CNS PHOTO | ROMEO RANOCO, REUTERS A boy and his younger brother eat their free meals during a feeding program at a slum area in Manila, Philippines.

Pope Francis denounced widespread hunger due to wasted food as a symptom of a "throwaway culture," and called for greater effort to build a worldwide "culture of encounter and solidarity" instead.

The pope's words appeared in his annual message for World Food Day, Oct. 16.

"The tragic condition in which millions of hungry and malnourished people, among them many children, live today" is "one of the most serious challenges for humanity," Pope Francis wrote.

The pope called the waste of food, which accounts for approximately a third of worldwide food production, "one of the fruits of the 'throwaway culture' that often sacrifices men and women to the idols of profit and consumption; a sad sign of the 'globalization of indifference,' which is slowly 'habituating' us to the suffering of others, as if it were something normal."