Food For Thought

The Independent on Friday had some fascinating figures related to The Cost of Christmas. Apparently, in the UK alone, we will have spent £30 bn celebrating Christmas this year, including £4.2 bn on cosmetics. The latter figure is slightly higher than the UK's aid budget for the developing world in 2004.

The average of £813 per adult Christmas spending in Britain is approximately 16 times the per capita annual income in Ethiopia.

Every 16 hours the nations of sub-Saharan Africa pay the so-called developed countries £20 m in debt.

The average Briton will have consumed 7000 calories on Christmas Day. A refugee child in Dafur could survive for 7 days on this number of calories.

An excellent post from Monkeyc details how little progress we have made in Feeding the World since Band Aid 20 years ago.

Still feeling smug about those Charity Christmas Cards you bought?