Comments on: Hunger Challenge: Day Seven

By: http://loveyourmother.livejournal.com/

http://loveyourmother.livejournal.com/ — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:50:23 +0000

What more can we learn? The infrastructure question is really interesting. Nearly all my food is cooked in an iron skillet ($12) or a stainless steel pot (less) with a simple metal spatula in an oven or on a stovetop. I store food in re-claimed jars from jelly, condiments, etc.

The ants on a log would go great (and minus the plastic chemicals) in a jelly jar!

FTR as well, we bring water, apples, & maybe a pb&j to every sporting event we attend. All this we do not as much for the money as for the health & environmental costs.

Living cheap can be very, very satisfying, even when done out of choice, not necessity. But I’m still very, very grateful that I do not do it out of necessity, and pray for the courage to give everything I can to help those who *do* find it a necessity, every day.

By: End to the month…not the thinking – The Inadvertent Gardener

End to the month…not the thinking – The Inadvertent Gardener — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:03:36 +0000

[...] This was a contrived experiment. I used cooking equipment and utensils that most people on food stamps couldn’t afford. I didn’t take anything free I could get my hands on, which is not how I would behave if I was in a real-life poverty situation. If that was the case? I’d have not only drunk the coffee and tea at work, I’d have probably been lining my purse with teabags for the nights and mornings and home. I would have carried water into the A’s game AND taken the free Designated Driver soda. [...]

By: inadvertentgardener

inadvertentgardener — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:51:35 +0000

Jenny, I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:41:20 +0000

This has been thought-provoking (and funny in places). Thanks for sharing this.

By: inadvertentgardener

inadvertentgardener — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:45:39 +0000

Don, you’re right about the infrastructure–one thing that I’m going to address in my wrap-up post (probably up tomorrow) is that very point. The tools I used to make this challenge work in the $19.92 budget were, in many cases, out of range of anyone actually working under those kind of constraints. I really can’t minimize in my mind the long-term stress effects of this kind of financial pressure. Unreal…and yet all-too-real for so many people.

By: Don

Don — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:46:07 +0000

Whenever I read about someone taking a challenge like this I am reminded about how much more thought and time goes into healthy and/or low-cost eating. Certainly you can make and pack a peanut butter sandwich without a lot of time, but it still requires a little more planning and prep than hemorrhaging money at Subway or McDs.

It also requires a little more infrastructure. That pictured gladware container might not be terribly expensive, but you’ve got to own it before you can pack things in it. You couldn’t have purchased it when you did your shopping trip without removing other food – it’s more than $1.08.