'RefettoRio Gastromotiva': The Initiative That Will Feed Rio's Hungry People

The biggest sporting event was held this year in Rio de Janiero - a city plagued with recession and Zika virus. With nearly 18,000 athletes, coaches, and officials staying in the Olympic Village, there were a lot of mouths to feed, and a lot of surplus as the games end.

Chefs cooking 5,000 meals a day for the poor using uneaten food from the Olympic village https://t.co/u6IelR4Slb

— The Independent (@Independent) August 14, 2016

So what happen to the food that was left over? The sporting event used it to feed the less fortunate, of course, thanks to two chefs that are making it happen. According to Yahoo! News, Italian chef Massimo Bottura and Brazilian chef David Hertz are making it a challenge for themselves to use the surplus food from the village and turning it to about 5,000 meals for the poorest and hungriest of Rio. The initiative was named ReffetoRio Gastromotiva, after the initiative that started in Italy last year, called Reffeterio Ambrosiano, which brought 65 chefs together to cook meals using donated ingredients from the Milan World Expo.

Hertz told Reuters, "RefettoRio Gastromotiva is going to work only with ingredients that are about to be wasted ... like ugly fruit and vegetables, or yogurt that is going to be wasted in two days if you don't buy it."

While 5,000 meals could barely make a dent in the number of starving citizens in the city, it is a step in the right direction, and while the initiative is limited to Rio residents, Hertz and Battura wanted this to be a movement to fight food waste, and hopefully establish a similar setup for all future Olympic host cities.

Between 30 to 40 percent of food produced around the world is not eaten as it becomes spoiled or does not pass the standard in supermarkets where they are sold. Yet, almost 800 million people around the world go to sleep hungry. In Brazil, for instance, the number of hungry people dropped to under 5 percent in 2015 compared to the nearly 15 percent in 1990. However, with its 208-million population, it still means that millions still don't have access to food.