Our Eating Habits Are Causing a Global Crisis.docVIP

Our Eating Habits Are Causing a Global Crisis 　　Z hou Jinsong, a canteen manager at Central South University, said that students produce over 12 barrels of leftovers on a daily basis―each barrel stands at one meter in height. Zhou’s canteen is just one of canteens on the campus. 　　But canteen waste is just the tip of the iceberg. According to Xinhua News Agency, the food wasted by Chinese people equates to about 50 million tons of grain every year, or ten percent of the country’s total annual grain production. 　　Those wasted food could feed another 200 million people. If that wasn’t bad enough already, some data around the world are even uglier. 　　Food waste, which has become a global issue, serves as a mirror that reflects various cultural and social issues in different countries. 　　In the West, for instance, equates, the belief that it’s good to use a lot of goods and services, is often to blame for food waste. But in China, the eating habit and the ignorance for the food waste issue of the generation of single children are the main causes. 　　New generation 　　Do you know how much food college students, most of which are single children, waste every year? And the number is shocking. 　　As a 2011 survey conducted by China Agricultural University shows, 28.3 percent of canteen food ends up in rubbish bins on campuses nationwide, over two times compared with the national average. 　　“What students waste every year could feed over ten million people,” said Zheng Chuguang, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. 　　Gong Tao from the Youth League at Central South University, has seen a diminishing awareness of food waste on campus over the years. 　　“Students nowadays are well protected by their families and hardly have any concept of how much toils going through in order to provide them with the food they eat,” he said. 　　Face counts 　　According to Yu Changjiang, a sociologist at Peking University, the communal dining tradition and t