronically hungry. One billion people are overweight.”—Mark Bittmann
“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”—Jim Rohn
