There’s an issue many nations face that we might sometimes overlook: food waste. While there are many reasons behind it, financial comfort with one’s diet and living is of paramount importance. Utilizing advanced technology to educate the youth on sharing food is a vital step to mitigate the issue fundamentally.
In many developed countries, better economic state provides an avenue for food security, potentially causing not-so-good decisions by people. This leads to overconsumerism – buying food products more than they actually need, and ending up wasting some amount of it. For instance, the USA is a good example of a country in which most people possess secure financial positions overall, but also in which every year, a substantial amount of the food is not consumed. Additionally, households in rural areas use their leftovers to feed their livestock, or share their fresh food with neighbors, ending with little to no organic refuse. However, this is not the case with urban areas, leading to lots of food being wasted.
Luckily, there are lots of options to choose from if we want to tackle these shortcomings, primarily – sharing our food. Students of MIT University invented a technological device called FoodCam, where people can share their leftovers with their colleagues in their workspaces, or friends in their study centers, by posting its photo on various social media. This invention is not only fun and engaging but also a great tool to reduce food waste in the offices significantly, according to the student reports from the MIT university. Implementing this system in everyone’s daily life is a vital step to minimize food waste as much as possible.
To conclude, most people face the problem of food wastage, yet until this day, this issue remains insufficiently adressed. While the main cause of this issue is financial food security and the lack of moral empathy, there are several potentially strong solutions, such as educating ethical concerns on youngsters with application of technologies like MIT FoodCam, that have the ability, in the near future, to curtail this underrated yet very concerning problem.