There's been a lot in the news about the causes and effects rising food prices. I've noticed the prices rising here and have cut back on some things (like hamburger buns!), but we still have plenty of healthy food to eat and groceries make up a fairly small portion of our budget.
This past week the contrast between need and waste stood out to me. I took a bruised banana home from school (a student was going to throw it away) for my destined-for-banana-bread bag in the freezer. I was too late to save a stack of sandwich cookies from getting chucked on Friday's field trip. After school I looked down into my classroom trash and just from the top I saw a Dorito's bag with a serving left in it, a 3/4 full yogurt container with a spoon in it, and an Oreo package with several partial cookies left. I've watched kids use grapes as ammo and dump the better part of a carton of milk on the ground. And it's not just kids (who don't have to buy and cook their own food). Personally, I threw away the last bit of hummus which smelled funny, a small avacado that we cut open but was much too hard to use, and I should throw away a partial and hardened PB&J, and some seeds from a long-since-eaten squash.
I know we can't send any of these things to the people in Haiti eating dirt to fill their stomachs but to me it seems like a sign that we don't care very much. Maybe some fasting and prayer is in order.
