Shweta Saraswat
As I was loading my sixth box of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal onto the conveyor at Costco, I was perturbed to find a small scrap of paper taped to the register stating limits on the number of bags of rice we could buy: five bags per member.Sure, it’s not a huge deal; five bags of basmati go a long way in my house. Still, I never thought I’d see a sign like that in America. I shudder to think what’s going on in less-developed countries.I still have trouble wrapping my head around the idea that while I have a huge fridge and a pantry full of food, there are children literally dying of hunger on the other side of the planet.And we worry about the gap between the rich and the poor in the U.S., forgetting that relative to the rest of the world, our economy is pretty stellar and the overwhelming majority of our population goes to sleep with full stomachs. Whether they’re filled with 99-cent Twinkies or caviar doesn’t really matter.We, as a nation, are spending too much on projects that seem superfluous in the face of world hunger. Who cares if there’s life on other planets when we are struggling to sustain life on Earth? Mars rovers are unnecessary luxuries in a time when evening news channels are plagued with images of children with skeleton limbs and swollen bellies.This doesn’t mean you should cringe with guilt and shame every time you splurge on shoes. It’s the big picture that matters – until we, as a government and as a world force, realize that we have the power to end world hunger, the problem will persist. And no, I’m not running for Miss USA. I really mean it.Meanwhile, I’m still going to keep our third pantry (which happens to also serve as the garage) full of cereal. It’s a guilty pleasure.