"world hunger" news and stories

A Colonel Sanders lookalike gives away chicken. Photo: KFC.

Lunch-goers craving KFC were out of luck at one Louisville, Ky., location Tuesday, as the restaurant closed its doors to the public for two hours. But it was for a good cause.

The restaurant, located in the brand's hometown, was converted into a "World Hunger Relief Kitchen" for two hours, during which employees served Kentucky Grilled Chicken meals to about 110 residents from local shelters, KFC spokesman Rick Maynard told Slashfood. It was the first of several closings planned around the country for the 15,000-restaurant chain.

The event kicked off the company's fund- and awareness-raising activities with World Hunger Relief, including fundraisers, food drives and car washes at KFC locations around the country.

I have a new internet game addiction and it has the quirky benefit of being somewhat food related. You see, I've always been a sucker for words (it's part of why I like this whole writing thing) and when a friend sent me a link to Free Rice a couple of weeks ago, I thought to myself, "gee, that sounds sort of cool." I navigated over and started to play and loved the fact that it pushed my brain a little while also giving me the opportunity to donate rice to the United Nations in order to help end world hunger.

I realize that it sounds sort of crazy to think that playing a vocabulary game on the internet could do anything to help stop hunger, but they make money through advertising revenue and so the longer you are on their page and reloading the site as you play, the more dough they make off their ads. So go challenge your brain and donate some rice to the UN.

Source

If you follow the goings-on of the food blogging world (which, we assume, you do, since you're here with us at Slashfood!), then you know about Menu for Hope, a now-annual "virtual" fundraising auction.

Now, if you don't know about Menu for Hope, well listen up! For the past two years, food blogger Chez Pim has headed this campaign to raise money for charitable organizations, with the help of food bloggers, around the world. This year, the proceeds from the Menu for Hope program will benefit the UN World Food Programme. Food bloggers, restaurateurs, chefs, authors, and good-hearted people have donated all kinds of things -- everything from cookbooks to a coffee date with chef Thomas Keller. The sampling above is a mere taste of the kinds of things that are up for auction. (You can click on any of the individual items to see what I have to say.)

If you'd like to participate, head on over to the post on Chez Pim to check out the offering of prizes, figure out how to donate, and get ready to part with $10. That's small change to you, but to someone else, it's big.

Not all video games are horrible. Just try out the simulation called Food Force, in which players take on six missions to help feed millions of hungry people in a place called Sheylan in the Indian Ocean. 

The game, freely downloadable off of Yahoo, was created by, of all groups, the United Nations. The UN has a sub-organization called the World Food Programme (WFP) whose mission is "halving the proportion of hungry people in the world." The game is mostly educational, representing to players what the day to day tasks of the WFP are: from determining a what a balanced diet for the people of Sheylan would be to figuring out they best way to distribute aid. No guns, no shooting, but there are a few helicopter rides.