I love our second fridge. It sits unassumingly in the utility area of our basement, next to the washing machine and dryer. It isn’t quite as big as our kitchen fridge and it isn’t the flashy stainless steel. But inside, it contains wonders.
There’s plenty of milk and OJ, of course, for a family with three growing kids. There’s extra bread, bagels, yogurt, strawberries and baby carrots. But there’s also beer and white wine chilling, and in the freezer there’s a bountiful stash of frozen pizzas, waffles, meatballs, ice cream sandwiches and popsicles.
More Top Picks Pogo Sticks
Today, our extra fridge has a special responsibility: it’s holding a fat 20-pound turkey, enough to feed the 18 extended family members we’re hosting at our house for a Thanksgiving feast.
And so, this Thanksgiving, I am especially thankful for our humble second fridge, for it is a symbol of the bounty of our great land. My family is fortunate — we do not worry about where the next meal is coming from. Indeed, our cup runneth over.
In the Midwest — proud home to the “beer and deer fridge” — almost 30 percent of the households have more than one refrigerator, according to a 2009 survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s more than the 23 percent of households nationwide. Most of the people in our neighborhood have second fridges, and there’s a good chance that you, dear Tribune reader, do too.
With our surplus foodstuffs, it may be easy to overlook the sobering reality that hunger is real, even here in our country. According to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an estimated 14.3 percent of households were “food insecure” at some point in 2013. That means that 17.5 million Americans lacked access to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. An estimated 6.8 million American homes had “very low food security,” which, according to the USDA, means that limited resources reduced their food intake and disrupted their normal eating patterns.
Closer to home, one of six Cook County residents have tapped into the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s network of pantries, soup kitchens and shelters to help get enough to eat, according to a 2014 survey from Feeding America, the country’s largest provider of charitable food assistance.
The numbers are even more staggering worldwide. Roughly 1 in 8 people — some 842 million total — around the globe suffered from chronic hunger from 2011 to 2013, according to the United Nations. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases account for 6.5 million deaths of children under 5 in developing countries each year.
I don’t mean to be a downer. But part of being thankful is being aware of the graces bestowed upon us — and perhaps, in whatever way we can, reaching out to help those who have been less fortunate.
Believe me, I am looking forward to getting together with family and overindulging in turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing doused in an unholy helping of gravy. There will be cranberry sauce and green beans. Belt buckles will be loosened. And, just when we think we can’t possibly eat anything more, we’ll find a little room for a slice of pumpkin pie.
And when it’s all over, there will be the leftovers, oh those wonderful Thanksgiving leftovers, downstairs in our beloved second fridge.
Dr. John Biemer, a former baiduhai reporter, is a resident in pathology at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.