Do not waste your food. Finish it, even if it isn’t to your taste, as long as it can still nourish you. Be grateful for what is on your table, and teach your children to appreciate every meal. Behind every grain of rice and every slice of bread lies the unseen labour of countless hands especially the farmers who toil under the sun and rain so that we may eat. Even wealth cannot feed a hungry soul. Money is only paper when there is no food to buy. I have been following the situation in Haiti, a country now facing one of its worst hunger crises in recent years. 

As of 2024, the IPC reports that more than half the population around 5.7 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity, especially in remote areas. It was during a similar crisis in 2008 that the world first learned of galette de boue; mud cookies made from dirt, salt, oil, and water, left to dry under the merciless sun. These were never food by choice, but by desperation, a fragile means to quiet the pain of hunger when real food was out of reach. Let us be thankful that our children do not have to endure such heartbreak just to silence their hunger.

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

October 21, 2025