Hunger

Hunger
Think about the last time you felt totally hungry and how long it was until you were finally able to eat. Have you ever gone more than three hours without eating, how about thirty?   Every year I participate in a fasting fundraiser, where I do not eat for a total of forty hours, to raise money to send aide to extremely destitute countries. One day after the fundraiser, I was watching television when the popular Ball Park Franks commercial “Hunger Gets What Hunger Wants” came on. After watching the commercial something inside me changed and I suddenly felt disgusted. The commercial shows “Hunger” personified and craving for food, and the only way that it could “get what it wants” was to be fed a Ball Park Frank. I then realized that for the majority of people in the world, the word hunger refers to a habitual whim to feel constantly satisfied and full. Most people do not know what it is to be chronically hungry, and luckily they will never know.   If the word hunger was personified in a different sense, as in world hunger, the truth would be that “Hunger” does not get what it wants, unless “Hunger’s” desire is for continued disease, poverty, and death. The unfortunate truth is that most people who do not experience chronic famine first hand are blissfully ignorant to the issue of world hunger.
One child dies approximately every 2.3 seconds from hunger or hunger related diseases (Robbins), while 11.8 billion people worldwide are served daily at Burger King (Supryia). This ironic fact alone should make even the juiciest Whopper taste rotten; but sadly, people don’t want to take the initiative that would reduce these numbers on both ends of the spectrum.   The amount of meat in the daily diet is a significant factor in the world hunger picture. The land, water, and other agricultural resources that could be used to produce food for other people are instead being used for domestic animals (Kirby). Far more resources are needed to raise livestock than needed to...