Are you still hungry?
Food and Wealth Consumption in the World (August 3, 2023)
“So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk.” NIV 1 Corinthians, 11:20-21.
In most cases, the Lord’s Supper has evolved greatly from this sad state of affairs. As distasteful as it may be, picture in your mind a satirical cartoon depicting fat, rich, boorish people lounging around a low table gorging on roast chicken and guzzling wine, all the while poorly dressed, thin peasants sit on the floor drinking water and nibbling on small bits of bread. In the background, the artist has drawn the trappings of a first century place of worship. Ouch!
As a modern-day church, we would never abide with such a situation. This may have been one catalyst to the Lord’s Supper being reconstituted as a symbolic rite. This may also be why so many food banks and soup kitchens were first originated by churches.
Yet, this condition still exists. Only the cartoonist now has drawn the names of countries on the backs of the cartoon characters. To keep it relatively simple, let’s just look at some figures for two of these ‘characters’: the United States and Canada. Are these countries at the table or sitting on the floor? (As if you didn’t know.)
How much do the citizens of the two richest countries in the Americas eat? In 2013 the average American consumed 3,682 calories per person per day and the average Canadian consumed 3,494. The average African consumed 2,6241. This means Americans ate 40% more and Canadians ate 33% more that the lowest consuming population group. A healthy diet should average around 2,000 for females and 2,500 for males,2 so the issue appears to be more of gluttony in North America than malnutrition in Africa (on average).
How about all the other comforts of life. Which of the two groups in the cartoon are we outfitted like? Well, the US is the second highest ranked country in the world with respect to the consumption of goods and services on a per-capita basis. Canada is the ninth. The US consumes 29.2% of the world’s goods and services 3, yet has only 4.7% of its population. Canada consumes 2%3 and has 0.5% of the world’s population. Thus, the US consumes 6 times more than its population suggests it should. Canada consumes 4 times more.
Let’s look at this in another way. The US consumes as much goods and services as the 190 lowest ranked countries together, starting from the bottom of the list and counting upward. Canada consumes as much as 127 of these countries. (The total number of countries in the list I used is 204.)3 These two measures do not factor in the population sizes of the various countries but they remain, nonetheless, very eye-opening.
What about accumulated wealth? Americans have 25.4% of the world’s total wealth, while Canada has 1.7%. Remember, the US has 4.7% of the world’s population; Canada has 0.5%.
It is clear that these two countries are at the table and not on the floor. But let’s look a bit closer. These countries are rich enough to be at the table (a dubious honour in this illustration), but are they inviting their entire families? It appears not. 15.1% of Americans (almost 50 million) are at or below the US’s specified poverty limit. In Canada, the 2020 figure was 8.0% (2.9 million people)6. It was suggested in the preceding article that this measure could be viewed as being on the low side, considering other available statistics.
The need for food bank services is significant in Canada, with estimates of one in seven (14%) people being considered food insecure and total visits to a food bank of around 1.5 million in 2022.5 Statistics Canada has reported that 12.9% of the population were moderately or severely food insecure in 20217. Imagine that. These folks (Canada and USA) are gorging themselves at the table while members of their own families are on the floor eating tidbits.
According to the Apostle Paul, certain people at the Lord’s Supper were getting drunk. It isn’t clear which people are doing this. Is it a third group? Do we need to redraw the cartoon? Nonetheless, how do the US and Canada stack up? In consumption of alcohol per person per year, the US ranks 48th and Canada ranks 40th (out of 191 countries in this study).4 Perhaps Canadians and the Americans don’t have the same amount of sorrow that needs drowning as many other countries have.
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1. Ourworldindata.org, Food Supply, https://ourworldindata.org/food-supply
2. Healthlone.com, How Many Calories Should You Eat Per Day to Lose Weight? https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-many-calories-per-day#section1
3. Wikipedia, List of largest consumer markets, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_markets
4. Wikipedia, List of countries by alcohol consumption per capita, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita
5. Food Banks Canada, https://foodbankscanada.ca/hungercount/
6. Statistics Canada, Individual Market Basket Measure poverty status by demographic and economic family characteristics of persons, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810011201
7. Statistics Canada, Food insecurity by economic family type, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310083401