Lighthouse

Author(s): Udayvallabhvijay
Publisher: Pragna Prabodh Parivar

Page 39

The trilogy of wastage, black marketing and exploitation is very thick. It is a long pending need that someone penetrates this trilogy and think about the poor. Our traditional culture does not brook any wastage. We are wedded to a resource respecting culture where the extra chappatis are converted into khakhra which is an item of breakfast or the extra unconsumed rice of afternoon become spiced rice in the evening palate. Jains are a step ahead. They wash their food plates and drink that water ensuring that not even a smallest grain of food is wasted. This is a unique combination of consumption, restraint and thoughtfulness. The practice of feeding the skin of a banana to a cow or a goat may be vanishing (simply because cows or goats are not to be seen where we live !). However, this practice was testimony of a fact that our consumption was laced with humanism. In this background how can our bhakti be accused of being inhumane? One cannot deny that the culture of wastage has seeped deep into our social functions. This definitely needs correction. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has expressed its grave concern about the growing wastage of food across the world. Some of its findings are; * 1/3rd of food produced annually is wasted globally. * This annual food wastage can feed crores of hungry
stomachs and that too without any additional burden on resources.
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{ Lighthouse