the hunger challenge
Last week, a bunch of SF bloggers participated in a challenge to raise awareness and funds for the SF food bank.
The challenge was to eat on $1 per person per meal (3 meals a day) -- or, put another way, $3 per person per day, $21 per person a week for groceries.
Cooking with Amy was my starting point in reading about this challenge. She talks about daily meal plans and also links to several other foodie blogs (like this and this) that participated in the challenge.
All the blogs I read attempted to approach this challenge with whole -- and wholesome -- foods, so chemical-laden (though admittedly cheap) Ramen was out. They all had some fascinating insights, particularly on what it might be like to have to feed growing children on such a tight budget ($21/person/week is apparently the maximum amount of food stamps allotted, at least in SF).
One comment that was particularly striking to me was the realization that there is a huge difference between shopping with a budget (even a fairly tight one) in mind, which is what most of us (myself included) do, and shopping with a very literal budget, shopping with only $21 or $42 in hand and knowing that if you go over, there's going to be a humiliating moment at the registers when you have to ask the cashier to put some things back.
Another thing that struck me was the contents of the meals. In order to get cheap, healthful, and filling meals (several bloggers talked about being hungry, about portion sizes being smaller than they were used to), several bloggers relied heavily on things like beans, oatmeal, peanut butter. All good things, but there were also several good things missing from the equation. Like fruit. One woman managed to find pears on sale for about $.50/pound, and so had one for breakfast each day, but even still -- that's only a single serving, and for most other bloggers, fruit was conspicuously absent. It's just too expensive. And not very filling. Veggies were present but limited to cheaper basics like onions and carrots. On such a tight budget, you don't get to indulge in big salads or things that are always fairly pricey, like asparagus, mushrooms, artichokes, cherry tomatoes, shallots, fresh ginger. Finally, I noted (and several bloggers mentioned) the lack of snacks. I already noted there was no room in budgets for much fruit or excessive veg, and so there was certainly no money for snacks, since both healthful stuff (like nuts and granola bars) and crappy stuff (like chips and oreos) are pricey. For some adults, snacking isn't an issue, but some ppl (like me) can't always hold out between meals. And I tend to think of kids as pretty active snackers.
A few bloggers mentioned how, when faced with such budget constraints (combined with other constraints such as time, cooking supplies, and cooking knowledge/ability), things that we privileged folk tend to look down our noses at -- like fast food $.99 menus or 2/$1 tacos -- can start to look appealing and relatively nutritious (and certainly filling, as they're often protein-heavy) to those who aren't as privileged. And I think this is a great point. All the blogs I saw participating in this challenge were food blogs -- blogs of ppl who have a knowledge about and love of cooking -- and even these ppl were struggling at times to come up with things that were cheap but also nutritious and tasty. Several bloggers just ended up eating literally the same meals over and over. Most of them, like I mentioned, were determined not to turn to things like fast food or Ramen or frozen dinners, but most of them were also unable to eat organic, and several of them were really tired of eating the same stuff and started to find cooking/eating depressing. And they knew they were only in this for a week.
I think this is a good read not only b/c some of us can get a little snobby about our eating habits, but more b/c I think so many of us (myself definitely included) have a lot of unchecked privilege -- we're unaware of how good we really have it. I actually stumbled across this project b/c I was browsing food sites, hungry for a late-night snack and feeling cranky b/c there was nothing in my kitchen I wanted to eat. After reading, I really started to see the contents of my (fairly full) fridge in a new light. I looked at my organic eggs, my kalamata olives, my 100% fruit popsicles, and I felt really humbled. And grateful.
The challenge was to eat on $1 per person per meal (3 meals a day) -- or, put another way, $3 per person per day, $21 per person a week for groceries.
Cooking with Amy was my starting point in reading about this challenge. She talks about daily meal plans and also links to several other foodie blogs (like this and this) that participated in the challenge.
All the blogs I read attempted to approach this challenge with whole -- and wholesome -- foods, so chemical-laden (though admittedly cheap) Ramen was out. They all had some fascinating insights, particularly on what it might be like to have to feed growing children on such a tight budget ($21/person/week is apparently the maximum amount of food stamps allotted, at least in SF).
One comment that was particularly striking to me was the realization that there is a huge difference between shopping with a budget (even a fairly tight one) in mind, which is what most of us (myself included) do, and shopping with a very literal budget, shopping with only $21 or $42 in hand and knowing that if you go over, there's going to be a humiliating moment at the registers when you have to ask the cashier to put some things back.
Another thing that struck me was the contents of the meals. In order to get cheap, healthful, and filling meals (several bloggers talked about being hungry, about portion sizes being smaller than they were used to), several bloggers relied heavily on things like beans, oatmeal, peanut butter. All good things, but there were also several good things missing from the equation. Like fruit. One woman managed to find pears on sale for about $.50/pound, and so had one for breakfast each day, but even still -- that's only a single serving, and for most other bloggers, fruit was conspicuously absent. It's just too expensive. And not very filling. Veggies were present but limited to cheaper basics like onions and carrots. On such a tight budget, you don't get to indulge in big salads or things that are always fairly pricey, like asparagus, mushrooms, artichokes, cherry tomatoes, shallots, fresh ginger. Finally, I noted (and several bloggers mentioned) the lack of snacks. I already noted there was no room in budgets for much fruit or excessive veg, and so there was certainly no money for snacks, since both healthful stuff (like nuts and granola bars) and crappy stuff (like chips and oreos) are pricey. For some adults, snacking isn't an issue, but some ppl (like me) can't always hold out between meals. And I tend to think of kids as pretty active snackers.
A few bloggers mentioned how, when faced with such budget constraints (combined with other constraints such as time, cooking supplies, and cooking knowledge/ability), things that we privileged folk tend to look down our noses at -- like fast food $.99 menus or 2/$1 tacos -- can start to look appealing and relatively nutritious (and certainly filling, as they're often protein-heavy) to those who aren't as privileged. And I think this is a great point. All the blogs I saw participating in this challenge were food blogs -- blogs of ppl who have a knowledge about and love of cooking -- and even these ppl were struggling at times to come up with things that were cheap but also nutritious and tasty. Several bloggers just ended up eating literally the same meals over and over. Most of them, like I mentioned, were determined not to turn to things like fast food or Ramen or frozen dinners, but most of them were also unable to eat organic, and several of them were really tired of eating the same stuff and started to find cooking/eating depressing. And they knew they were only in this for a week.
I think this is a good read not only b/c some of us can get a little snobby about our eating habits, but more b/c I think so many of us (myself definitely included) have a lot of unchecked privilege -- we're unaware of how good we really have it. I actually stumbled across this project b/c I was browsing food sites, hungry for a late-night snack and feeling cranky b/c there was nothing in my kitchen I wanted to eat. After reading, I really started to see the contents of my (fairly full) fridge in a new light. I looked at my organic eggs, my kalamata olives, my 100% fruit popsicles, and I felt really humbled. And grateful.