FOOD security should not only mean quantity, but should also mean quality and affordability.
These three conditions should always be present as if it is a holy trinity, otherwise we could not achieve food security at all.
Food security could not be achieved by the actions of a single government agency working alone. In other words, food security could only be achieved by many government agencies working together towards a common goal.
Finally, we should learn the third lesson that food security involves a supply chain that starts with production and ends in consumption, and with many other chain components in between.
By comparison, quantity is probably the most important requirement in the supply chain, based on the argument that it does not matter how food would taste and how much it would cost, provided that there is enough for everyone to eat.
However, this argument should be tempered with moderation, because it is self-defeating. If food would cost too much, we may not have enough money to buy it, therefore we may not be able to produce or buy enough quantities for everyone. Additionally, if the food does not taste good enough, there is no point in having enough of it, no matter how cheap it is.
As it is actually happening now, food quality no longer means simply taste at all, but also the safety and the nutrition content. It has already been proven time and again that we are what we eat, and that food could either make us healthy or make us sick, depending on which way we would want to go.
It has also been proven that we could eat until we have a full stomach, but that does not necessarily mean that what we eat is full of nutritious ingredients.
The bottom line is that we have to know what we are eating; otherwise we would not know what makes us healthy or what makes us sick. The problem with this is that food and nutrition information is not always available to the general public, aside from the fact that our food inspection and research services may not always be at par with what is needed.
There was a time when common sense would tell us what is good to eat, and what is not good to eat. That time is long gone, because what we used to know as good to eat may no longer be good to eat, because of the way the food supply chain has been complicated and corrupted by the greed of food producers and the apparent lapses in government supervision.
In this case, the biggest culprits would appear to be the pollution of food production sources, and the proliferation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that have entered the food chain even in popular packaged goods that would even appear to be trustworthy in the grocery shelves. Beware, because what you see may no longer be what you get!
Numerous studies have already shown that GMOs enter the food chain through the feeds that are consumed by farm animals, and in turn these would enter our bodies as we consume them. We would of course not know that what we are eating contains GMOs, because there are no food labels that would tell us so.
And as if the problem is not enough, GMOs now also enter the food chain through the feeds that are consumed by farmed fish, both in fish ponds and in fish cages. Because of this, the old wisdom that all fish is good to eat and that it is good for the body is no longer true. Whether it is animal or fish, the problem is the use of GMOs in the feeds. That is the root of the problem, and that is where we should start with finding a solution.
Speaking of fish, there is a new global problem now that could only be blamed on people everywhere who throw plastic bags and sachets without segregating them. The problem came up when scientists discovered that at least 90% of the plastics that end up in the oceans disintegrate into very fine micro plastic granules that are ingested by all marine life, including fish of course.
Needless to say, these granules enter the food chain and as a consequence, these would also enter our bodies and make us sick as we eat the polluted fish. You could say that this is a case of pollution going full cycle and going back to us, in a way punishing us for causing the pollution in the first place.
This new discovery appears to be the second problem that is caused by the throwing of plastic bags and sachets into the oceans. The first problem is the warming of the oceans that is killing the planktons in the waters. As the planktons are killed, the supply of food for marine life decreases, because this is what they eat.
There is actually another problem also, and that is the problem of marine life dying as they ingest the solid plastics into their bodies. With these multiple problems that are now known to be affecting our food supply from the oceans, it is about time that we strike at the root of the problem by working on a direct solution, and that is the collection of plastics bags and sachets at the household level, so that these will no longer end up as garbage that will end up in the oceans. It is already very clear that the holy trinity of our food supply chain is already threatened by commercial greed and our collective “sins” against nature.
This has become a matter of life and death for us and for our future generations. If we choose life, then we must now act in order to stop the destruction./PN
