Non-Perishable Food Banks

The ways food banks run today are terrible for such a terrible issue. World hunger is one of the biggest issues the human race experiences. One in nine people in the world, or 795 million people, out of the 7.4 billion people go hungry every day because they do not have enough to eat. Every 10 seconds, a child dies from hunger-related diseases (The Hunger Project, 2017). The way lots of organizations try to help these people in need is through food banks. A food bank is a non-profit, charitable organization that distributes to those who have difficulty purchasing enough food to avoid hunger. Food banks are inefficient in aspects of time, money, and effort because so much more can be done through donations of money instead of non-perishable

The issue with non-perishable food items is that they are full of unhealthy chemicals and they do not meet basic nutritional standards. People who donate to food banks should consider the healthiness of the food they are giving away. Therefore, food banks should take in financial donations and nothing else. Throughout this essay, many points will be discussed that prove the huge inefficiencies that happen when donating non-perishable items to food banks.

To begin with, food banks deal with inefficiencies in regards to time. The time it takes for a person to go to their local grocery store, buy non-perishable items, and drop them off to the food bank can be argued to not be a waste of time. From a consumer standpoint, a consumer can buy food bank items when they are doing their weekly grocery shopping. It may be seen as efficient since the consumer did not take any extra time from their lives to buy foods to donate. However, after it is dropped off, that is where the real concern begins. Once the food is dropped off, it has to be sorted with the rest of the donations, packed into boxes, and then transported to multiple areas in the warehouse. Another issue arises though, as the food needs to be further transported from the

Back in the day, when money did not exist, humans used to exchange goods. For example, in a small town, a farmer would trade five pounds of vegetables with a butcher for 2 pounds of meat. After the introduction of money, the way humans trade goods and services has changed tremendously. Capitalism may have its issues, but the beauty of it is how the human race is tremendously advancing in a lot of new technologies, be it in technology, health, agriculture and more. The power of money is that it can do a lot of things. And now that money is digital, wonders can happen. Non-perishable foods cannot. If a person is not hungry, a can of tuna is useless for them. If a person has a toothbrush, an extra one given to them by a food bank employee renders useless. But if someone is given a $20 bill, that person can do whatever they want to. They could buy anything, whether it is a want or need. The same thing can be said for food banks. Food banks need money, not food. It is inefficient to donate non-perishable foods to food banks because they will never get exactly what they want when they rely on strangers to donate. Let us say a food bank wanted half a ton of granola bars and one ton of canned tuna donated. They could ask for those items specifically, and they could get it, but it probably would not meet their quota. So now, their plans are ruined. They need to rely on monetary donations in order to buy the rest