David McRaney  |  Journalist

World hunger issues won't stop

Ah yes, the long-debated worldwide hunger problem.

You have to appreciate how simple this issue is. I remember being a kid, as I'm sure you do, and hearing about people starving in Ethiopia.

"But, why do I have to eat cauliflower?"

"Because there are people starving in Africa."

"Then send them my cauliflower."

"It's not that simple."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing it would be rotten by the time it got there."

"Oh. Then why not send them Twinkies, or Snickers, or rice?"

"Eat the cauliflower, or I'll take a bat to the Nintendo."

Maybe your mom handled it differently, but the fact remains there are about 850 million people on our planet who are dangerously close to death because they don't have enough to eat, yet America, along with the rest of the industrialized nations of Earth, produces more than enough food to feed every hungry belly in every nook and cranny of the globe and then some.

So, what's the deal? Why does hunger still exist?

To a child, the fact that we could end homelessness and world hunger just by handing out food and shelter seems reasonable because they are not well acquainted with war, greed, laziness and commerce.

When I agreed to write this column, I was supposed to take the side of helping the world instead of focusing only at home. But, you know, the more I consider this the more I feel as though if we were going to solve one issue, we should be able to solve both. Yet, I know this is a naive concept based on some sort of Star Trekish utopian pipe dream.

America will never solve the poverty problem here or the hunger problem elsewhere because no one but the impoverished stands to profit from it. And, let's be honest; you do not really care anyway.

Any rational person will look at a child starving in a third-world country and shake their head. Sure, I'll write this column, and you'll send $10 to the Christian Children's Fund, and he will give to the United Way and she will donate to the canned food drive. But we'll still gorge ourselves Thursday at the Thanksgiving table and buy steaks on credit like it never happened.

You can tell me you think we should be focusing on our own hungry before providing handouts to other countries, but we both know that neither problem is going to go away. And we both know it's because if all of the unfortunate malnourished and penniless died tomorrow, our daily lives would barely be affected.

For most of human history there have been haves and have-nots. The haves ate well and danced in court while the have-nots picked lice. Now, we have a middle class, a sort of social limbo where at any time you could drop into the have-nots or you could be lucky and successful enough to ascend to the haves. Most remain in limbo forever.

In those countries where most people are starving, there is no middle-class. Instead, there are kings and warlords on one end of the spectrum and the destitute on the other. It is the nature of things.

We may not have porcelain bathtubs or Olympic-sized swimming pools, but we aren't going hungry because as middle-class citizens we can buy Ramen noodles and extra value meals. But, what we can't do is throw money and food at the problem in the hopes of solving anything. It would take a global effort of the haves to change the conditions for the have-nots.

I'm sorry, but on this issue I have to see the glass as half empty and leave you with a copout. A child dies every five seconds from malnutrition, while Americans are dropping in droves from a range of disorders that arise from eating too damn much. That's a disparity more complex than I think average human beings can handle right now.

Just debating this reveals we are still children at the table, confused and naïve.

Some estimates place an end to world hunger around 2025. I say it will be 3025 at best.

Originally published in The Student Printz on November 22, 2005