To What Purpose Is This Waste?

CEBU, Philippines - For the ant, the grain on its back was pretty heavy.

Scaling through a wall of a fastfood restaurant, the army of the ants did the same. “These ants amaze me,” thought a fly that was perched on the wall as it watched the column of ants scale through a crevice and disappear to the other side of the wall. Each ant hauled a grain of cooked rice thrown in a bin just for spoiled and leftover food. Flies had feasted on these earlier.

“To what purpose is this waste?” said the fly as it saw a food attendant toss almost a dishful of leftover rice to the bin. Each day every Filipino wastes about two tablespoons of cooked rice and nine grams of uncooked rice. The waste is in leftovers, spilled food or rice lost while it is washed before cooking. In 2010, wasted rice was equivalent to 13 percent of the total rice imports of the same year. When not wasted, this could result in import savings by as high as P6.2 billion. That’s P6.2 billion all thrown to waste, thought the fly as it glanced at the window.

The fly hovered past the other flies that feasted on the leftovers, then perched on the glass pane. Outside, it could make out an emaciated boy, dumping some morsel in his mouth. From its perched position, the fly moved its eyes from the wasted leftover rice to the hungry, emaciated boy along a street across the fastfood restaurant.

Nobody seems to care except perhaps flies and ants about rice wastage. Nobody seems to care about the logistics and supply chain with each grain of rice. Nobody seems to care about wasted rice that could feed nearly 2.6 million Filipinos each year. While there is much waste, millions more Filipinos are hungry.

This shameful, alarming disparity in rice wastage has prompted President Aquino to declare 2013 as National Year of Rice. What is shameful is not just the disparity but the apathy. The indifference and the callousness towards waste are almost incomprehensible. With each grain of rice comes millions of productivity in manwork hours from the time seedlings are planted, to the time stalks are nurtured, to the time these are harvested, milled, packed, transported, displayed as merchandise, brought to kitchens, cooked and finally served on the table – Only to be wasted by some gluttonous, irresponsible people who cannot finish their rice because they put too much on their plate.

Nutritionists say that an average Filipino consumes around four-and-a-half cups of rice a day when at most three cups is enough. Filipinos are eating more rice than other food groups like fruits and vegetables when rice and other grains should only be one fourth of the meal plate.

Unlimited rice, unlimited waste.

Rice farmers and producers as well as policy makers are aiming for ways for the country to be rice sufficient. But sufficiency is nothing but hypocrisy when Filipinos are mired in the culture of apathy and wastage in rice consumption.

2013 was also declared as National Year of Rice so that Filipinos are more responsible in rice consumption. That means consuming just the right amount of rice, trying alternative food staples like white corn, sweet potato, cassava and banana as substitutes for rice.

Filipinos are encouraged to eat unpolished rice or brown rice as it is said to have higher milling recovery rate of 75 percent compared with 65 percent for white rice. Brown rice is said to be more nutritious than white rice because brown rice retains most of the nutrients from the rice bran that is often removed by polishing. It also means cooking rice that the family can eat and recycling leftover rice into other dishes.

In further promoting responsible rice consumption, there are advocacies in the lobbying of an ordinance that obliges food service industries such as fast food restaurants and canteens to have half cup of rice servings and make these visible in the menu. Obviously the unlimited rice come ons have contributed to unlimited wastes. The point is, people should order rice that they can consume, not satiate avarice with unlimited rice.

 The advocacy for rice self-sufficiency really boils down to what’s cooking in your heart. If you shovel so much rice in your plate without thinking if you can consume all these, if you pour in so much rice in the cooker without calculating how many are eating, then in all likelihood you are an apathetic glutton. To what purpose is this waste? Better for you to be a fly or an ant. (FREEMAN)