The rising cost of food is hurting many developing and undeveloped countries. On May 2nd, US President George Bush made many people angry when he said the food problem was because of India and China eating more food. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, also said the same thing.
One Indian leader said that if Americans lost enough weight to be the same as middle class Indians, many hungry people in Africa could be fed. The Asian Age, an Indian newspaper said that George Bush did not know very much about economics and that the rest of the world needs to speak up to tell Bush that he is wrong.
Even though Chinese and Indians are eating more and better food, they eat much less that the average American. They also pollute much less than the average American. The average American eats 3,770 calories per day while the average Indian eats 2,440 calories per day. The average male office worker needs about 2,500 calories per day. Americans also eat more beef than other countries. It takes a lot of grain to feed beef cattle.
Asian economists say that the US is making the problem much worse. The US is using food to make gasoline and give money to farmers NOT to grow food. The US is also the world’s largest consumer of oil. These economists say that Mr. Bush has received bad information about world economics. They say that the world is changing and that the US must be prepared to change too.
Your Opinion, Please?
Vocabulary Words
calories: food value
cattle: farm animals such as cows
consumer: buyer
economics: the study of buying and selling
economists: people who know a lot about how the economy works
gasoline: petrol
per: each
pollute: to make the air and water dirty
though: similar to but
undeveloped: very poor economy
Tags: obesity
