Sunday, Day 7 – A good conclusion to a meaningful week

Our Invocation:  Can we truly gain something from hunger?  Perhaps we gain an appreciation or an understanding of the situation of those who do not get enough to eat.  Perhaps we acquire sensitivity to those who live at or below the poverty level.  Perhaps we learn how best to relate to our impoverished neighbors and fellow human beings.  May our gains be for good!

Today we held our wrap up discussion on everyone’s Food Stamp Challenge.  With ten participants attending, we shared stories about our experiences of the week, our lessons learned, and our anticipation for future empathic responses to the issue of hunger in America.

We watched a few excerpts from “Food Stamped,” a documentary made a few years ago that depicts the week of a couple in Berkeley CA who took the challenge.

Most impressive to me was the segment that focused on a man who received about $176 per month of food aid.  He took an 80-mile round trip drive to buy his groceries once per month, and he purchased flats of ramen noodles to go along with his fruit, vegetable, and meat purchases.  With his extensive drive to find the best prices he sure spent a lot of energy to eat.

The group today talked about ways to educate people about best ways to prepare food, to encourage people to find time to prepare what they can and not take the easiest way out, which is to buy quickly preparable and unhealthy foodstuffs.

By the way, by the end of our challenge, we had left over the following: 12 eggs, a banana, a pear, two bags of lentils, one pound rice, half a box (six ounces) of whole wheat pasta, four potatoes, a can of tuna, a can of chilies, and eight ounces of milk.

So one conclusion I can make is that people can make proper food choices to live on $29.07 per week.  However, there are conditions that prohibit many people from doing this:

Time: Most people don’t take the time, and actually don’t have the time, to prepare meals as I do.  A second job, seizing opportunities to get overtime, leads to unstable schedules.

Transportation: Living in food deserts causes one to go to convenience stores with their severely limited inventory and selection.  No wonder the nutritional health of those in poverty is lacking.

Education: People need to understand the ramifications of their nutritional choices, the ways to combine foods to get the most nutrition out of them, and how to find time to make the right kinds of meals for them and their families.

There is surely a lot of work to do, and now is our time to find ways to do it!