Pope Francis says wasting food is like stealing from the poor

[Allworth]

Regretfully, I must respectfully disagree with Pope Francis here. Sadly, this is all part of a narrative that has been fabricated and promoted by the left in recent years that alleges the West is addicted to unbridled consumerism and materialism. Somehow we in the West are thought to be so rich that we are callously throwing away food that could be given to the poor. And then to make matters worse we are accused of taking food from the mouths of the poor and causing their demise by starvation. Nonsense!

We often hear the slogan: “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.” This is a false. This fallacy is called the fixed pie illusion or the zero sum game. It insinuates that there is only so much wealth in the world and that the rich people have a disproportionate amount. It also infers that the the wealth a rich person has must have somehow been stolen from the mouths of the poor.

Just because I wake up early and have two jobs while my neighbor sits around and does nothing and complains about the rich, am I a villain and a sinner because I have more wealth than him because I am more industrious? Am I stealing from him and taking food of his table because I work harder than him? Of course not.

These are very serious accusations that the Pope is making that fall apart when actually confronted by scientific scrutiny and actual evidence.

Of course nobody want people to be poor. Of course nobody likes to see people not get enough food and to starve. The problem is when someone like Pope Francis blames the West and capitalism for the plight of the poor using questionable theories and faulty logic.

I wonder when the Pope will condemn those atheistic regimes that have managed economies that subscribe to Marxist and socialist theories have literally starved millions of people to death. In those cases we have clear evidence of cause and effect unlike his claims that consumerism has made life miserable for the poor.

Christian countries like the USA and others in the West give billions of dollars of aid to impoverished countries. This aid is in the form of food and medicine. This money comes from the taxes paid by hard working Americans. The West has spent untold trillions sending money to disaster stricken countries over the years.

How about a little gratitude and appreciation for the West and the good Christian people that make this happen?

Every supermarket where I live donates all of their baked goods that expire each day to the numerous food banks in our area. Nothing goes to waste.

I’m really tired of the constant and almost weekly demonization of capitalism and Western society. Capitalism has done more to uplift the standard of living for mankind than any other economic system, yet we have to endure it being trashed constantly by some people that have never run a business or have any clue as to how economics works.

I find it offensive and uncharitable to have to listen to Catholics make accusations like this. I’m tired of having to apologize for living in the West and being part of a capitalist country like the USA.

 

[seekerz]

Regretfully, I must respectfully disagree with Pope Francis here. Sadly, this is all part of a narrative that has been fabricated and promoted by the left in recent years that alleges the West is addicted to unbridled consumerism and materialism. Somehow we in the West are thought to be so rich that we are callously throwing away food that could be given to the poor. And then to make matters worse we are accused of taking food from the mouths of the poor and causing their demise by starvation. Nonsense!

We often hear the slogan: “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.” This is a false. This fallacy is called the fixed pie illusion or the zero sum game. It insinuates that there is only so much wealth in the world and that the rich people have a disproportionate amount. It also infers that the the wealth a rich person has must have somehow been stolen from the mouths of the poor.

Just because I wake up early and have two jobs while my neighbor sits around and does nothing and complains about the rich, am I a villain and a sinner because I have more wealth than him because I am more industrious? Am I stealing from him and taking food of his table because I work harder than him? Of course not.

These are very serious accusations that the Pope is making that fall apart when actually confronted by scientific scrutiny and actual evidence.

Of course nobody want people to be poor. Of course nobody likes to see people not get enough food and to starve. The problem is when someone like Pope Francis blames the West and capitalism for the plight of the poor using questionable theories and faulty logic.

I wonder when the Pope will condemn those atheistic regimes that have managed economies that subscribe to Marxist and socialist theories have literally starved millions of people to death. In those cases we have clear evidence of cause and effect unlike his claims that consumerism has made life miserable for the poor.

Christian countries like the USA and others in the West give billions of dollars of aid to impoverished countries. This aid is in the form of food and medicine. This money comes from the taxes paid by hard working Americans. The West has spent untold trillions sending money to disaster stricken countries over the years.

How about a little gratitude and appreciation for the West and the good Christian people that make this happen?

Every supermarket where I live donates all of their baked goods that expire each day to the numerous food banks in our area. Nothing goes to waste.

I’m really tired of the constant and almost weekly demonization of capitalism aGnd Western society. Capitalism has done more to uplift the standard of living for mankind than any other economic system, yet we have to endure it being trashed constantly by some people that have never run a business or have any clue as to how economics works.

I find it offensive and uncharitable to have to listen to Catholics make accusations like this. I’m tired of having to apologize for living in the West and being part of a capitalist country like the USA.

Methinks thou dost protest too much. The Pope is speaking the exact words Jesus would say if He were among us in the flesh. And BTW, I wasn’t aware that he accused only the West of being wasteful.

If you or I were the single inhabitant of the world, waste of what God has given would still be wrong, but since we are not alone, it’s doubly wrong because it also negatively impacts our fellow men.

And save me the “stop blaming capitalism” spiel, this is a GLOBAL economy - I drop a pebble in my side of the pond and somebody’s boat rocks on the other side. Do yourself a favor and read up on the history of international “aid” and “investment”; it’s not just a story of corrupt governments taking bribes and keeping their people poor: that’s the stereotype which keeps our consciences too drowsy to ask who is paying those bribes (a crime in most countries) and WHY?

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

And save me the “stop blaming capitalism” spiel, this is a GLOBAL economy - I drop a pebble in my side of the pond and somebody’s boat rocks on the other side.

Yes, indeed. The question is not whether one’s choices and actions affect others but how.

If, for example, you plant grass in your backyward instead of tomatoes that will affect the price of tomoatoes in Kenya on a scale similar to the dropping of a pebble. If you watch tv instead of studying for a med school exam then someone may die as a result.

If we limit the question to simply how we can provide for those who are in need, minimizing consumption, even waste, does not figure high on the list. There may be situations where one person’s consumption or waste comes at the expense of another but these are extremely rare in actuality.

On the other hand, it is pretty easy to see that those who consume the most also produce the most and thus provide not only for themselves but also for those in need. Asceticism doesn’t feed the poor.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hmmmmm.

My wife make meals of leftovers, but I found that it’s actually harder to use up all the food when you don’t have kids in the house anymore than when you do. If you don’t eat between meals, which neither of us does, it’s hard not to have some bit of something left over.

And I’ll admit that I sometimes forget that there is a single salmon patty or something in the back of the refrigerator, and after awhile I’m afraid to eat it.

Anything like that goes to the dog or the cats. I know they say you aren’t supposed to give table scraps to pets, but I have done it all my life and never saw that it harmed them. Anyway, it’s cheaper than dog or cat food by the time it goes bad.

Nevertheless, I get the point, and will start searching more diligently for that last leftover piece of sausage, or whatever.

Something perhaps the Pope doesn’t know to talk about, but perhaps should. There is a lot of manufacturing waste in this country. I know a guy who buys perfectly good chicken from chicken processors and processes it into pet food. Yes, they also use the offal, but I have seen whole trucks of breasts, legs and thighs delivered to his place.

You see, food processing companies always overproduce because their customers are really demanding. They have to deliver product exactly to spec, exactly on time, and might add to an order at the last second. So they overproduce, hopefully not too much, but they always do it some. Nothing to do with the excess but freeze it and first try to sell it to somebody else. But “somebody else” usually has contracts with processors too. They try to sell it to employees in “company stores” at huge discounts, and that helps too.

But sometimes they just can’t go anywhere with it, and it ends up at places like my friend’s plant.

Possibly the worst thing, though, is this. My friend decided he could do a good deed if he powdered chicken breasts, legs and thighs into a dry powder, bones, meat, cartilage and all. A massively nutritious thing, and perfectly okay to eat. In fact, the addition of the bones and cartilage made it wonderful for people suffering from malnutrition. Tasty, too. People in poor countries could make soup out of it, perhaps adding a few vegetables or sorghum or whatever, make patties out of it or simply sprinkle it on otherwise poor food.

He wanted to give it away, for free, including shipping. But the government wouldn’t allow him to do it because countries to which he would have sent it objected. They objected because they thought it would be competitive with their own food producers. I guess it would have been, but if their people couldn’t afford the food in-country?

So that was that, and it all goes into pet food.

Another friend learned that he could buy perfectly good cattle from a company that impregnates them with genetically modified eggs. The eggs are modified so the calf the cow bears produces human insulin, which is used to treat human diabetics. Well, the insulin producing company knows people would go nuts if the calves entered the food chain…all that genetic engineering scare, you know. But because of it, they didn’t even want the mother cows to enter the food chain either because people would think the cows were GM even though they weren’t.

So, the cows could only be used for pet food. Perfectly good beef.

I don’t know how much of all that goes on in this country, but I suspect there’s a lot of it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Oh, I should have added something. The vast majority of poultry livers end up in pet food. People eat them, but in nowhere near the quantity that’s produced. So they go into tank trailers and are delivered to people like my friend, who centrifuges the oil out of them as a (powerful) flavor enhancer for pet food, and powders the rest, which also goes into pet food.

100% of the necks, backs, tails go into pet food. Plenty nutritious and human consumable. Could be powdered and given to starving people, but it doesn’t happen because governments won’t allow it.

Weirdly, though, chicken feet go to the far east where they’re considered a delicacy, nasty and unattractive as they are. Hog (um) rectums do too. Not sure why they want them over there, but they do, and pay a staggeringly high price for them. At least those don’t go to waste.

 

[maryjk]

And I’ll admit that I sometimes forget that there is a single salmon patty or something in the back of the refrigerator, and after awhile I’m afraid to eat it.

Anything like that goes to the dog or the cats. I know they say you aren’t supposed to give table scraps to pets, but I have done it all my life and never saw that it harmed them. Anyway, it’s cheaper than dog or cat food by the time it goes bad.

I’m sorry but I refuse to feed my dog garbage. Maybe I should be more diligent about looking for leftovers, but I will not give it to my dog after it goes “bad.”

Your dog or cat may not have gotten sick. Or maybe they have and you haven’t noticed?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m sorry but I refuse to feed my dog garbage. Maybe I should be more diligent about looking for leftovers, but I will not give it to my dog after it goes “bad.”

Your dog or cat may not have gotten sick. Or maybe they have and you haven’t noticed?

I am not surprised I drew fire over what I said, and in no way am I being critical of what you choose to do. But think about it. Did you ever observe your dog bury some animal it killed, then return to it days later when it’s fully “ripe” and eat it? I have seen cats do the very same thing with vermin. Our leftovers aren’t remotely as nasty as that stuff is. They do it because they like it and because their systems are capable of handling it. Their digestive tracts are very short (unlike ours that are longer so we can extract more from vegetation than they can) so they don’t absorb toxins that would kill us.

You will probably like me even less when I say this. I have never had a dog or cat that I would allow inside the house. They live outside in all kinds of weather, no matter what. They run free. Strange to tell, they live very long lives and they don’t get sick. But then, I like mongrel dogs and “found” cats, and maybe they have hybrid vigor.

After you read the following, you’re really going to flip. Do you know that dogs’ sense of smell is at least 100 to 1000 times as keen as that of a human being, depending on the breed? Pet food manufacturers deliberately put small amounts of meat that’s “high” (at minimum) into the pet food, and do you know why? Dogs love the smell of rot. You can’t tell there is that telltale odor in the pet food, but your dog can. Cats and canines are, by nature, as much scavengers as they are killers. They’ll fight a buzzard over road kill if they’re big enough.

NEVER taste test your pet’s food, no matter what it says on the label.

 

[Lucky7]

My parents grew up with “Eat your food. Poor children in Europe are starving.” I grew up with “Eat. Poor children in China are starving.” I felt like telling my own children, “Eat. Poor children in America are starving.” All children hearing this of course silently say, "Please by all means, send this broccoli to “fill in the country.”)

Ha. I’m not sure who said it to me, but I remember someone saying in response to “Eat. Poor children are starving in China”: “When I eat it, there will still be starving children in China.”

Having said that, I agree that we shouldn’t waste food. I just always thought that the above argument really wasn’t all that convincing.

 

[seekerz]

On the other hand, it is pretty easy to see that those who consume the most also produce the most and thus provide not only for themselves but also for those in need. Asceticism doesn’t feed the poor.

Nobody is asking for asceticism, the Pope, quite rightly asked us to be responsible. I see a world of difference between the two…and I’m not sure that you are right about asceticism not feeding the poor either. Seems to me the Apostles had some experience with that.

I’m also mystified as to how you conclude that those who consume the most produce the most - maybe you’d like to enlighten us. On an individual level, I could consume more than my neighbor:

a. because I work harder and make more money
b. because I work less but my job/career is highly lucrative
c. because I inherited a successful farm
d. because I bought a farm and run it well
e. because I make a living stealing
f. because I’m greedy/selfish
g. because I have a larger family
h. because I married money…

The list could go on ad infinitum.

On a larger scale, my country/society could consume more because it makes more or because it takes more. Personally, I don’t believe too many economists understand all the cause/effect pathways that result in one place consuming more and another having less. In fact, given the history of the different theories of economic development, I’m pretty sure many economic experts are quite at sea…

That does not in any way diminish the responsibility to be ethical consumers.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ha. I’m not sure who said it to me, but I remember someone saying in response to “Eat. Poor children are starving in China”: “When I eat it, there will still be starving children in China.”

Having said that, I agree that we shouldn’t waste food. I just always thought that the above argument really wasn’t all that convincing.

You were better at thinking it through than I was.

When I was a little kid, my grandmother said that sometimes when I ate at her house, and in my simplicity, I wondered why she didn’t just send the leftovers to China herself instead of making me clean my plate. After all, they apparently needed it and I didn’t. That was really a head-breaker for me, but I just accepted it.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Nobody is asking for asceticism, the Pope, quite rightly asked us to be responsible. I see a world of difference between the two…and I’m not sure that you are right about asceticism not feeding the poor either. Seems to me the Apostles had some experience with that.

Whether or not anyone is asking for asceticism is a seperate question from whether or not asceticism can feed the poor. Let’s deal with them sepearately.

Note that saying asceticism does not feed the poor, in general, is not the same as saying that it is pointless or that in some specific situation some can aid others by doing with less. (An obvious example is survival on a lifeboat with a limited supply of food.)

I’m also mystified as to how you conclude that those who consume the most produce the most - maybe you’d like to enlighten us. On an individual level, I could consume more than my neighbor:

Let me dispel the mystery: at the national level we can easily see that the societies that you criticized for their consumption are the same that produce in roughly the same proportion. In fact, the US is a net exporter of food. In spite of all those obese Americans with their wasteful buffets, they still manage to feed others. No mystery there.

Now you can obviously find individual exceptions but they are just that, exceptions. Some of the exceptions are entirely appropriate, such as children consuming without producing. Others may be borrowing against future production, such as students. And of course you will find charity (and welfare) cases. After taking account of all that, you won’t have many left to complain about.

That does not in any way diminish the responsibility to be ethical consumers.

You can always stick “ethical” in front of anything to give it gravitas. But my point is that the obsessio with ethical consumption distracts from what is far more significant in terms of feeding the poor: ethical production. Telling a farmer who feeds thousands that he’s eating more than his “fair share” of potatoes is ridiculous. Same for all those who enable the farmer to accomplish that.

 

[Catholic80]

People are not starving because of old lasagna in the back of the fridge or any other food that gets thrown out and wasted. I try to not do this because it is a poor use of my resources but most starvation is due to political oppression and famine.

I am pretty sure the US Government (and other governments ) provides massive amounts of food aid. Various charities kick in too.

We just threw out a whole pie because the crust had some unidentified black stuff on it - what were we supposed to do - eat a possibly tainted pie or go to confession?

I don’t think that is what he is saying. We’ve all thrown out bad food. But the point is, why did it get bad in the first place? Because we made it, forgot about it, and stuck it in the back of the fridge where it went bad. Like it or not, that’s wasteful and we’ve all done it.

I’m not trying to preach, because I don’t think I go a month without cleaning out the fridge to find all the bad stuff in there. I’m guilty as charged. But, every time I throw something out, I feel bad about it. I’m trying to get better and eat the food the leftovers for a few days strait rather than making something new, and not forgetting about food items.
We do waste a lot of food, myself included, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try harder not to. Children are dying from starvation, and I leave something because it doesn’t taste good the next day??? Or, I don’t want to take the time to save the leftover food on my plate and eat it later??? That’s not good. And it’s a bad habit that much of our 1st world society has gotten into.

Someone else pointed out that it’s oppressive governments and famine that cause people to starve, and they are right. But, whether people are starving or not isn’t the question here. It’s our sense of gratitude/ingratitude towards what we have. Just because we have in surplus doesn’t mean we need to expend in surplus.
Each day that we eat is a gift! Knowing others do not have that same privilege should give us a sense of overwhelming gratitude and humility. Why do I get to eat when others do not?

 

[Ridgerunner]

One of the things we don’t really know is what the Pope had in mind, exactly, when he said what he said. It makes sense that he might have intended that we not throw away half a roast just because we don’t want to eat leftovers. People do that.

But another thing could be part of the thinking. I recall reading in Dante’s “Inferno” that he had people in hell for “wasting”. Hell seemed a bit strong to me for perhaps throwing a crust of bread in the trash. But in the context of his time, it made total sense. The very wealthy used to hold banquets on the Arno River, for instance, on golden plates. At the end of the meal, they would throw the plates into the Arno just to show how carelessly rich they were. Sometimes rural magnates would torch peasant cottages along the roadway to light their guests’ way to a dinner.

That sort of thing. I don’t imagine people throw gold plates into the Arno anymore, but I don’t think we really know the scale of waste that might go on in lives other than our own.

Perhaps the Pope intended for us to take it at our own levels. If, say, I hunt down that bit of yesterday’s sausage and make a sandwich of it for my lunch WITH THE THOUGHT AND INTENTION of thinking through what I saved by doing it and gave that money to a charitable organization…sort of like “year round rice bowl collection” instead of just in Lent, perhaps that’s his intent. On the other hand, there might be people who pour half a bottle of Moet et Chandon down the drain after a party and toss out a Wagyu roast beef filet just because they think eating leftovers is beneath them.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

One of the things we don’t really know is what the Pope had in mind, exactly, when he said what he said. It makes sense that he might have intended that we not throw away half a roast just because we don’t want to eat leftovers. People do that.

But another thing could be part of the thinking. I recall reading in Dante’s “Inferno” that he had people in hell for “wasting”. Hell seemed a bit strong to me for perhaps throwing a crust of bread in the trash. But in the context of his time, it made total sense. The very wealthy used to hold banquets on the Arno River, for instance, on golden plates. At the end of the meal, they would throw the plates into the Arno just to show how carelessly rich they were. Sometimes rural magnates would torch peasant cottages along the roadway to light their guests’ way to a dinner.

That sort of thing. I don’t imagine people throw gold plates into the Arno anymore, but I don’t think we really know the scale of waste that might go on in lives other than our own.

Perhaps the Pope intended for us to take it at our own levels. If, say, I hunt down that bit of yesterday’s sausage and make a sandwich of it for my lunch WITH THE THOUGHT AND INTENTION of thinking through what I saved by doing it and gave that money to a charitable organization…sort of like “year round rice bowl collection” instead of just in Lent, perhaps that’s his intent. On the other hand, there might be people who pour half a bottle of Moet et Chandon down the drain after a party and toss out a Wagyu roast beef filet just because they think eating leftovers is beneath them.

This is actually what I thought would be interesting to discuss here.

The context of the comments was the pope’s a speech on “United Nations World Environment Day”. In that sense, he was just joining a conversation that is steeped in hand-wringing about consumerist waste. And one might dismiss it as just another effort at “reaching out.” Except that he’s, well, the pope, and as such his words carry weight.

The question of why the pope would focus on ethical consumption as opposed to ethical production is at least partially answered by the context, then. This is a day set aside for castigating consumption.

But the history of obsession with consumption has a long history and it would probably be more accurate to say that environmentalism is simply the modern form of it. Lust, greed and glutony, after all, are three of the seven deadly sins related thereto.

But sloth is also a deadly sin. When was the last time you heard anyone in the Church utter the least bit of criticism for sloth?

The reality is that it’s far easier to visualize glutony as stealing from the poor than sloth because we can imagine the gluton and the starving man sitting at the same table and the glutton taking food from the starving man. No wonder the pope called this stealing from the poor. To visualize how sloth might “steal from the poor” requires imagining all the things that the slothful persom might have created but didn’t.

But if we have learned anything from economics over the last few centuries it is that industrious societies produce more than enough food to feed the poor while “fair” societies end up starving everyone equally.

 

[Fairwinds]

here’s another way to waste food:

Are Biofuels Causing Food Riots?

The New England Complex Systems Institute has become the latest organization to charge that by turning almost 50 percent of our corn crop into auto fuel, America is causing food shortages in the poorer nations of the world. The UN Food and Agriculture Association has been saying the same thing for ten years, calling biofuels “a crime against humanity.” But this time the authors are not simply making the accusation. They are providing correlations to back it up.

 

[seekerz]

Whether or not anyone is asking for asceticism is a seperate question from whether or not asceticism can feed the poor. Let’s deal with them sepearately.

Note that saying asceticism does not feed the poor, in general, is not the same as saying that it is pointless or that in some specific situation some can aid others by doing with less. (An obvious example is survival on a lifeboat with a limited supply of food.)

Let me dispel the mystery: at the national level we can easily see that the societies that you criticized for their consumption are the same that produce in roughly the same proportion. In fact, the US is a net exporter of food. In spite of all those obese Americans with their wasteful buffets, they still manage to feed others. No mystery there.

Now you can obviously find individual exceptions but they are just that, exceptions. Some of the exceptions are entirely appropriate, such as children consuming without producing. Others may be borrowing against future production, such as students. And of course you will find charity (and welfare) cases. After taking account of all that, you won’t have many left to complain about.

You can always stick “ethical” in front of anything to give it gravitas. But my point is that the obsessio with ethical consumption distracts from what is far more significant in terms of feeding the poor: ethical production. Telling a farmer who feeds thousands that he’s eating more than his “fair share” of potatoes is ridiculous. Same for all those who enable the farmer to accomplish that.

I see you still fail to provide a source for your claim that the greatest consumers are the greatest producers.

Regardless of the economics of it, gluttony is still a sin. So, is waste of what God has given us.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I see you still fail to provide a source for your claim that the greatest consumers are the greatest producers.

Here is what you said previously:

Also as a nation, taking more than our share because we have a trade advantage…

Now it is a trivial matter to show that “as a nation” we produce almost in exact proportion to our consumption. But what is the point of marshalling evidence for that obvious fact when you have already demonstrated that you think the valuation of produced goods is a result of an unfair trade advantage. And I’ll note in pasing that you have not offered any evidence for your attribution of taking “more than our share” to trade advantage.

However, as it happens, we had a natural experiment in the 20th century. The western nations opted for capitalism (relatively speaking) and the Soviet block for a “fair” distribution of consumption. There was negligable trade between them so the poverty and eventual collapse of the Soviet system cannot be attributed to any unfair trade advantage that the west held. The west consumed more because it produced more.

Regardless of the economics of it, gluttony is still a sin. So, is waste of what God has given us.

It is one thing to say that gluttony is a sin. It is another thing to elevate it as the cause of poverty and equate waste to stealing from the poor. I don’t for a minute believe that the pope is a shallow thinker but he is certainliy pandering to shallow thinkers. That is a shame.

As I noted above, what we can learn from economics is that the waste which has the greatest impact on the situation of the poor is not wasteful consumption but wasteful sloth, wasting the gifts that God has given us.

 

[gracepoole]

I am pretty sure the US Government (and other governments ) provides massive amounts of food aid. Various charities kick in too.

The U.S. fails to meet the U.N.'s recommended donation level each year. Back in the 70’s, developed countries agreed to give 0.7% each of their gross national product. Since then, the U.S. has often been one of the worst in meeting this goal. And in 2011, the combined aid provided by these countries still didn’t even equal half of the amount promised. Charities are funded by us – if we don’t give, they can’t give.

It is an interesting Rorschach test. You have one group of people who are well fed and another group of people who are not. One explanation is that the people who are well fed are doing something right and the ones who are not well fed are doing something wrong. Another explanation is that the people who are well fed are the cause of the lack of food for the other.

Which is the better explanation of poverty? Who needs to change in order that the poor may be fed?

There’s often a stunning resistance to changing western lifestyles to provide enough for those in poverty. Witness:

Regretfully, I must respectfully disagree with Pope Francis here. Sadly, this is all part of a narrative that has been fabricated and promoted by the left in recent years that alleges the West is addicted to unbridled consumerism and materialism. Somehow we in the West are thought to be so rich that we are callously throwing away food that could be given to the poor. And then to make matters worse we are accused of taking food from the mouths of the poor and causing their demise by starvation. Nonsense!

We often hear the slogan: “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.” This is a false. This fallacy is called the fixed pie illusion or the zero sum game. It insinuates that there is only so much wealth in the world and that the rich people have a disproportionate amount. It also infers that the the wealth a rich person has must have somehow been stolen from the mouths of the poor.

Just because I wake up early and have two jobs while my neighbor sits around and does nothing and complains about the rich, am I a villain and a sinner because I have more wealth than him because I am more industrious? Am I stealing from him and taking food of his table because I work harder than him? Of course not.

These are very serious accusations that the Pope is making that fall apart when actually confronted by scientific scrutiny and actual evidence.

Of course nobody want people to be poor. Of course nobody likes to see people not get enough food and to starve. The problem is when someone like Pope Francis blames the West and capitalism for the plight of the poor using questionable theories and faulty logic.

I wonder when the Pope will condemn those atheistic regimes that have managed economies that subscribe to Marxist and socialist theories have literally starved millions of people to death. In those cases we have clear evidence of cause and effect unlike his claims that consumerism has made life miserable for the poor.

Christian countries like the USA and others in the West give billions of dollars of aid to impoverished countries. This aid is in the form of food and medicine. This money comes from the taxes paid by hard working Americans. The West has spent untold trillions sending money to disaster stricken countries over the years.

How about a little gratitude and appreciation for the West and the good Christian people that make this happen?

Every supermarket where I live donates all of their baked goods that expire each day to the numerous food banks in our area. Nothing goes to waste.

I’m really tired of the constant and almost weekly demonization of capitalism and Western society. Capitalism has done more to uplift the standard of living for mankind than any other economic system, yet we have to endure it being trashed constantly by some people that have never run a business or have any clue as to how economics works.

I find it offensive and uncharitable to have to listen to Catholics make accusations like this. I’m tired of having to apologize for living in the West and being part of a capitalist country like the USA.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

The U.S. fails to meet the U.N.'s recommended donation level each year. Back in the 70’s, developed countries agreed to give 0.7% each of their gross national product. Since then, the U.S. has often been one of the worst in meeting this goal. And in 2011, the combined aid provided by these countries still didn’t even equal half of the amount promised. Charities are funded by us – if we don’t give, they can’t give.

Americans gave $298.42 billion to charity in 2011. That’s a lot. More is obviously better but I’m not sure what the UN has to do with that. (Is the UN now our magesterium?) And that figure doesn’t include all the charity that doesn’t flow through formal institutions nor does it include all the funds flowing through government.

There’s often a stunning resistance to changing western lifestyles to provide enough for those in poverty.

Among the points of discussion here is who needs to change and how. Even if we limit ourselves stricly to the question of how to feed the poor (and that is not the only moral issue), it is still the case that food waste in one country is not the cause of poverty in another anymore than wasting water in the Amazon is the cause of thirst in the Sahara.

People who are seriouos about feeding the poor ought to take a greater interest in what works and what doesn’t. The lack of seriousness is disheartening.

 

[gracepoole]

The U.S. fails to meet the U.N.'s recommended donation level each year. Back in the 70’s, developed countries agreed to give 0.7% each of their gross national product. Since then, the U.S. has often been one of the worst in meeting this goal. And in 2011, the combined aid provided by these countries still didn’t even equal half of the amount promised. Charities are funded by us – if we don’t give, they can’t give.

Americans gave $298.42 billion to charity in 2011. That’s a lot. More is obviously better but I’m not sure what the UN has to do with that. (Is the UN now our magesterium?) And that figure doesn’t include all the charity that doesn’t flow through formal institutions.

The U.N. is being referenced here because it provides figures on the aid levels of various governments and because developed countries agreed as part of the U.N. to provide a specific minimum level of aid. Which they have consistently failed to meet.

What are “formal institutions”?

I certainly agree that there are multiple factors that combine to create world poverty. I simply don’t think it’s wise to assume that “my government will take care of this problem.” Governments clearly don’t.