Food And Drink

"‘Jefferson’ is a new hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) cultivar for the in-shell market. It was released by the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station in Jan. 2009 as a replacement for ‘Barcelona’. It combines complete resistance to (EFB) caused by the fungus Anisogramma anomala (Peck) E. Müller with high nut yield, large nut size, and good kernel quality. Compared with ‘Barcelona’, Oregon's leading cultivar, ‘Jefferson’ has smaller trees, higher nut yield, and much higher nut yield efficiency. Pellicle removal ratings are better than ‘Barcelona’, and kernel quality is suitable for use in chocolate products and baked goods, although kernel size is larger than ideal for the kernel market. ‘Jefferson’ is recommended for Oregon's Willamette Valley and other areas with a similar climate."

"... There are three creatures, the squirrel, the , and the bird called the (sitta Europæa), which live much on hazel nuts; and yet they open them each in a different way. The first, after rasping off the small end, splits the shell in two with his long fore-teeth, as a man does this with his knife; the second nibbles a hole with his teeth, so regular as if drilled with a , ...and yet so small that one would wonder how the kernel can be extracted through it; while the last picks an irregular ragged hole with its bill: but as this artist has no paws to hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit workman, he fixes it, as it were in a vice, in some cleft of a tree, or in some crevice; when, standing over it he perforates the stubborn shell."

"Hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) belongs to the family and is a popular tree nut worldwide, mainly distributed in the coasts of the Black Sea region of Turkey, southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France), and in some areas of the United States (Oregon and Washington). Hazelnut is also cultivated in some other countries such as New Zealand, China, Azerbaijan, Chile, Iran, and Georgia, among others. Turkey is the world’s largest producer of hazelnuts, contributing ∼74% to the total global production, followed by Italy (∼16%), the United States (∼4%), and Spain (∼3%). Other countries contribute ∼3% to the total production ... Hazelnut is, therefore, the most popular tree nut in Europe. Several commercial hazelnut varieties are available ..."

"Doughnuts loom as one more horrid substance we shovel into our collective mouths, symbols of Americans' ever-increasing laziness and obesity ... For many of us, doughnuts are a very special treat that has a very special status and we're not going to give it up. Or it's going to be one of the last treats that we're going to give up."

"The first known appearance of 'donut' in print was in a children's book, Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, published in 1900. 'He would just drink a cup of coffee and eat a donut.' The cookbooks of the time used 'doughnut', and so it apparently remained until the 1920s, when Adolph Levitt, then owner of the New York-based Display Doughnut Machine Corporation, sought to promote his automated doughnut machines to foreign buyers, and 'donut' seemed a convenient shorthand. Perhaps his inspiration came from abbreviated spellings on street signs, for example 'D'nuts for sale', or from his many Jewish customers; the Yiddish word donat applies to an unfilled doughnut, as of course were those made by his machines. In America the interchangeability of the two spellings was established by the end of the 1930s, and the use of 'donut' has slowly increased in use there."

"I once asked my mom, "Why were you a socialist and not a communist?" And she said, "Better doughnuts.""

"I hold here a contract between myself and one pledging me his soul for a doughnut — which I delivered ...""

"Shape with a doughnut cutter, fry in deep fat, take up on a skewer, and drain on brown paper. Add trimmings to one-half remaining mixture, roll, shape, and fry as before; repeat. Doughnuts should come quickly to top of fat, brown on one side, then be turned to brown on the other; avoid turning more than once. The fat must be kept at a uniform temperature. If too cold, doughnuts will absorb fat; if too hot, doughnuts will brown before sufficiently risen."

"Doughnuts might have been designed for dunking. A doughnut, like bread is held together by an elastic net of the protein . The gluten might stretch, and eventually even break, when the doughnut is dunked in hot coffee, but it doesn't swell or dissolve as the liquid is drawn into the network of holes and channels that the gluten supports. This means that the doughnut dunker can take his or her time, pausing only to let the excess liquid drain back into the cup before easing the doughnut to the waiting mouth."

"For very good sushi and traditional appetizers, C’est Japon à Suisha is a newly named mainstay"

"More like a fever induced nightmare from eating cheap sushi!"

"In 1835, French author, , and culinary expert Alexandre Dumas travelled to Naples, Italy where he observed the customs and life of the Neapolitan poor. His published work, ‘’’’ (1843), described the infamous lazzaroni of the city, so named because their ragged appearance evoked images of . Dumas declared that the lazzaroni submitted on two foods: watermelon in the summer and pizza in the winter. In describing pizza for his readers Dumas wrote that, at first, it appeared to be a very simple thing: the poor and the working classes ate with various toppings for breakfast, or . Pizza was a kind of bread, but it was not purchased whole; rather, customers bought the size they could afford. There were also many varieties of pizza for sale: pizza with oil, pizza with lard, pizza with es, pizza with tiny fish, pizza with cheese. The variety and popularity of toppings told Dumas more than just what the lazzaroni liked. The ingredients of a pizza told him about the cost and availability of certain foods in Naples."

"Naples is the birthplace of pizza where by most accounts it took its modern form in the , without es—which, though they were first imported to southern Italy in the , probably didn't make it onto pizzas until the . Establishing firm timelines for specific revolutionary steps in pizza history (or for any other food that began as a ) is difficult."

"Here's my basic philosophy for pizza. The more substantial the pizza and its , the heartier the . So, for a big or a thick-crust , I'll go with a chunkier, more gutsy sauce. For a classic , I'll use a thinner sauce. You might think the gold standard for pizza sauce is fresh tomatoes simmering away for hours. I've got nothing against this idea, assuming you can start with outstanding tomatoes. But the fact is that no matter where you live, truly great fresh tomatoes are pretty hard to come by most of the year. It might surprise you to learn that most pizza sauces, including most of the sauces I use in my restaurant, are made from canned tomatoes and tomato products (like crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce) that are simply combined, maybe lightly seasoned and blended with a little , and then used just like that—no cooking involved. In other words, they're not like a typical red sauce for pasta."

"Assuming that carbonated drinks are readily available, with production centers established and the supply of raw materials organised, the factors which appear to influence per capita consumption are: • personal wealth (disposable income) • climatic conditions • availability of an alternative liquid refreshment (drinking water supply) • severity of liquor laws (licensing regulations and drink/drive restrictions)."

"Georgia businessman Asa Candler bought the [sole] rights to Coca-Cola from John Pemberton in 1889. To expand the business Candler began to sell Coca-Cola syrup to wholesalers, who in turn sold it to drugstores. There it was mixed with carbonated water and served at soda fountains. Candler also dreamed up the idea of serving Coke in the shapely little glasses that are now collectibles, and he sold these to wholesalers as well."

"Thomas Henry, a Manchester apothecary, is generally credited to have been the first commercial manufacturers of artificially carbonate water in the late 1770s. He improved and developed Nooth's design to make an apparatus capable of carbonating batches of up to 12 gal (54 l). The product was sold in tightly corked glass bottles."

"When John Pemberton, a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia, began to mix together the ingredients that would later become Coca-Cola, his intention was not to create a soft drink at all but a tonic for headaches. Working in the back of his shop in 1886, Pemberton mixed fruit syrup, extracts of the cola nut and the coca leaf, and other ingredients, in a three-legged brass pot, stirring and heating them until they formed a sticky brown syrup. After sampling his tonic, Pemberton decided to take it to Jacobs' Pharmacy, the largest drugstore in Atlanta, where the manager agreed to mix it with water and sell it at his soda fountain for five cents a glass. Before the new drink could be promoted, however, it needed a name, and Pemberton's business partner, Frank Robinson, suggested "Coca-Cola," because he the two Cs would look good in advertisements. He carefully penned the beverage's name in flowing script—the same that is used today—and the partners placed their first ad for the beverage in the Atlanta Journal, proclaiming that Coca-Cola was "Delicious! Refreshing! Exhilarating! Invigorating!""

"I hope you come to this year’s meeting, which will be held on May 20 in Omaha. There will be only one change: after 48 years of allegiance to another soft drink, your Chairman, in an unprecedented display of behavioral flexibility, has converted to the new Cherry Coke. Henceforth, it will be the Official Drink of the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting."

"This Coca-Cola investment provides yet another example of the incredible speed with which your Chairman responds to investment opportunities, no matter how obscure or well-disguised they may be. I believe I had my first Coca-Cola in either 1935 or 1936. Of a certainty, it was in 1936 that I started buying Cokes at the rate of six for 25 cents from Buffett & Son, the family grocery store, to sell around the neighborhood for 5 cents each. In this excursion into high-margin retailing, I duly observed the extraordinary consumer attractiveness and commercial possibilities of the product. I continued to note these qualities for the next 52 years as Coke blanketed the world. During this period, however, I carefully avoided buying even a single share, instead allocating major portions of my net worth to street railway companies, windmill manufacturers, anthracite producers, textile businesses, trading-stamp issuers, and the like. (If you think I'm making this up, I can supply the names.) Only in the summer of 1988 did my brain finally establish contact with my eyes."

"That the drink was more than a century old and was still not being sold absolutely everywhere hounded Ivester. People close to him claimed that he could not sleep at night if he knew that a store somewhere in the depths of the nation, any nation, was not selling Coca-Cola. Maybe it was the pizza parlor in Omaha that Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and Coke director, visited one day with his grandson, only to report back that it served nothing but Pepsi."

"The start of the rivalry between the Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola companies in the 1940s is legend in business. Less known is that a bigger, more important battle was being fought on the front lines of the cola wars at the same time: the struggle of African-Americans to gain access to white Corporate America. Underdog Pepsi-Cola—under the direction of an astute businessman with a keen sense of his role as a leader—joined forces with a group of striving African-American professionals. Their union made history, and taught American businesses a lesson in the value of a diverse workforce. To the ranks of the unsung civil rights pioneers, add Pepsi's first special-markets sale staff. Instead of schoolrooms or lunch counters, their struggles and victories took place in offices, storefronts, and factory floors. You haven't heard the names of these men in the myriad books written about the cola wars over the decades. They were workers whose talents were hidden in plain sight because of their race; their stories played out before the civil rights revolution. Businesses were just awakening to the potential of a diverse work place and untapped markets."

"SWEETS "The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet,"—Shakespeare. GENERAL DIRECTIONS. Granulated sugar is preferable. Candy should not be stirred while boiling. Cream tartar should not be added until the syrup begins to boil. Butter should be put in when candy is almost done. Flavors are more delicate when not boiled in the candy."

"We fail in turning our little candy company into Mars or Hershey's for the same reason that you fail to get the Nobel Prize in physics and achieve immortality. It's too tough for us."

"Snickers. Milk Duds. Cracker Jack. Lemonheads. Juicy Fruit. Butterfingers. Whoppers. Name your favorite candy and, if you are American, chances are good it came from Chicago. For decades, the city produced about a third of all candy manufactured in the United States. At its peak, the Chicago candy industry boasted more than 100 companies employing some 25,000 Chicagoan.s Some of the biggest players in the industry called Chicago home: Curtiss, Brach, Tootsie Roll, Leaf, and Mars. So did smaller, family-based companies with devoted followings such as fund-raising specialist World's Finest Chocolate and the Ferrara Pan Candy Company, maker of Lemonheads and Atomic FireBalls. Chicago began calling itself the "Candy Capital of America" around the start of the 20th century."

"Although candy was first mass-produced in England in the 1850s, the great candy industry of the early twentieth century was an American phenomenon. Candy as we know it today is a result of the fantastic powers unleashed by the Industrial Revolution, and it was one of the first factory-produced foods in the late nineteenth century. Subsequent developments led to the spread of American-style candy throughout the world, beginning with the empires built by Mars and Hershey in the 1920s and 1930s, and aided by the American military troops who traveled the globe during World War II, there rations packed full of candy, making new "friends" by passing out Baby Ruth bars and Tootsie Rolls."

"Neighborhood drug store and dime story candy counters were commonplace back then. "Five and dimes" such as Woolworth's, J. J. Newberry's, and Grant's usually featured a lunch counter or soda fountain along with a candy content, a convenience that began to fade by the 1960s due to the growing popularity of fast food chains. One of the mainstays of the American candy counter was penny candy, which children would scrutinize for great lengths of time as they tried to get the most satisfaction out of their allowances. Popular penny candy included licorice whips, hard candy sticks, jawbreakers, bubblegum, root beer barrels, caramels, suckers, and peanut butter-flavored Mary Janes."

"But if any one particular country knows its candy, it’s Sweden, whose residents, according to a study by the Swedish Board of Agriculture, eat more per year per capita — more than thirty pounds per person each — than the citizens of any other nation."

"I had every intention of putting the leftover candy in the freezer, but my husband said, "Why? You'll just break a tooth or buy a chain saw." He thinks he's funny. I buy candy only once a year. I know how I am. If it is around, I will not rest until every piece is one. I did not eat the Halloween candy indiscriminately. I used it as rewards."

"With the establishment of tomato ketchup as the most popular and the cheapest English condiment after vinegar and mustard, came commercial competitors such as the enormously popular H.P., O.K., Flag, and many others, more or less successful, and often simply known as 'sauce'. It is mainly through the medium of these sauces, ketchups and relishes that as a nation we consume, indirectly, such immense quantities of spices, pepper and vinegar, although the massive displays of spices and dried herbs now to be seen in giant supermarkets, department stores and self-service provision shops do seem to point to a popular revival of interest in the direct uses of spices rather than through the medium of made-up sauces and ketchups."

"“The biggest tomato producer in the world today?” Smith paused, for dramatic effect. “China. You don’t think of tomato being a part of Chinese cuisine, and it wasn’t ten years ago. But it is now.” Smith dipped one of my French fries into the homemade sauce. “It has that raw taste,” he said, with a look of intense concentration. “It’s fresh ketchup. You can taste the tomato.” Ketchup was, to his mind, the most nearly perfect of all the tomato’s manifestations. It was inexpensive, which meant that it had a firm lock on the mass market, and it was a condiment, not an ingredient, which meant that it could be applied at the discretion of the food eater, not the food preparer."

"Popular stereotypes to the contrary, ketchup was not an American creation. In the beginning ketchup was not thick, sweet, or tomato-based. Early recipes published in Great Britain in the eighteenth century fashioned ketchup from kidney beans, mushrooms, anchovies, and walnuts. British colonists in North America adopted and adapted these early recipes. On both sides of the Atlantic nontomato ketchup consumption expanded and reached its zenith during the latter part of the nineteenth century."

"In contrast with simple liquids such as water, milk, honey, which easily flow as a continuous jet when poured from a vessel, pasty materials such as mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, puree, etc., fall by fits and starts in a wide range of flow rates. This may, for example, be observed when ketchup or mayonnaise is pushed from a tube at a sufficient height over a plate: although surface tension effects are generally negligible because of its high viscosity the material drops as successive droplets of more or less similar size (except at large flow rates). Here we demonstrate that this effect is a kind of flow instability which develops when the weight of material becomes larger than a force due to its yield stress, namely a critical stress below which it cannot flow steadily."

"While passing through the foyer of WFP, I could not avoid a glance at a wall covered with bronze plaques paying homage to WFP staff who had been killed in the field while trying to help starving people. Last time I saw the wall, sometime in 2018, there were 98 names. In times when every inhabitant on Planet Earth is overshadowed by COVID-19, a Nobel Peace Prize to WFP reminds us how precious we are to each other. When people are confronted with a disease that so far cannot be controlled by drugs and efficient health care it makes us realize the importance of ignoring petty chauvinism, narcissism, power games and egoism. It is high time to increase international cooperation and realizing that the Earth is an enclosed, biological sphere, where we for our own survival have to join forces to save both our planet and humanity. No nation can single-handedly combat a pandemic, neither can starvation and pollution be amended without international organisations. So let us rejoice in WFP´s Peace Prize and hope the world´s wealthy nations realize the urgency of supporting the organisation and replenish its funds. Their contributions have so far been insufficient for covering the identified needs of food-insecure populations and WFP´s funding gap is currently USD 4.1 billion and steadily increasing."

"A report prepared by the Global Network Against Food Crises, an international alliance working to address the root causes of extreme hunger, which acts under the auspices of the World Food Program, shows that in 2021 global levels of hunger surpassed all previous records — with close to 193 million people acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance across 53 countries and territories. This represents an increase of nearly 40 million people compared with 2020. According to the report, the outlook for 2022 is for further deterioration of global hunger levels, exacerbated by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which is having severe repercussions on global food, energy and fertilizer prices... the geopolitics of famine is such that millions of lives are held hostage to conflicts far from the nations most in need. Hopefully, the US, Russia and the UN will be able to reach an equitable balance before it is too late."

"This is a very apt recognition for the organization. However, I think that executive director Beasley will also agree that the best circumstance would be that there be no need for an organization like the World Food Programme. What it is doing is heroic because it’s essentially delivering emergency food to populations that have no recourse. But we really need to be asking ourselves: How is it that in the 21st century, when the planet as a whole is producing almost half, again, as much in terms of calories that we need to feed everyone, that there are some people that are in such dire circumstances as he described? So, we must always do that work. We must support that work. We must congratulate the people that devote their lives to do that. But I think a more important calling is actually to prevent the incidence of hunger on the planet, which is entirely doable."

"During assignments as consultant to WFP´s Headquarters in Rome I have listened to people telling me about their experiences from being confronted with thousands of starving people, especially undernourished, sick and dying children. This while they were putting their own lives at risk, being surrounded by murderous armies, bandits and militias. I was also told about their discomfort at being forced to cooperate with politicians who used starving people as pawns in their cynical power games. When asked if they believed in WFP´s mandate and right to exist, they answered that if you have been confronted with the suffering of severely undernourished fellow human beings, you could not even imagine a justification for not trying to help them. “To witness someone dying due to undernourishment is horrible. How can your conscience endure the knowledge that you did nothing about it, while realizing that you could have saved the one who died.” The people I talked to were well aware that the organisation they served had its shortcomings, but they were also eager to amend them. They told me they felt privileged for having been provided with a possibility to ease the suffering of others."

"When you start to get involved with it, it's just like, you know, it's one of those things. You're just hooked. It's not like, 'Oh, I hope we find a cure.' There is a cure. The cure is the food – we have it. It's there. It's available. So, it's really about how we get there, you know? There was a mother that was one of the mothers of a child in the school, and she had just had a baby... I said, 'How are you feeling?' you know, and she was like, 'Ughhh.' And you realize that as mothers, the first thing that we do with our babies is, we would do anything to feed them. And when that goes wrong, I mean, you can't explain it if you don't know what that feels like, if you can't give your baby milk, if you're not producing. It's the fundamental fear, if we cannot feed our children. You know, when you see someone suffering of something that is as simple as a little bit of food, it's just, you know, you can help that. There's no greater kind of contribution, I think, than being able to at least try to help as many people as you can."

"The latest fighting in Yemen has exacerbated the world’s worst humanitarian crisis — where the United Nations warns about 80% of Yemen’s 30 million residents are in need of assistance. World Food Programme director David Beasley said Friday that Yemen tops the list of nations at risk of famine due to war, disease and the climate crisis. David Beasley: “We are now looking, literally, at 2021 being the worst humanitarian crisis year since the beginning of the United Nations. … We have to prioritize, as I say, the icebergs in front of the Titanic. We’ve really got to give priority to famine, destabilization and migration.” Beasley predicts a record 235 million people around the world will need humanitarian aid next year — a 40% increase from 2020. The World Food Programme will receive the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday, International Human Rights Day."

"The World Food Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian organization dealing with hunger and food security, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize today, with its executive director David Beasley warning that the combination of conflict, climate crisis and COVID-19 could push 270 million people to the brink of starvation. In his acceptance speech, Beasley said, “Because of so many wars, climate change, the widespread use of hunger as a political and military weapon, and a global health pandemic that makes all of that exponentially worse, 270 million people are marching toward starvation. Failure to address their needs will cause a hunger pandemic which will dwarf the impact of COVID.”... The executive director, the former South Carolina Governor David Beasley, accepted this year’s Nobel Peace Prize award on behalf of the organization from its headquarters in Rome."

"The numbers are staggering— as reflected in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which has triggered a new round of food shortages, famine and starvation. According to the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP) 690 million people do not have enough to eat while 130 million additional people risk being pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of the year. “Hunger is an outrage in a world of plenty. An empty stomach is a gaping hole in the heart of a society,” (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week pointing out that famine is looming in several countries. Striking a personal note, Guterres said he could have never imagined that hunger would rise again during his time in office as Secretary-General. The WFP singled out 10 countries with the worst food crises in 2019: Yemen, Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria and Haiti. The list is expected to increase by end of this year. WFP Executive Director David Beasley told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council last April: “There are no famines yet. But I must warn you that if we don’t prepare and act now – to secure access, avoid funding shortfalls and disruptions to trade – we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months.”"

"I was out in the middle of Niger. And somebody just comes busting into our meeting, said, 'Nobel Peace Prize! Nobel Peace Prize!' And I'm like, "Well, yeah, wow, who won it?' And they're like, 'We did!' That was the greatest surprise in my life. And wow, wow, wow!"

"What tears me up inside is this. This coming year, millions and millions and millions of my equals, my neighbors, your neighbors, are marching to the brink of starvation. We stand at what may be the most ironic moment in modern history. On the one hand, after a century of massive strides in eliminating extreme poverty, today those 200 million of our neighbors are on the brink of starvation. That’s more than the entire population of Western Europe. On the other hand, there is $400 trillion of wealth in our world today. Even at the height of the COVID pandemic, in just 90 days, an additional [$2.7] trillion of wealth was created. And we only need $5 billion to save 30 million lives from famine. What am I missing here?"

"I have done the usual things you do before an awards ceremony. After extensive high-level consultation, I think I now have the right suit and tie. Carefully folded in my pocket is a long list of people to praise, many far more deserving of praise than I. I am ready. Growing up in a small South Carolina town, I never imagined life would bring me to this moment and allow me to be part of the wonderful, blessed enterprise I have found in WFP, the World Food Programme. I feel pride today, but also a sense of shame I cannot seem to shake. There is failure in this victory. We are having our media moment while hunger still rages. I know that just as WFP receives this coveted award, in a nameless village in Yemen, a skeletal child will be hovering close to death, hooked to a feeding tube. You have, no doubt, seen these children in fleeting images on your television screens. Well, let me tell you those images don’t come close to the reality. I have met these frail Yemeni children, most often in hot and dusty clinics filled with flies. The mothers usually give up on shooing the flies away and sit quietly by their sides. When you enter the room they pray you are the western miracle that has come to save their child. You know you’re not and you could not be more uncomfortable."

"The WFP reflects the best in humanity and the worst. It exists because many of us care and it exists because many of us do not. Sadly, most hunger today is a self-inflicted wound. Six out of 10 of the world’s hungry live in countries at war with themselves – more than 400 million people... Hunger in Yemen is complex – fighting still rages and donor confidence is ebbing, while food prices are up 140%... Millions are food insecure and famine-like conditions have begun to appear. It is, simply put, a country in chaos. But we have brought Yemen back from the brink before... Coping with the bitter politics in Yemen will surely test us. But if we are determined, we can succeed again. We cannot let hunger simply fade into the background in the age of Covid-19. My dream for today is that all the feeding tubes in Yemen will suddenly vanish and those tiny children will go home smiling in the arms of the mothers. What is happening in Yemen now is a shame. We all share that shame and we need to end it together."

"As the World Food Programme accepts the Nobel Peace Prize, we look at the growing global hunger crisis amid the pandemic, the climate crisis and war. In the United States, as many as 50 million people could experience food insecurity before the end of the year — including one in four children. “It’s important to remember that hunger does not always happen because of natural disasters,” says Ricardo Salvador, director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It is often the result of things that we do to each other deliberately.”"

"The World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. As the international community has committed to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition by 2030, one in nine people worldwide still do not have enough to eat. Food and food-related assistance lie at the heart of the struggle to break the cycle of hunger and poverty. For its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict, WFP was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020."

"On any given day, WFP has 5,600 trucks, 30 ships and nearly 100 planes on the move, delivering food and other assistance to those in most need. Every year, we distribute more than 15 billion rations at an estimated average cost per ration of US$ 0.61. These numbers lie at the roots of WFP’s unparalleled reputation as an emergency responder, one that gets the job done quickly at scale in the most difficult environments. WFP’s efforts focus on emergency assistance, relief and rehabilitation, development aid and special operations. Two-thirds of our work is in conflict-affected countries where people are three times more likely to be undernourished than those living in countries without conflict."

"WFP development projects focus on nutrition, especially for mothers and children, addressing malnutrition from the earliest stages through programmes targeting the first 1,000 days from conception to a child’s second birthday, and later through school meals. WFP is the largest humanitarian organisation implementing school feeding programmes worldwide and has been doing so for over 50 years. In 2019, WFP provided school meals to more than 17.3 million children in 50 countries, often in the hardest-to-reach areas."

"The executive director of the World Food Program is calling for the world’s billionaires to step up and help his organization fight hunger... David Beasley said he was supportive of capitalism but added that capitalism without a heart is a disaster. He said that the COVID-19 pandemic and the related government-mandated shutdowns to slow the spread of the virus caused over 100 million people to be on the brink of starvation worldwide... “I need an additional $6 billion this year to reach the 41 million ... that are knocking on famine’s door,” Beasley continued... He specifically mentioned Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and said that he needed just 10% of the $64 billion Bezos’s wealth grew by last year to fund the food program"