Eat trash because nothing new is happening in my life

Ciao amici, come stai? Well, judging from the title of this post, you can probably deduce that lately,  my life has been about as interesting as a grass growing contest. I'm sort of stuck in this awkward limbo between preparing for Italy but also trying to enjoy my summer vacation, which basically amounts to me sitting in my dark basement watching Netflix. As far as preparing for Italy, I can't really do anything yet because I haven't gotten any new information in about a week. The good news is I have a host family *insert brofist here*!! The bad news is I have no idea who they are or where they live.... so I've been pulling my hair out and slowly going insane for the past 6 days. I guess I could say it's teaching me patience and building character, but honestly it just makes me want to roundhouse kick my computer every time I check email and don't find anything :P

So, since I have no new Italy updates, I thought I'd take a step back today and talk about something that  I think is really important. Eating trash.

Now, I know what you're all thinking

What the beep beep beeeeeep is she talking about? Is she insulting my dietary habits? Is this code for some sort of amazing garbage-themed party?!?

Well, I'm not crazy, I'm sure your dietary habits are fabulous, and no I will not be throwing any dumpster parties in the near future.

What I'm talking about is America and our consumer waste problem.

Now, for all of my American readers out there, ask yourself a question; do you love your country? I would sure hope that all of you said yes, because I think one of the biggest issues that America faces today is the fact that SO many people (me included) take what we have in this country for granted. How many times do you go to the mall, only to complain that your mom won't buy you that 5th t-shirt in addition to your 4 and 3 pairs of jeans? How often do we throw hissy fits because there is nothing to eat in our house, when we are staring at a full pantry and fridge? How many times do we go to the grocery store and buy $100's of dollars worth of food, only to not even eat half of it? This, my friends, is our problem. We have become the products of an individualistic society. Instead of teaching people to share what they have and put the community before one single person, our society praises individual want and glorifies material items as a sign of a happy life. Sadly, this has resulted in a culture today that wastes 1/2 of all that it produces. I'm not just talking about food either. Clothes, fossil fuels, electricity, it is a never-ending cycle of overbuying and then throwing out.

Listen to the cute kitty, he knows what he's talking about

Recently I watched a documentary called Dive! all about our wasteful habits as a country (but it mainly focused on food) and let me tell you, it was pretty eye opening. The filmmaker and his group of friends all decided to live off of nothing but food they picked out of dumpsters. (hence the title hehe) Their slogan is "eat trash" because of all of the perfectly fine food that is thrown out everyday. And although that sounds utterly disgusting, you'd be amazed by what grocery stores will throw away. In order to avoid potential law suits, grocery stores will throw away any produce, meats, and dairy the day before it's sell by date. These people were leaving every night with thousands of dollars worth of meat, produce, and dairy... so much so that they ended up needing to buy a second freezer just to store it all. The main filmmaker tried very hard to talk to grocery store managers, owners, and even CEOs to see if instead of throwing out this still-edible food, they would consider donating it to food banks. None of the stores would even allow him to talk to them, let alone consider what he had to say.

I am NOT condoning dumpster diving in any way, shape or form, because I find it just as nasty as you. However, I am urging you to just stop and think for a minute about how truly blessed you are. Everyday, over 1 billion people worldwide will go without food, and about 10 million of those people live in the United States. Poverty and hunger are very big problems in today's society.. even the richest country in the world can't feed all of its citizens! As the upcoming generation, it is up to us and our ideas to shape America into what it will become. In as little as 10-20 years, it will be our turn to be the proletariat and control what is going on in this country. I say, if we all just paused for a second the next time we were out shopping or getting food, and thought "Do I really need ALL of this?" then we could cut down our waste intake by about 15%. 20% of all waste going into landfills is purely discarded food, and if you think about how much time, energy, and money goes into producing that food, we would be saving so much more than just space for more trash. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that things only start to improve when people actually start caring, and if I can get just one person who read this post to take that 10 seconds to realize that they should care too, then I've done my job.

It's time to stop treating our planet like our own personal snack cabinet/trashcan and start respecting it for the life it gives to keep our lives going.

Ciao tutti!