Journal #5: Dive!

Journal 5 due. Topic: Share your thoughts on the film Dive! to help you narrow down your essay topic.  Would you be willing to dumpster dive?  Have you or someone you know dealt with food shortages or food insecurities?

I honestly do not know if I would ever be desperate enough to dumpster dive as I am a huge mysophobic or otherwise known as a germaphobic.  I am constantly washing my hands or using sanitizer.  If my family ever got to the point where we needed food that bad I would happily send my husband or my nineteen stepson into the dumpster.  My stepdaughter and I would not want anything to do with even touching the dumpster.  After watching the documentary, it did not surprise me that so much food it wasted every day.  The United States is the fattest country in the world and we waste the most food.  The staggering statistic of wasting ninety-six billion pounds of food per year blew my mind, even more so that our waste could feed the entire country of Haiti for five years.  I did not think that grocery stores wasted that much food when it could be donated and frozen to stamp out the expiration date.  The fact that eleven million people go hungry each day saddens me and makes me rethink about portioning meal  prepared to eliminate leftovers that will go into the refrigerator only to be forgotten about then discarded. Preparing and eating smaller, more nutritious portions will help alleviate wasting food and help with a healthy disposition.  Another sad statistic is that forty percent of food waste is from personal homes.  Prepare a meal and take it to a friend or neighbor, share the wealth if you have extra do not throw it out if it can help someone else. The best statement I took from the documentary was "Food is life and should never be wasted."   I do not personally know anyone who has had to even think about dumpster diving.  I have known several who relied on government assistance such as food stamps to provide the food they needed for their families.