Dine & Cook | Alternative food journalism

Food has become another way we identify who we are.

"I only eat organic dairy products."
"I try to eat as local as possible."
"I'm a big supporter of the meatless Monday movement."
"I only eat fish that is proven to be sustainable." 

The food world is filled with these statements; it seems we're constantly moving from one trendy topic to the next-- all in search of a "foodie" identity.

This is all good and well, it can even be fun and educational.  This is, however, pushing the boundaries of food debate and, these days the debate is bordering on the sensationalistic.  The tipping point for me: an actual article in another popular food publication that ran the headline "The Salmon Holocaust."

As loaded as the word "holocaust" is-- and frankly downright disrespectful to use outside the context of World War Two-- if we must use it to describe something happening in the food world, it would be to highlight the fact that hundreds of thousands of people die each year due to the simple fact that they do not have enough to eat.

The majority of us have forgotten, or just have chosen to ignore the fact, that there are 1 billion people on this planet who don't have enough to eat.  Let's put this in perspective, nearly one out of six people in the world are hungry.

The United Nations wants us to be mad as hell over this, and they're right-- we should be.  We need to tone down the discussions about organic vs. natural, sustainability, etc and introduce another topic to our food conversations-- hunger.

It is a privilege to eat what we want, where we want and how often we want.  And it is certainly a privilege to be able to partake in the latest epicurean trend.  For those who are hungry a bowl of rice is just as delicious as a meal from the kitchens of Thomas Keller.

Many of the world's top chefs have quietly gotten the message, donating their time, resources and celebrity to the cause of combating hunger.  This is nothing new. Old world chefs for decades, if not centuries, donated their leftover meals and food to soup kitchens.  This tradition has helped filled the empty stomachs of citizens in Paris, Rome, Madrid and the like for generations.

"Foodies," it seems, have been slower to the game.  To a casual observer, it looks like they only care about fighting hunger if it means that they can attend a fancy fundraiser catered by a celebrity chef.  And then once there, hunger is an afterthought. We're more interested in the amazing main course served and what such and such celebrity was wearing.

The problem with hunger is that it's hidden for the most part in the Western world.  When people think of starvation they picture scenes from Ethiopia, they don't picture the little boy or girl in suburban America who doesn't get enough to eat.