Jessica Biel puts a funny twist on the mysteries of sexual health in a new sketch series.

When it comes to birth control, the questions are endless.

Shouldn't birth control come with sound effects so you remember to take it?

Can you get struck by lightning if you have an IUD?

And what's up with the millions of condom sizes these days?

Don't get actress Jessica Biel started on those.

Actually, do. She has some thoughts.

Road trip convo GIF via F--- Yeah Jessica Biel.

Biel has many questions about reproductive health and how the body works — just like you do — and she's bringing them up in a funny and clever way.

In the brand new Funny or Die sketch series for WomanCare Global, Biel is opening the gates to a judgment-free zone for people who have questions about reproductive health. But don't count on her to have all of the answers.

The series "If You Don't Tell Them, Then Who Will?" features Biel and actors Whitney Cummings and Joy Bryant as they sit around, spitballing random thoughts about sex and the body. It's funny and original and helps to break the stigma around sex.

In the series, no question is off limits. And when you think about it, isn't that how we should approach sex ed in the real world?

Too bad that hasn't always been a reality. Biel remembers how humiliating it was when she first got her period in fifth grade. She was in a school play, wearing a gray beard and a pad the size of a skateboard and thinking, "What is happening to me?" She had no idea.

GIF from the one and only "Mean Girls."

Fast forward many years later when her and hubby, Justin Timberlake (ever heard of him?), decided they wanted to bring a baby into our TMZ-, cronut-filled world. And once again, she felt confused.

"Suddenly I realized I really didn't know what's going on inside my own body," she told Glamour. "It was shocking."

She's far from alone. We've all privately Googled stuff about our bodies in hopes we can make sense of what's happening to our insides ... our outsides ... and to each other.

Biel's questions about her own body prompted her to join the initiative to educate women, men, and young people about the different stages of reproductive life — and to get people talking more openly about it.

After all, you can't know what you don't know.

From WomanCare Global:

The tagline, "If You Don't Tell Them, Then Who Will," refers to the parent to child relationship, as well as the exchange of information from partner to partner, and from peer to peer. Each video – which is not meant as an instructional sex education resource – will center on a particular topic illustrating why women and girls should not rely on a random internet search, the media, a celebrity or misinformed friends to steer important decisions about their bodies and reproductive health.

As anti-women's health lawmakers continue their crusade against Planned Parenthood and try to push abstinence-only education into schools across the country, now is the time for us to be open with one another and use fact-based learnings to our society's advantage.

There is nothing more empowering than making informed decisions and being in control of your own destiny.

So do your research, listen to science, support one another, and go be your own awesome self.

And be sure to catch Biel and her crew talk about the pill, IUDs, and condoms. Super short and funny:

For more information on WomanCare Global, check 'em out on Facebook and Twitter.

7 powerful photographs of terminally ill patients living out their final wishes

Before 54-year-old Mario passed away, he had one special goodbye he needed to say ... to his favorite giraffe.

Mario had worked as a maintenance man at the Rotterdam zoo in the Netherlands for over 25 years. After his shifts, he loved to visit and help care for the animals, including the giraffes.

As Mario's fight against terminal brain cancer came to an end, all he wanted to do was visit the zoo one last time. He wanted to say goodbye to his colleagues — and maybe share a final moment with some of his furry friends.

Thanks to one incredible organization, Mario got his wish.

"To say goodbye to the animals." All photos by the Ambulance Wish Foundation, used with permission.

The Ambulance Wish Foundation, a Dutch nonprofit, helps people like Mario experience one final request.

It's a lot like Make-A-Wish, only it's not just for kids.

In 2006, Kees Veldboer, who was an ambulance driver at the time, was moving a patient from one hospital to another. The patient was a terminally ill man who had spent three straight months confined to a hospital bed. During the trip from one hospital to the other, the patient told Veldboer that he wanted to see the Vlaardingen canal one last time. He wanted to sit in the sun and wind and smell the water again before going back inside.

"To see the ocean again."

Veldboer made the patient's last wish happen, and as tears of joy streamed down the man's face, Veldboer knew he had tapped into a powerful way to bring peace to people in their final days.

Soon after, the Ambulance Wish Foundation was born.

Based in the Netherlands, Veldboer's organization scoffs at the logistical hurdles of transporting terminally ill patients who need high levels of care and, often, lots of medical equipment. The Ambulance Wish Foundation employs a fleet of custom-built ambulances and always has highly trained medical staff on hand for emergencies.

"To visit my best friend's grave."

Their message? Positive end-of-life experiences are far too important to pass up.

Today, the AWF has over 230 volunteers and has fulfilled nearly 7,000 wishes.

Even more beautiful than the work this organization does, though, are the things its patients are asking for.

"To enjoy a delicious ice cream cone."

The Make-A-Wish Foundation specializes in granting wishes for terminally ill children, many of whom have barely begun to live. The children's wishes run the gamut, from starring in a music video to a day as a hero soldier in the Army.

But what does Veldboer do for older folks who have already experienced so much? What do their wishes look like?

Mostly, it's the little things they cherish, like seeing their home one last time or spending a few hours just looking at something beautiful.

Veldboer, in an interview with the BBC, describes one woman who had not been home for six months. When they brought her into her living room on a stretcher, she hoisted herself up and stayed there for hours, doing nothing but looking around — likely replaying an entire lifetime worth of memories — before quietly asking them to take her away.

Another patient simply wanted to see her favorite Rembrandt painting again.

"To see my favorite painting one last time."

And another just wanted to spend an afternoon watching dolphins play.

"To watch the dolphins play."

On and on the wishes go — about four of them fulfilled every day. People who just want to see their grandchild for the first time, or stand on the beach again before they can't anymore.

Turns out that life's simplest pleasures just might be its most meaningful.

Sometimes it feels like there's never enough time. Not in a day. Not in a year. Not in a life.

"To attend my granddaughter's wedding."

But maybe it's better to cherish what we have rather than spend so much time thinking about all the things we haven't done yet.

Maybe the things we remember at the end aren't the time we went skydiving or the time we hiked across Europe. When our time is up, maybe what we'll remember most is more mundane — the tacky wallpaper in the house we grew up in, a sunny day spent on the water, or those little everyday moments spent with the people we love the most.

Whatever it is, it's comforting to know there are people out there who want our last memories of this place to be good ones.

I can't think of a more wonderful job.

Be sure to check out the Ambulance Wish Foundation on Facebook to keep up with all of the amazing work they're doing. And for more information, listen to founder Kees Veldboer in his interview with the BBC.

Banksy's Dismaland art installment closes but lives on as a refugee shelter.

'You have no control over whether your destiny is to be an asylum seeker or a western super-power.'

After five weeks and more than 150,000 visitors, "bemusement park" Dismaland has closed its doors.

The park was the work of Banksy, one of the world's most well-known graffiti artists.

GIF from banksyfilm.

Upon its opening earlier this summer in the English town of Weston-super-Mare, the park/art installment instantly made headlines around the world for its critique of predatory capitalism, police violence, war, and pop culture.

But there's one last surprise.

"Coming soon… Dismaland Calais," reads an announcement on the park's website.

So, wait, what does this mean? The statement continues:

"All the timber and fixtures from Dismaland are being sent to the 'jungle' refugee camp near Calais to build shelters. No online tickets will be available."

Image via banksyfilm/YouTube.

The Jungle in Calais, France, is the home of an estimated 4,000 refugees and migrants.

Conditions at the French camp are notoriously poor. The European Union recently granted France €5 million (a little less than $5.6 million) to renovate the camp. Unfortunately, the plan proposed by the EU would accommodate less than half of the people currently living there.

Many of the refugees living at The Jungle have come from Eritrea and Sudan. As part of the larger, ongoing refugee crisis, many of these refugees and migrants wind up in Calais before attempting to cross the English Channel and establish new lives in England.

Migrants and refugees gather in Calais' Jungle camp. Photo by Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images.

So while it's really cool that Dismaland is going to be helping the people living at The Jungle, it shouldn't really come as a surprise.

One of the exhibits featured at Dismaland directly addressed the refugee crisis.

In the exhibit, overcrowded boats glide around lifeless bodies floating face-down in a small pond. There's also a small yacht. Here's how Banksy describes the exhibit:

"In the remote control boat pond at Dismaland it randomly switches the boat you operate – so you have no control over whether your destiny is to be an asylum seeker or a western super-power."

The whole thing is actually a really powerful look at privilege and caste systems. Why should the refugees be punished for having born in countries ravaged by war and economic disaster? Are the asylum seekers any less deserving of safety than the western super-powers?

As “Britain's most disappointing new visitor attraction," Dismaland had a nice effect on the local economy.

In addition to donating Dismaland's structures and fixtures to the Calais refugee camp, the short-lived theme park was a gift to another group: the local tourism industry in Western-super-Mare.

With hotel bookings up 50% over the past six weeks and more than double the number of travelers arriving from London by train, the local economy has been booming. Visit Somerset CEO John Turner estimates that Dismaland helped drive somewhere around £20 million (roughly $31 million) to local businesses.

Image via banksyfilm/YouTube.

No matter how you look at it, Dismaland was a huge success.

Help the refugees? Check. Boost local economy? Check. Entertain tourists? Check. All while producing art that sends a message? Check.

While you may have missed out on seeing Dismaland in person, you can relive the magic (?) with the video below!

These heroic rodents are showing the world why we need to rethink how we feel about rats.

Everything you think you know about rats is wrong.

Think they're dirty? Wrong. They spend hours cleaning themselves every day.

Think they were responsible for the bubonic plague? Wrong again. It was fleas, who were just as likely to be found on cats, dogs, and even gerbils!

Think they're ugly? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Rats are cute! Just look at this little guy.

This rat's name is Jones. And he is a hero. All images courtesy of APOPO.

And then there are African giant pouched rats. You won't believe what they can do.

We've known for a while that rats are capable of learning complex tasks, and that they're smart enough to care about each other.

I can actually vouch for their intellect firsthand. I had a major rat problem in my house a number of years back, and the rats were frighteningly good at getting out of and evading traps. (While I appreciated their intelligence, that doesn't mean I wanted them nesting in my bed.)

But the folks over at APOPO, an organization headquartered in Tanzania, have found a way to put those smarts to really good use.

The rats they train aren't just navigating mazes. They're saving lives.

Rats can sniff out land mines. I repeat. Rats can sniff out land mines!

The rats are tethered to little leashes to keep them on track, and they cover a TON of ground this way.

How's that for a daily dose of awesome?

See, dozens of countries around the world are affected by a deadly problem known as "land mine contamination," meaning they have tons of leftover explosives from conflicts past and present scattered across the landscape.

The usual process of clearing these mines is painfully slow and highly dangerous.

Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times writes, "Typically, men in body armor walk in precise rows holding metal detectors in front of them. Whenever they come across metal, they stop and painstakingly brush away the soil until they see what it is."

Metal detectors? That's amateur hour.

That sounds ... tedious. And like it's a pretty good way to get yourself blown up.

The rats, who are too light to set off the mines, are able to quickly sniff out the explosives and then paw at the ground when they detect something. From there, the mines can be safely cleared.

APOPO says a team of rats takes about 20 minutes to sweep the same area that would take a human team about four days. Even better? The rats can sometimes be more accurate because they aren't distracted by scrap metal, according to the organization.

They also look pretty dang adorable on those little leashes.

But that's not all! Rats can also detect tuberculosis with a quick wiggle of their nose.

High-five!

TB, a highly contagious and potentially fatal lung infection, is a huge problem in certain counties. The disease was actually declared a national emergency in Mozambique a few years back.

Doctors in these areas have been desperate for a faster, more accurate way to diagnose patients.

Time to call in the rats.

Here's how it works: TB clinics collect sputum samples (basically, saliva and phlegm) from suspected patients and do an initial check. According to APOPO, doctors are only able to identify about half of the samples correctly this way.

The samples are then put in front of a team of trained rats that are able to double check large amounts of them with lightning speed, identifying thousands of missed positives in the process.

Rats are gross all right — grossly underappreciated.

D'awww.

We've gotta get over this idea that rats are yucky. And I'll be the first to admit that I've let my ... complicated history with rats color my better judgment for years.

Well no more.

Rats have earned my respect. And while I'd appreciate a comfortable distance between them and the food in my pantry, if sharing the occasional meal with them is the price I need to pay for the work they're doing, so be it.

They've earned it.

If you feel the same, you can start by "adopting" your own APOPO HEROrat to help pay for its intensive training.

Check out the video below to learn even more about why it's time to "Rethink Rats."

Thanks to APOPO for providing the background to this incredible story, the images, and the video. I encourage you to browse their website for even more fascinating info on their trained rats and how you can help.

What pet parents can learn from Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's tragic Instagram post

11 celebrity tweets in favor of Michelle Obama's new girls' rights initiative

#62MillionGirls

Michelle Obama has had an eventful few days in New York City.

She set out for the Big Apple right after helping host Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state dinner on Sept. 25, 2015...

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

So that she could hug Beyoncé on stage at the Global Citizen Festival the very next day...

When @Beyonce and @MichelleObama hug, the world becomes a better place http://t.co/Nn94pJywHX #GlobalCitizen http://pic.twitter.com/aXnVpIEpbo— People magazine (@people) September 29, 2015

And then get cozy with Stephen Colbert on "The Late Show" on Sept. 28, 2015.

Always a pleasure hanging out with you, @StephenAtHome. Thanks for supporting #62MillionGirls & #ReachHigher. –mo http://pic.twitter.com/hpltFSytoi— The First Lady (@FLOTUS) September 29, 2015

But the first lady's Big Apple travels, as you may have guessed, weren't just about hanging out with celebs and posting the evidence online (although, would anyone blame her?). She was there to deliver an important message.

Obama was getting the word out about her new #62MillionGirls campaign, which promotes girls' education around the world.

Photo by Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images.

The campaign — launched on Sept. 26, 2015, as a part of Obama's broader Let Girls Learn initiative — is focused on helping more girls around the world complete high school by building awareness and investing in existing government initiatives, like the Peace Corps, to prioritize girls' education. Because that 62 million figure represents a sad reality: the number of girls, globally, who lack access to education.

The first lady wrote about why that number is so disproportionately high:

"Many of [those girls] simply can't afford the school fees, or the nearest school is miles away, and they don't have safe transportation to get there, or maybe there's a school nearby, but it doesn't have adequate bathroom facilities for girls. And for many girls, the obstacles they face aren't just about resources, but about cultural norms and traditions that deem girls unworthy of an education."

A key point of the #62MillionGirls campaign is rallying support from the Internet.

Obama has encouraged supporters to share a photo of themselves telling the world what they learned in school.

In school, I learned how to speak up for myself. #62MillionGirls don

And the campaign surely hasn't struggled to get support from Hollywood.

Celebs have tweeted out their support in droves (and many used adorable old school pics to do it). Several of them have been retweeted by the first lady.

Here are some of the best ones:

1. Stephen Colbert

In school I learned to pretend I read Moby Dick. #62milliongirls don

2. Kerry Washington

In school I learned to apply cultural&historical context.#62MillionGirls dont have that chance http://t.co/aI43hQ38xs http://pic.twitter.com/YV9NsCoxUP— kerry washington (@kerrywashington) September 27, 2015

3. Mindy Kaling

I was all smiles because I got to go to school and be myself. #62MillionGirls don

4. Charlize Theron

In school I learned to ALWAYS believe in myself #62MillionGirls don't have that chance. http://t.co/Wh3obetdiB http://pic.twitter.com/XXdQK6KYRh— Charlize Theron (@CharlizeAfrica) September 28, 2015

5. Usher Raymond

In school I learned information unlocks opportunity #62MillionGirls don't have that chance. http://t.co/Kr48eGq6Ya http://pic.twitter.com/8gzn2RWo2W— Usher Raymond IV (@Usher) September 27, 2015

6. Bellamy Young

In school I learned no dream is 2 big. #62MillionGirls don

7. Chris Martin

In school I learned to love Sherlock Holmes stories. #62MillionGirls don't have that chance. http://t.co/bOIkJjTVG1 http://pic.twitter.com/byLKuhdjnp— Coldplay (@coldplay) September 28, 2015

8. Leonardo DiCaprio

In school I learned art & creativity. #62MillionGirls don't have that chance. http://t.co/DTl3yVdhE4 http://pic.twitter.com/qFoNfZ495N— Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) September 28, 2015

9. Hilary Swank

Me in India teaching young girls to read. #62MillionGirls don't have that chance. http://t.co/OyDOlvIb4v. http://pic.twitter.com/27jOQKiWEX— Hilary Swank (@HilarySwank) September 28, 2015

10. Dianna Agron

In school I learned the power of imagination & creativity. I learned how to express myself. #62milliongirls @flotus http://pic.twitter.com/oZTvOjRUCL— Dianna Agron (@DiannaAgron) September 28, 2015

11. Bono

We stand together bc #PovertyIsSexist: #62MillionGirls are out of school & that

These pics are more than just celebrity eye candy.

(Although, let's get real: Little Mindy Kaling is just beyond cute.) They represent a vital movement that's near and dear to the first lady's heart.

"As I've traveled the world, I have met so many of these girls — and they are so bright, so determined, and so eager to learn," she wrote. "I see myself in these girls. I see my daughters in these girls. These girls are our girls, and I simply cannot walk away from them."

Join the first lady's campaign by tweeting a photo of yourself and sharing what you learned in school using #62MillionGirls.

Cigarette butts are gross and smelly, and once they're on the street, they don't go away. Until now.

We sent a team of volunteers to Union Square to see how many cigarette butts they could pick up in an hour. Here's what they found.

A new campaign from DoSomething.org and truth is seeking to put an end to a major smoking-related problem, without shaming smokers.

To do this, they're raising awareness about where cigarette butts do (and don't) end up when smokers are done smoking them.

FACT: Cigarette butts are the most frequently littered item.

Eww. Gross.

The new campaign is called, "Get the Filter Out" and it has a noble goal: to encourage people to pick up littered cigarette butts in their communities.

FACT: 1.69 billion pounds of cigarette butts end up as toxic trash every year.

That's kind of a lot. Too big to even wrap your head around.

FACT: Cigarette butts are NOT biodegradable.

When you throw your cigarette butt on the ground, it doesn't biodegrade and disappear. It just sits there. And sits there. And leaches harmful toxins into the ground. And then sits there some more. It never goes away.

Not unless someone picks it up and disposes of it properly.

To understand the scope of this problem, Upworthy brought a group of volunteers to Union Square in NYC.

The goal? To see how many cigarette butts we could pick up in an hour.

The result was a bit jarring. Literally.

They filled a huge jar with cigarette butts.

What's so cool about this campaign is that the goal is not to shame people out of smoking. There are plenty of other campaigns doing that. The "Get The Filter Out" campaign is all about raising awareness about the massive environmental problem of cigarette butts collecting on the ground as litter.

According to truth, 23% of teens smoked in 2000. As of 2014, only 8% of teens smoke. That's a huge decline in teenage smokers, but (perhaps more importantly for the environment) it's also a lot fewer cigarette butts being tossed out into the street.

So, really, I dare you.

Grab some gloves (seriously, make sure you have gloves) and a plastic resealable bag, and spend 10 minutes in your neighborhood collecting littered butts. The environment will thank you.

Check out what happened when we went to Union Square below:

Video by Jess Blank. Special thanks to DoSomething.org and truth. Check out more information about the "Get the Filter Out" campaign. #GTFO

The truly disappointing reason why Shell claims it stopped Arctic drilling

Big Oil just suffered a big loss.

Do you hear that?

Those loud cheers ricocheting throughout the country? That's climate activists screaming in euphoria.

And how can you blame them?

On Sept. 28, 2015, Royal Dutch Shell announced it's halting efforts to drill oil in Arctic waters off the north coast of Alaska.

Just a few months after the U.S. government cleared the way for the company to search for oil in the Chukchi Sea, Shell announced it'd be ending attempts to do so "for the foreseeable future."

"They had a budget of billions, we had a movement of millions," said John Sauven, executive director at Greenpeace UK. "For three years we faced them down, and the people won."

Why are they backing out, you ask? Well, according to Shell, it's actually still about putting profits above our environment.

There's been a crazy amount of pushback against Shell for wanting to drill in the Arctic. Many orgs have come together to fight against it and publicize the many reasons why it's a horrible idea.

But sources from the company claim disappointing results from an exploratory well was the reason why it threw in the towel. (The project's projected massive budget and the U.S. government's complex regulations apparently didn't help either.)

So even if the company had been "surprised by the popular opposition it faced," as some say it has been, it didn't own up to it in the slightest.

Instead, Shell said it backed out because it didn't think it'd make enough billions to justify efforts. Hmm.

Photo via iStock.

This is great news (for basically everyone except oil executives). But it also means Shell still doesn't get it.

And that's all the more reason to keep the fight alive.

Although Shell has called it quits (for now), that doesn't mean the Arctic is off-limits. And there are plenty of reasons why it should be.

Take, for instance, the fact that icy conditions and little to no emergency infrastructure up there make an Arctic oil spill nothing shy of a nightmare to clean up.

Or the fact that any drilling of oil only worsens the effects of climate change.

Or the fact that Alaska's Chukchi Sea region is filled with wildlife that could be harmed by crude extraction — including polar bears, who use the area as birthing grounds.

Photo via iStock.

So how can you help keep Big Oil out of the Arctic?

You can fight alongside organizations aiming to do just that, like the Sierra Club. They've been devoted to keeping our earth green since 1892, and stopping Arctic drilling has become a top priority for the nonprofit.

"Wildlife like polar bears, seals and caribou rely on the Arctic's unique climate and pristine landscape for their survival," the group states on its website. "The consequences of an oil spill in this fragile wilderness would be disastrous, and we can't afford it."

Now's not the time to claim victory in our fight against Big Oil. It's the time to buckle down and get the job done for good.

Thumbnail photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images.

He spent 5 hours shooting the supermoon eclipse. When he finally posted, the Internet went wild.

Stunning composite photograph of supermoon eclipse garners massive social sharing.

Dallas-based photographer Mike Mezeul II has captured a lot of phenomenal images in the sky in his career.

He's photographed the stars...

All images by Mike Mezeul II, used with permission.

...and some more stars. (He's trying to collect them all.)

He's spotted tornadoes...

...and supercell thunderstorms.

He's even captured the fabled double rainbow!

So naturally, his gear was at the ready for the recent lunar double-whammy — the 33-year return of the supermoon total lunar eclipse.

In an interview with Upworthy, Mezeul (who's also a friend of mine) explained that he was actually a little anxious as he tracked the night sky for those five hours:

"I was honestly very hesitant that the image would even happen. I was really worried that the clouds would obscure the moon right when I needed to shoot it. I was also really worried that people would be over the lunar eclipse shots and that I was wasting my time trying to share this moment."

Time wasted? No way, said the Internet.

Mezeul's photograph took just a little longer to share because he was creating a composite image that shows all of the eclipse phases at once.

Within hours of posting it to Facebook, hundreds of thousands of people had liked the photo, and at the time I'm writing this, it's been shared well over half a million times.

Take a look and you'll see why:

"This is my third lunar eclipse to shoot and it was by far my favorite. It was an earlier transition and I was able to incorporate a beautiful city skyline into the shot. Also, being able to shoot from the roof of a hotel and chow down on room service was a bonus." — Mike Mezeul II

Mezeul's photo was worth the wait. But what's perhaps more phenomenal than the sight itself is seeing so many people from across world excited about it.

As Upworthy's Lori White wrote, "We're all hemisphere neighbors, billions of us, standing underneath the same skyroof, seeing our nearest celestial neighbor change color."

Think about that any time you're at a loss of hope for humanity. Humans too often struggle to agree on matters of this world. But events like the supermoon eclipse remind us that we are capable of finding common ground.

All photos by Mike Mezeul, used with permission. (Thanks again, brother!) Follow Mike on Facebook and Instagram for more of the splendor of nature. Thumbnail image by Nicolas Tucat/AFP/Getty Images.

Feel bad when you throw away perfectly good food? Your phone can help.

We waste so much food, it's embarrassing. Our phones are coming to the rescue in very creative ways.

Food.

More.

You want it, you need it, you love it. But there are 50 million Americans who don't get enough.

I'm not talking when it's 3 p.m. and you're like, "I forgot lunch!" or the dinner you had that was made up entirely of string cheese. I'm talking the 50 million people in America who live day-to-day not knowing where they are going to find their next meal.

But there's a twist: Our country throws away around 30 MILLION tons of perfectly good food every year.

That means we're throwing away 30 million tons of leftover food while 50 million people go to sleep hungry. What?!

I don't have to dig into the math to know that hunger in America is a problem we can actually fix. And with technology, it can be easy and fun to do it.

Here are five easy ways you can help end hunger without really having to try.

1. Tango Tab

An app that makes it so that part of your bill goes to a local food charity!

So you go out to dinner with friends. That's normal. But did you know you can feed someone across town at the same time ... for free?

That's Tango Tab.

With the Tango Tab app, you simply go to a participating restaurant, check-in through the app while you're there, and a portion of the proceeds from your meal is donated to a local food charity. It's a win for the restaurant (hi, business!), a win for those in need of a meal (bye, growling stomachs!), and a win for the app user through an imaginary pat on the back.

Over 1 million meals have already been provided through the app so far — from people who were already dining out. Talk about a nice gesture that helps folks in your own community, and you don't have to go out of your way to do it.

It's kind of like a blind dinner date without all of the awkward silence! Check out participating restaurants to see what options are cookin' in your area.

If you're already texting, you might as well feed someone. Image by Nicolas Asfouri/Getty Images.

2. Leftover Swap

It's exactly what it sounds like. You can swap your leftovers or you can get leftovers from someone who has 'em!

Let's say you're hungry and broke and all you have in your kitchen is dust. Or let's say you're full and can't possibly take another bite without the buttons on your pants popping off — but your plate is still full!

The app Leftover Swap is for both of those situations.

If you're hungry, view the app for local leftovers around you, make your selection, and arrange for pick-up or delivery.

If you've got leftovers, take a picture of them, provide details, and share the rest of your meal with a hungry neighbor.

An app like this can help you reduce waste, eat locally, and maybe even make a new friend (or five … depending on how much pizza you can offer). Worth a try!

3. Ample Harvest

If you're into fresh foods and/or gardening, woo baby, this one's for you.

Ample Harvest makes it super easy for backyard gardeners across the country to quickly find local food pantries to donate fresh crops for their clients.

This is perfect for the person who grew too many tomatoes or peaches and doesn't know what to do with them all. Through the app, you can locate the food pantries in your area and details on how to share your crops. Yay!

Image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

4. Feeding Forward

How many times have you thrown away leftovers and thought, "I'm being so wasteful, this is embarrassing."

It's OK. Feeding Forward is there to help.

With Feeding Forward, you can have someone come take leftovers off of your hands and deliver them to a local shelter. This app is especially good for companies or conferences, and right now it's mainly available in the San Francisco area. If enough people are into it, maybe that'll change?

Less trash and more people fed. BINGO.

5. No Food Wasted

This one is all about the grocery store. So much perfectly good food gets thrown out there, it's mind-boggling.

Instead of workers having to throw out food that's about to expire, the No Food Wasted app lets customers buy it. The app shows you discounts available in your area on food that is still good but about to be thrown out.

A pilot study done on the app showed food waste dropped in supermarkets by up to 18%, as Upworthy previously reported. Wow!

And you as a consumer don't have to do anything differently. You just use the app and find great discounts.

The only bummer part here is it's currently only in the Netherlands. So you can either move there to get cheaper bananas or start your own where you live (please?!).

Delicious food image via Ana Arevalo/AFP/Getty Images.

There are problems we face that feel overwhelming. But then there are problems like hunger that we can actually do something about — right now.

We have the power to take steps — even as small as downloading an app — to give people in our communities a helping hand so they can get back on their feet.

Helping each other makes us better humans and more productive communities. Go get 'em.

Thumbnail image by Pallavi Damera/Flickr.