While stealing is a crime, it can be tough to blame the hungry for stealing food.

We know this from literature – no one really blames Jean Valjean from “Les Misérables” for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s hungry children, after all. And Italy has just made this basic human instinct official; the nation’s highest appeals court ruled in May that stealing food from a supermarket is no longer a crime if you’re homeless and hungry.

The decision was made after a homeless man from Ukraine was caught attempting to take more than four euros worth of cheese and sausage from a Genoese supermarket in 2011. He was convicted by a trial court in February 2015, and sentenced to six months in jail and a fine of €100.

But the appellate court overturned this decision just a bit over a year later, writing, “The condition of the defendant and the circumstances in which the merchandise theft took place prove that he took possession of that small amount of food in the face of the immediate and essential need for nourishment, acting therefore in a state of need,” Italian news agency ANSA reported. The court then deemed that this act was not a crime.

The decision was made based upon the Italian legal doctrine, “Ad impossibilia nemo tenetur,” Latin for, “No one is expected to do the impossible.” In other words, the man was deemed to be acting based upon a “state of necessity.”

The idea of a ‘state of necessity’ already exists in the Italian law system; the doctrine is usually used to defend actions made based upon a clear and imminent case of life and death. In this case, imminence is struck from the record, and the importance of food for survival — and the importance of the dignity of the man — were the keys to the case.

While in the past, poverty was often seen as avoidable by the legal system, given preexisting social aid in Italy, the current economic climate may have contributed to the motivation for this decision. The nation is only just beginning to manage its recovery from the financial crisis in 2008, and as such, the poverty situation has become more dire throughout Italy. Homelessness and widespread hunger have become true problems in the country, where 615 people are added to the ranks of the poor every day, according to an opinion piece in Corriere Della Sera.

While this court’s decision is not necessarily binding for future cases similar to this one, as it would be in an American court, the New York Times reported that it may lead to more frequent application of this sort of permissiveness with poverty. We can only hope that other countries will follow suit and forgive people for acting out of such a basic need.

Related on Eco Salon
Solving World Hunger with Dinner Parties: Meet United Noshes
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Treating Hunger with Surplus Food is a Tactic, Not a Solution

Homeless man image via Shutterstock

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Academy award winning actor and director Ben Affleck is eating “like a poor person” to help shed light on the world’s poverty issues.

Living on $1.50 a day is unthinkable for most of us. But what if you were a multimillionaire actor? That’s the commitment Ben Affleck made to The Global Poverty Project, an organization that aims to to “increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action to see an end to extreme poverty,” according to its website. The organization says that $1.50 a day illustrates the issues accurately that nearly 1.5 billion people around the world face every day.

Affleck tweeted about the challenge a few weeks ago, and is joined by other celebrities including Sophia Bush, Josh Groban, Debi Mazar, and Hunter Biden, reports US Weekly.

What exactly can Affleck eat on $1.50 a day? That’s a pretty darn good question, as you can’t get find too much out of a vending machine for much less than that, let alone a legitimate meal. Hopefully he’ll use his skills to track down some cheap beans and rice that he can portion out according to his budget. We’re not sure if he’s allowed to glean fruits and vegetables from neighborhood fruit trees or gardens in order to add free nutritious food to his diet. That would certainly help. But, if he’s looking to emulate the daily experience in many impoverished parts of the world, their aren’t too many lush fruit trees or gardens, so he’ll probably skip the fruit-hunting.

But what he does have, is the reality that after his few days of living on next to nothing are up, he can go back home, open up his fridge and eat most anything he likes. That certainly isn’t the case for the world’s poorest communities. The project hopes to raise awareness as well as funds. Last year, more than $3 million was raised.

And it’s not just third world countries where hunger is an issue. Right here in the U.S. millions of Americans face food challenges. One of the biggest ways to help is to decrease your own food waste. Professional estimates indicate that as much as 40 percent of the edible food in the world goes uneaten due to factors including poor transportation, expiration and home waste. Do your part and be conscious about your food intake and help route edible food to shelters, food banks and soup kitchens.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Image: Erin Lassahn

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Six years and 194 dinner parties with meals from around the world to help relieve the global hunger crisis.

A dinner party is more than an excuse to eat a few exotic dishes: it’s a reason to be with other people, engage in a lively conversation, and maybe even learn something. Sometimes it’s even a chance to celebrate a cause, or solve a global issue like hunger.

That’s the idea behind United Noshes, a six-year project aimed to cook a feast from every United Nations member country (in alphabetical order). That makes for a total of 194 meals (there are 193 UN members, plus two non-observing members, Holy See (Vatican City) and Palestine, and Holy See will get wrapped in as appetizers before the Honduras meal). The two women behind the project, Laura Hadden and Jesse Friedman, are estimating that to make that many meals will take about 6 years, finishing towards the beginning of 2017.

What makes United Noshes special is two things: First, they put an emphasis on local community as much as they do global. For the United Noshes team, cooking from around the world is not just a way to explore new foods, but a way of bringing people together. They invite new friends and old, and you can sign up for their newsletter to learn about upcoming dinners. Second, they use the meals as a way to raise money for World Food Program USA – as of December 2012, they raised over $12,000.

The United Noshes blog is an exploration of not only different foods, but also a geography lesson, giving you a look into even the smallest of countries. As James Michener once said, “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” Food is an avenue for exploring cultures, and fortunately the United Noshes team is providing people with the opportunity to do that even when they are at home.

Kitchen tables are the place for us to connect, and what better way than learning about the culinary culture of new countries and taking part in something that benefits others that are not so lucky to have access to elaborate meals?

Image: Daniel E. Lee

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