Greed

I have just spent a lovely week holidaying in Cyprus.  It was an all-inclusive deal  -  as much food as you could eat and as much alcohol as you could drink. 

What amazed me was the ability of some people to take “all-you-can-eat” literally and ate and drank as much as they could during waking hours.

But it wasn’t the amount that some people can consume that got to me; it was the waste.  Some people gathered plates piled high with food, and not just one plate at a time – the table was filled with them.  Food was shovelled in at such an alarming rate that I am sure the flavours never had a chance to shine through and be savoured.  But as stomachs rapidly filled plates piled high were left untouched and so much food was thrown away.

All over the world children are dying from starvation; in many countries people are suffering from malnutrition; in our own country the elderly living on a pension can’t afford to buy anything other than the basics; outside the hotel cats and dogs were begging and fighting for scraps;  all this whilst so much food is thrown away. 

Now, I do not begrudge anyone eating and drinking what they enjoy and can manage and, believe me, I do enjoy my food as much as the next person.  But I do get upset when people take so much and have no intention of eating it all.  Why not just take one plate of food and then get more if needed – or is that too simple?

I do apologise for my little rant, but it really got to me during my week away.

As Mahatma Gandhi once said “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”