In Lebanon, 27% of people are under the poverty line. With the government’s recent savage tax hike, more than 100,000 extra people are expected to drop under that line within a year. The UNDP found out that 49% of people in Lebanon worry about being able to eat regularly throughout the year, and 31% can’t eat healthy, nutritious meals year-round.

FoodBlessed is an awesome Lebanese NGO founded in 2012 with a mission to feed those who would go hungry otherwise. FoodBlessed rescues perfectly edible food that would have been thrown out, from shops, caterers and restaurants and redistributes it to those most in need of food assistance. Apart from this noble, all-volunteer humanitarian mission, FoodBlessed helps raise awareness against the danger of wasting too much food environmentally, and directs those with organic waste, to farmers to be turned into fertilizer, instead of littering haphazard dumps in Lebanon and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

#MaBadda2iste7a Campaign and What You Can Do

Recently, FoodBlessed launched the #MaBadda2iste7a campaign to encourage everyone to stop wasting food, either by over-ordering in the sometimes wastefully “generous” attitude of Lebanese hospitality (3 out of every 9 plates on Lebanese tables aren’t completely consumed), or being too “ashamed” to pack up your leftovers at a restaurant to eat them later, give them to a friend or relative, or donate it to someone searching for their next meal.

The hilarious video shows a couple ashamed to sneakily hide whatever they didn’t finish having at an expensive restaurant, in their bags and jackets. In contrast, another woman on a nearby table just asks for the rest of her meal to be packed, to which the server graciously obliges. You need to start doing this always, because more than a quarter of our garbage is just food we didn’t finish…

Here’s what you can do to help:

• Pack and take your leftovers with you to have later / give to someone you know instead of end up in a garbage dump
• If you are hosting an event, or work at a company, or caterer/supermarket/etc. and have perfectly edible food surplus, please don’t throw it away, and if it’s enough to feed 15 people and up, please contact FoodBlessed and arrange for them to take and redistribute it to those that need it the most.
• Volunteer with FoodBlessed, which counts on a community-driven, volunteer-based model. Get your office to volunteer together one day. Maybe you and siblings and cousins can help cook and serve food for folks who need it the most. With over 400 volunteers, FoodBlessed’s Hunger Heroes has been able to serve more than 250,000 meals in the past 3 years.
• Donate to the Souper Meals on Wheels (SMW) initiative, which is an ingenious idea of a food truck selling pizza to clients at night, to fund their mobile soup kitchen initiative during the day, making them able to go to where they are needed most, instead of those in need of food assistance having to come to them. It’s already at 25% of its 30,000USD funding goal, and just a few dollars from each of us can ensure they reach their funding goal in no time!