World Food Day, 16 October: "Zero Hunger by 2030"

World Food Day, which was launched in honor of the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), will be celebrated with the theme of “Zero Hunger by 2030” this year. As also announced by FAO, ‘Zero Hunger Challenge’ aims to make sure that all people around the world have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food, and this challenge can only be achieved if only everyone adopts a more sustainable life style, cooperates with others, and exchanges knowledge to make the world a more liveable place.

The easiest method to be employed by each individual to achieve the Zero Hunger Challenge is to manage our food consumption habits with zero waste philosophy, and adopt new models that eliminate waste food and promote food recycling or food sharing. It is paramount for the Zero Hunger Challenge that each individual adopts a healthy and sustainable nutrition model and raises awareness of their own circles about hunger around the world. Increasing food production through energy saving and making it easier for everyone to access food are other important methods that can be adopted to achieve the Zero Hunger Challenge.

Our Undergraduate Gastronomy and Culinary Arts Program students are offered a multi-disciplinary education which is engineered to help them see the adventure of food from earth to plate from the perspectives of agriculture, economy, nutrition and food sciences, cultural heritage, humanities, culinary arts, business administration, tourism, and service sector. Thus, our students step into the sector as well-educated graduates who recognize and appreciate the important role of food sustainability in the fight against hunger.

Food serves as a vast roof that shelters many stakeholders underneath, and it is our mutual responsibility to manage, distribute, and consume the limited global food supply in the best way possible. To this end, we wish all responsible consumers a happy World Food Day, and highlight once again that sustainable food is a fundamental need.

Associate Prof. Özge SAMANCI
Head of the Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts at the School of Applied Sciences