Thanks to an anti-obesity law passed last year, Japanese salarymen across the nation are pulling up their shirts to have their guts measured… and if they’re overweight, they face consequences.

If you’re male and your waist is over 33.5 inches, you’re considered fat. If you’re female, the limit is 35.4 inches. Thanks to those burgers, you now have to attend mandatory counseling with a physician. For every grotesquely obese employee like yourself, your company gets hit by a fine; ergo, they strongly encourage you to lose weight with gifts of gym memberships and pedometers.

The goal of all this is to prevent Japan from experiencing an obesity epidemic like so many other industrialized nations. The theory is the less overweight people you have, the lower health care costs will be across the board. Although I think the waistline restrictions are a bit strict (how is a six foot tall foreigner supposed to have a 33-inch waist?), this seems like a good idea overall. America could certainly benefit from less junk in the trunk… but would such a system work here in the UK? Source: Current.com

FareShare has been operating since 2004 and today has 12 locations around the UK. Established in 1994 as a project within the homelessness charity Crisis, FareShare aims to help vulnerable groups, whether they are homeless, elderly, children, or other groups in food poverty within our communities.

FareShare helps to improve lives:

In 2008/09, the food redistributed by FareShare contributed towards more than 7.4 million meals.
The FareShare Community Food Network has over 530 Community Members across the UK receiving food, training and advice.
Every day an average of 29,000 people benefit from the service FareShare provides.
As well as redistributing food, FareShare provides a programme of education and vocational training opportunities – the Eat Well Live Well programme.

FareShare Helps The Environment:

The redistribution of food by FareShare minimises surplus food going to landfill.
This redistribution of food helped businesses reduce CO2 emissions by 13,950 tonnes in 2008/09.

FareShare’s New Vision:

Open a further 18 depots, bringing the total number to 30.
Provide nutritious food to 2,500 community organisations and charities.
Redistribute 20,000 tonnes of food per year.
Everyday support 100,000 vulnerable people through food provision; as well as provide training and education through our Eat Well Live Well programme.
Offer 6,000 volunteer opportunities.

http://www.fareshare.org.uk/

On an annual basis, Macmillan Cancer Support hosts the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning inviting people globally to participate by getting together with friends and family having coffee, cake and anything else that encourages others to raise money for the work Macmillan carries out. With over £6.5million raised in 2009 to help the charity’s work, 2010’s coffee morning looks set to be even bigger. Macmillan have tapped into an idea that globally, everyone can relate to (drinking coffee) to raise money and raise their profile. A day of tea drinking throughout the UK for instance, could be another idea which has scope to reach everyone, if another charity was to implement it. You can check out the Flickr group of Macmillan’s coffee morning here and be sure to check out the rest of the information on Macmillan’s website here.

Usually, when ordering food in a restaurant, you get the choice of which food you eat, but never how much ends up on the plate. Now, a new chic restaurant called SML opened in August 2009 in Times Square at Causeway Bay in Hong Kong and it introduces an innovative size-orientated dining experience. From bite-sized appetizers to large plate main courses, you can always find something you want to try on the menu with the right size!

SML offers the total freedom of choice, except the numbers of choices of Mediterranean food, everything on the menu are in Small, Medium and Large size, so no matter you feel like sharing with a large group of friends or just a casual dinner with your lover, this option is a perfect fit. Different European style dishes will be served with lovely presentation. The wine list features 38 various wines. Some of them are available from the automated wine dispenser. This wine serving system provides the choice of 15mls, a half or full glass of wine, which allow guests to sample different wines and this system surely goes well with this choice-driven restaurant. You can find more out about SML and the new dining concept it has created here.

In the Summer and Autumn 2007, thousands of people living and working in the town of Middlesbrough, Tees Valley participated in a project to increase local food production and reduce food miles. Along the way, young, old, rich and poor worked together, growing food and realising new relationships with local food producers and existing growers in the town and its surrounding area. Their goal has was to pioneer a new sustainable future – not just for Middlesbrough but also for other post-industrial communities across the UK

They were also working to raise awareness of the benefits of and opportunities for growing and securing food for our towns and cities. Local growers need to be connected to existing and new markets, a new relationship needs to be struck between urban and rural, and communities need inspirational and educational ‘soil to plate’ experiences.

Middlesbrough Council and David Barrie, senior producer for Dott 07, have led the project, working in close partnership with Groundwork South Tees, Middlesbrough Primary Care Trust, more than 15 primary and secondary schools, many local community and voluntary sector organisations, and existing allotment growers in the town. It was driven by Bioregional’s commitment to the concept of one planet living, developed in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund and endorsed by the Minister of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The groups from the schools identified locations in which to grow food and the produce they would like to cultivate. Then, in May 2007, about 1,000 people began growing fruit and vegetables in containers at locations across the town. They received support from local horticulturalists, allotment growers, farmers and food producers. Between June and September, this new team of urban farmers brought their harvested ingredients to a ‘kitchen playground’ event: three week-long blocks of activity in which people prepared, cooked and ate dishes based on ingredients that they had grown themselves. The frenzy of food production culminated in September in a ‘Meal for Middlesbrough’ – a banquet for 1,500 in the town’s main square. Participants in the growing project created the menu from produce they’d harvested. Local producers provided meat and vegetables to supplement the meal, which was cooked and eaten in the open air.

Finally, several containers grown in Middlesbrough were presented at the Dott 07 Festival and participating groups prepared food for visitors in a special-edition kitchen playground.

A fantastic sustainable idea which involves everyone from the local community and has endless amounts of benefits.

http://www.dott07.com/go/food/urban-farming

As discussed earlier about people food sharing during the Northeast Blackout in 2003, The Big Lunch is an initiative to get everyone in the UK to stop what they are doing for one moment and sit down and have lunch with their neighbours. They have wanted to put a smile back on the faces of Brits and strengthen communities. The first Big Lunch took place on the 19th of July this year and the original idea came from the Eden Project which encouraged people to get together to solve problems and share things as a community.

Most of us are shy, many of us lead single lives and even when we are together often go our own way. We all know about the problems in our society and don’t need to be preached at. But inside almost everyone there is a notion that, despite our differences, the ties that bind us are important. The shared enjoyment of eating together, laughter, play, music and conversation bring us together and for all the fact that we are so fabulously different in our outlook and experience on many things, we know a simple truth – together we are strong. Wouldn’t it be great if for just one day we remind ourselves about all that is good about us and bring about a moment that ignites a spark. It may be tricky, it may feel slightly uncomfortable to start with. It takes a bit of courage to stop being a stranger. But think of the prize – to be able to walk down the street and into the wider neighbourhood and realise how many good people there are: people who, acting together, can create a real sense of community – a word that in Latin means ‘together, in gift’.

Individual countries are famous for their signature food dishes, England/Fish and Chips, Japan/Sushi, Italy/Pasta, Switzerland/Chocolate so wouldn’t it be great if one day a year the concept of The Big Lunch was brought into action in different countries as well them exporting their signature foods to other countries. Similar to culture festivals, so for example in Japan, one day a year, there would be an England/Fish and Chips festival. I could see that being very interesting to say the least.

http://www.thebiglunch.com/

After speaking to my friend from Toronto, she explained to be about The Northeast Blackout of 2003. It was a massive widespread power outage that occurred throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Ontario, Canada on Thursday, August 14, 2003, at approximately 4:15 p.m. EDT (20:15 UTC). At the time, it was the most widespread electrical blackout in history. The blackout affected an estimated 10 million people in Ontario and 45 million people in eight U.S. states.

“A few years ago we had a city-wide blackout that lasted two or three days.  There was no electricity, they had to give food away at the stores because it was going off. People who were neighbours for several years got together in their backyards and shared dinner!  It was amazing. I think this sort of thing should happen once a year on purpose!  We could all get together with a common thread.  Not to mention, it saves so much on the environment.”

If you think about the amount of food you waste, it could be easily shared or reused again, for example as compost heaps. The Ontario blackout forced people to share food, and while not new, food sharing should be publicised a lot more in my opinion. Maybe an ‘organised’ blackout could be arranged monthly, where people have to switch off their fridges in their communities and get together to share all the food.

Brands such as Pret A Manger have already tapped into food sharing for good causes with their Pret Charity Run scheme. They distribute uneaten food at the end of the day from all of their London stores to homeless people around the capital. Over 12,000 meals are distributed every week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003

http://www.pret.com/about/charities.htm

Sir Paul McCartney along with other celebrities ranging from Sheryl Crow to Chris Martin are all currently backing ‘Meat Free Mondays’. As well as reducing animal slaughter, the hope is to slow global warming. Can such a small thing make such a difference to the rest of the world? ‘Meat Free Monday’s’ are seen as the ‘most attractive’ way for individuals to reduce their carbon emissions. We’ve all talked about other ways of reducing our carbon footprints in terms of food and drink, such as people buying local produce to help local traders and reduce costs and emissions of importing food, but maybe by simply adjusting our diets for one day a week, we can make a real difference, McCartney seems to think so.

After all, he got the idea from Belgium, so perhaps to work with different cultures, individual supermarkets in countries can themselves promote this one day a week idea. Fish in Japan or stopping exporting wine from Italy as examples. One day a week, each country has a something free monday.

Another quick point that can be raised from this as well is the role of celebrities for initiatives like this. If your favourite celebrity was promoting something, would you all of sudden develop a passion for it, or would you just ignore it? Do celebrities have the right to preach about problems or should they just be treated as everyday people who want to make the world a better place? Animal Aid features Meat Free Mondays here.

http://www.supportmfm.org/