Hunger
gnaws at
conscience
ray wolden
Irs iurs ifniolnrno oimn.'-,
I have never known hunger.
I can't imagine the type of
hunger that persists day after day,
week after week, gnawing away a
person's humanity until it first
makes him an animal, then leaves
him dead.
Real hunger is foreign to me now
and will remain so. Starvation is,
not a part of the middle American
experience. No matter how the rest
of the world fares in its quest for
enough food during the coming
decade, malnutrition will not re
place obesity as a major health
problem in America.
The rest of the world is faring
badly. More than a million people
in the Indian subcontinent prob
ably will die before the spring
harvest. The famine in sub-Sahara
Africa is worseperhaps the worst
in human history.
While people starve the world
over, Americans spend millions of
dollars to join weight-watchers
clubs to help them trim the fat they
put on by overeating.
... We feed our dogs betterthan the
Indian government is able to feed
many of its people. India is 12
million tons short of food self-sufficiency,
this year, It has been able
to buy or borrow less than half of
its needs.
Morris the cat earns $10,000 a
year making cat-food commercials.
The average income in India is
about $80 a year.
We can play with statistics all wei
want. Most people are aware of the
problem, if not the numbers.
Juggling zeros at the end of death
counts and comparing percentages
may be good for shock value, but it
does nothing for solving the
problem. v
( The problem, is in the way
Americans look at themselves. We
think of ourselves as a chosen
people, the center of civilization,
the saviors of the world.
Reality is much uglier. We are a
major part of the food problem. A
recent government report conclud
ed there is no actual worldwide
food shortage. It blamed hunger
abroad on artificial price struct
ures, subsidies, mismanagement,
political decisions and "cheap
food" policies on the part of rich
nations.
That is on the governmental
level. On the individual level
Americans are gluttens. Our nutri
tional intake far exceeds our needs.
We eat inefficiently (it takes ten
pounds of plant protein to produce
. one pound of beef) and wastefully
(we throw away nine per cent of the
food we buy).
I sat in on a meeting of the UNL
Student Task Force on Hunger
Sunday. Hazel Fox, chairman of
the Department of Food and
Nutrition, was there.
"We have no protein problem,"
she said about American eating
habits. "We are so overdosed with
proteinthat's not our problem.
We would have no trouble getting
along without meat not as long as
we have milk and eggs. A loaf of
bread will give you all the protein
you need.
"Most of our health problems in
this country are.related to over
nutrition. We would be doing
ourselves a favor by eating less.
We would be healthier; we would
live longer.
"For the world to survive it will
happen no other way than for us to
lower our living standards not
' only in food but other resources,"
Fox said. "This sounds so easy,
but it s so hard to get people to
"! 'change their food habits We don't
have the surpluses'anymore and, if
we give (food to other cWrilries)
now, it wili have to come out of our
hides."
The food problem will be solved
one way or another. We can take
preventive measures to bring world
population down and food supply
up, such as self-sacrifice at the
dinnsr tb!s snd voluntary birth
control. v i r- '
The altarnative is death control,
imposed without our consent. The
famine is on aspect , of death
control already begun. Another is
disease. The famine probably
won't come, to America. Disease
may, but it could be controlled.
The United States would be'
touched directly by a global food
war, another solution to over
population. The underfed nations
can be expected to go only so long
before they turn against the
overfed and demand food. India
has nuclear weapons and other :
countries can get them.
, When the food war comes, we
will be the bad guys. We must fight
world hunger now, before we have
to fight the world's hungry.
This is easy to say but hard to do.
The answer lies in both individual
and political action.
The UNL Student Task Force on
World Hunger may help. It is a
new campus organization consist
ing Of people who want to act'
rather than despair. They have
some good Ideas about what
individualscan do.
The world hunger group is
sponsoring a scaled-down local
version of the United Nation World
Food Conference in Rome this
week. The UNL conference will be
in the Nebraska Union Main
Lounge Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m.
The group will meet today at 8
p.m. aPthe campus Lutheran"
Student Center, 535 N. 16th St. It
welcomes' anyone who wants" 'to"
stop being part of the problem and
become part of the solution.
t o r. - oiH K
, w J w. 1 J .
I The 2nd edition "of j
FULL CYCLE
I is out. I
I Look for the Free!
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Tola! c
Dsta&fn
tuesday, november 6, 1974
daily nebraskan
