Thursday, April, 26, 2018
  • Nation
  • World
  • States
  • Cities
  • Business
  • Sport
    • IPL
  • Entertainment
  • Galleries
  • Videos
  • Life Style
  • Specials
  • Opinions
  • All Sections  
    States Tamil Nadu Kerala Karnataka Andhra Pradesh Telangana Odisha
    Cities Chennai DelhiBengaluru Hyderabad Kochi Thiruvananthapuram
    Nation World Business Sport Cricket Football Tennis Other Education
    Entertainment English Hindi Kannada Malayalam Tamil Telugu Review Galleries Videos
    Auto Life style Tech Health Travel Food Books Spirituality
    Opinions Editorials Ask Prabhu Columns Prabhu Chawla T J S George S Gurumurthy Ravi Shankar Shankkar Aiyar Shampa Dhar-Kamath Karamatullah K Ghori
    Today's Paper Edex Indulge Event Xpress Magazine The Sunday Standard E-paper
Home Life Style Food

Hunger in a festive season

By Das Sreedharan  |  Express News Service  |   Published: 15th October 2016 02:30 PM  |  

Last Updated: 15th October 2016 02:33 PM  |   A+A A-   |  

0

Share Via Email

Hunger

Celebrating Onam with a traditional meal in London

Like everything has to transmute for some time, a gorgeous summer’s just slipping away slowly into a wet and grey autumn. Mid-summer heat still persists, and London’s greenery and colours continue to shine even in early October. How amazing, this year has gone by so fast and Oxford Street’s already getting ready for yet another Christmas showdown. Nonetheless, restaurants have best of times as the gloomy weather hits on slowly and people eat well through chilled festive season.

A charity called Felix’s Food for London, a new campaign, is a great thought, and new beginning to gather and redistribute surplus food to tackle food poverty in the city. Needy people in homeless units await Felix vans, and they say “we feel it’s more than just food, it brings hope too”, as fresh food is graciously served at no cost.

Whilst we relish too many food choices, we barely appreciate the waste and our careless approach to food. The Felix project tells stories, like that of Marek Martin from St. Mungo’s homeless charity in Ealing who eagerly waits to see food vans arriving every Friday. Marek’s life now requires healthy food more than just to eat something since he’s diagnosed with cancer, which triggered a spiral of decline that eventually led him to becoming homeless.

Marek used to work in a food factory in Park Royal, which supplied snacks and sandwithces to supermarkets, where he witnessed humongous amounts of food being thrown away due to minor mistakes of shape or size. He recollected, “They wouldn’t even give some of this stuff to staff, instead everything had to fly away in front of my eyes into the trash bins. Thousands of people like me today could have been fed with those rejected healthy food.” Having realised this noble initiative, many food outlets now support the Felix mission and crates of unsold goodies flow through these centres every Friday.

It’s hard to imagine starvation in cities like London, but the reality is appalling: the number of the homeless is on the rise and affordability of food is so much harder in an expensive city. And people who could eat well don’t care enough or have a balanced diet to justify their blessings.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who has been an outstanding crusader for obesity and school lunches, has praised Felix, and is disappointed with the response of middle-class families to his campaign to improve social commitments to fellow citizens. He says, “I'm looking into holiday hunger as 1.37 million deprived children on free school lunches face poverty during holidays. It’s upsetting.”

Amidst this slight gloom in this great city, every South Indian restaurant celebrated Onam in September, the great harvest celebration of Kerala, which commemorates the great ruler Mahabali and his philosophy of “equality, plenty and social justice”. Thousands of people ate traditional meals on banana leaves with the message of being together and sharing happiness and prosperity without prejudice. Fallacy of this great legend goes back to centuries, but the ethos is so valid even today when we forget our duties and compassion to fellow beings. 

The author is a London-based restaurateur, who owns the Rasa chain of restaurants

 

Stay up to date on all the latest Food news with The New Indian Express App. Download now

O
P
E
N

More from this section

Eating more fish could improve your neurological health

Here are some mango recipes that will totally juice up your summer

Spicing up montenegro life

Latest

Liquor available in Kerala prison? Cops to probe

Apollo denies having Jaya's biological samples

Odisha: 5-year-old girl raped by two minors

Kamal Nath appointed as new MP Congress chief

JeM commander among four militants killed in J-K

Kerala: Percussion artist dies at Pooram festival

Modi, Xi to exchange views on strategic issues

Three-year-old girl allegedly raped in MP

Court orders attachment of Mamta Kulkarni 's properties

IPL2018
Videos
'Veere Di Wedding'  (Image Courtesy Twitter @vdwthefilm)
Poster Of Veere Di Wedding Creates Chatter Social Media
Poster Of Veere Di Wedding Creates Chatter Social Media
arrow
Gallery
Traditional pomp and glory and the whopping participation of festival buffs including foreigners marked the conclusion of yet another edition of Kerala's Thrissur Pooram, considered as the mother of all temple festivals, here today. (Express Photo | Albin
Kerala's biggest temple festival Thrissur Pooram in pictures
The trailer of 'Veere Di Wedding', featuring actresses Kareena Kapoor Khan, Swara Bhasker, Sonam Kapoor and Shikha Tilsania, which was released at a grand event today, sparkles with chic chick splendour. (PTI Photo)
IN PHOTOS | Kareena Kapoor Khan, Swara Bhasker, Sonam Kapoor, Shikha Tilsania launch 'Veere Di Wedding' trailer
arrow

Trending

FOLLOW US

Copyright - newindianexpress.com 2018

Dinamani | Kannada Prabha | Samakalika Malayalam | Malayalam Vaarika | Indulgexpress | Edex Live | Cinema Express | Event Xpress

Contact Us | About Us | Careers | Privacy Policy | Search | Terms of Use | Advertise With Us

Home | Nation | World | Cities | Business | Columns | Entertainment | Sport | Magazine | The Sunday Standard