I am grateful to have an abundance of diverse foods to eat whenever I am hungry. We are blessed to have food in the refrigerator, the freezer, the pantry. And in moments where we "don't feel like cooking" we have bountiful choices for restaurants with cuisine from virtually everywhere on the globe. We are gifted to have so many choices. We eat what we feel like when we feel like it.

Conversely, there are 854 million hungry people in the world. Almost 16,000 children die of hunger-related causes every day; that's about one child dying every five seconds. There is a tendency to imagine that all of these people are in third world countries, but even in the U.S. one in ten households aren't able to satiate their basic needs. 11.7 million American children live in families that skip meals or eat less than necessary, because they aren't able to put more food on the table.

I am grateful for many things in life, but I am humbled every day when I remember southeast Asia. My trip to Laos taught me what poverty truly is. I keep that in mind when I think, "I have nothing to make for dinner." They would see a heavenly storehouse of food that could feed a family of four for several weeks. Since I made this paradigm shift, I've been able to appreciate my own creativity while eating what I've got on hand. (Like garbanzo beans or cans of indian food.)

The next time you eat, whatever you eat, be mindful and give thanks. Eating should be a right, but for many it is a privilege.