Mumbai resident collects airline food to feed needy

A Mumbai resident is doing his part by collecting uneaten food from passenger airplanes and distributing it among the poor and hungry around the city.

In a Facebook post, Vishab Mehta recounted his experience, how he collected all the food wasted by people on flights, Indian Express reported.

According to Mehta, he had requested the flight crew to collect the uneaten food so that he can distribute it among those who cannot afford even a meal a day.

“I’ve been a frequent flyer all my life. I love to travel, be it for business or vacation. But unfortunately only a couple of months back I realised and I noticed that, meals served on the flights are often wasted and thrown away in the garbage, he said in his Facebook post.

Reasons for the same can be:

Some people are flying for the first time and are often too shy to even reply to the ‘English’ speaking crew.

Some people don’t like the taste of the food and often eat a little and leave everything else.

Some are just too diet conscious to eat the unhealthy food that is served and is later dumped into the garbage."

"Now, why am I suddenly talking about this!?

Today I was on AI flight from Mumbai to jaipur that serves free meal to every passenger and I decided that I’m not gonna let any uneaten food to be wasted or dumped into the garbage. Rather, I’ll collect it and feed that food to the hungry.

As soon as the crew served the meal I requested them to help me with a bag so I can personally go and collect the uneaten food. The crew was very supportive and suggested me to be seated and that it’s better if they collected it while taking their food-trays back, separating the uneaten food in a bag simultaneously."

Mehtab also mentioned how much food he collected in total from the flight.

"Almost 70 burger buns, 50 butter pockets and 30 chocolates were collected and given to me before the flight landed.

Only if one can calculate how much food is wasted everyday around the world like this. And only if one can calculate that how just ‘one random act of kindness’ can help so many people fill their empty stomach.

P.S- The food that I collected was distributed among children and grown-ups who can’t even afford a meal a day. Their only way of surviving is begging for food.

It’s a request to all, save food and feed the hungry!”

In a recent study, India was found to be among the countries which are at the greatest risk of food insecurity due to weather extremes caused by climate change.

Researchers led by the University of Exeter in the UK had examined how climate change could affect the vulnerability of different countries to food insecurity — when people lack access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.