As the saying goes, charity begins at home, impact or change is best made from ones immediate environment, how can I  say have made an impact on the world when my impact is not felt in my country? Food is one of the main essentiality of life and it is painful and regretful for me that it is not fully available to majority in my country Nigeria. According to the Global Hunger Index (GHI), 40 percent of Nigerian children under the age of five are stunted in their growth and 25 percent are underweight due to hunger. Am aware of the fact that food wastage is a major problem facing the world, with the developed and well developed nations taking the larger share of it. Food wastage may be a problem other continent of the world but in Africa and especially in my country it is not just a problem it is also a culture. There is a cultural saying that goes among a particular ethnic group in my county called the Yorubas, they usually say ?ajeseku la nfi mo eni yo? which means leftover from a meal is the indication of a satisfied appetite. Also finishing your meal to the last pinch is an indication of gluttony. In homes, restaurants, canteens etc. everyone wastes food and the mentality is the ?it is my money mentality? meaning I paid for the food and I decide how much I want to eat out of it. Nigerians have food to waste and Nigerians are hungry as Global Food index listed Nigeria among the top twenty nations hit by hunger, what an irony. More than 200 grams of food is wasted each day and by a single person, annually 73 kilograms of food could have been saved. I see that saving the amount of food we don?t naturally need  or care can save the appetite of many hunger stricken children or adults, saves us our money and fuel consumption, reduce health and environmental problems, reduce greenhouse gases  (GHG) emission and checks degradation of agricultural lands.

If all of this is so why do I have to keep wasting food, I said to myself, I have to make effort to reduce food print by changing my thinking about food waste and also thinking well about what and how I eat, then making sure am eating well and rightly without wastage thereby saving my money, my environment and the next generation. I first of all had to break away from the cultural influence of wasting food through a behavioral paradigm shift not to waste food.  I make sure I eat what I can finish exactly and if there is excess then I call my friends to come and eat. I make food donations to the less privilege food that has stayed long in storage. Though there is a problem of erratic power supply in Nigeria so refrigeration of perishable foods may not be possible sometimes, but I remembered that I was taught some traditional ways of preserving food such as sun drying, deep roasting of frying and in the case of vegetables I deep their stems in water in spread them in the dew for them to last longer. I realize this is not all about me, but everyone so I try to enlighten, encourage, change the behavioral mind set of other people around. But due to the high level of illiteracy in Nigeria this has been a major challenge. So I enlighten and encourage in their local language and in the simplest way they can understand. To me this is not just a campaign it is a work, lives must be saved, and our children must live not just live must nourished. The world is heating up day by day, climate is changing adversely, if nobody will tell the world I will, If nobody will rise I will tell the world I will, if nobody will try to cry out I will.

Let us chant it, let us enlighten, let us encourage, let us promote, and let us all join hands in the THINK. EAT. SAVE campaign. Youths create the larger percentage of the population and we have the physical strength, thrust, drive and energy let us use it to change the world for good. Finally as my effort to reduce food print I want to say, parents tell your children, children tell your parents, teachers tell your students, youths make it your responsibility, use your activeness in the social media, and finally government enlighten your  citizens and food industries in your nation. Think about right way of feeding. Eat without wastage even to the smallest pinch. Save food, save money save the environment save, save life, save the next generation.