Category Archives: Food Politics

Beyond Hunger

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Whew. What a long and challenging week it has been. I think it’s safe to say that Live Below the Line is one of the more difficult – and worthwhile – things I’ve done. I could not be happier to be sitting in the sunshine, devouring a lemon sorbetto at my favorite little espresso bar (Olea Cafe. I swear I came for a cappuccino. I just got sidetracked by the gelato case). Following my 5 days of living below the line at the global poverty rate of $1.50 a day, my weekend has been blissfully indulgent. Can you say fig-walnut jam, arugula-almond pizza, shrimp salsa, avocado-orange spinach salad, roasted chicken and spring panzanella?! Not to mention coconut-chocolate chip cookies! Don’t you worry. Those four or five pounds I lost this week will be back in no time.

Fig-Walnut butter from Stonewall Kitchen (aka Heaven), ciabatta from Allandale Farm, Cabot cloth-aged cheddar and manchego, served with Chardonnay.

In all seriousness though, this week has been an experience like no other. In the same way that classroom rhetoric cannot compare to hands-on practice, even my time spent in Guatemalan orphanages, an “AIDS village” in rural Uganda, and working directly with the homeless in DC simply could not prepare me for the sensation of hunger: the deprivation, the physical and psychological consequences, the daily struggle. It was a truly humbling, eye-opening experience, something I won’t soon forget.

Just as much as raising money for the life-saving work of heroic organizations like UNICEF, the Global Poverty Project, and CARE, the point of Live Below the Line is to change the way people think about extreme poverty. Indeed, poverty is something I’ve spent much of my life thinking about, both in academic and “real world” settings. In particular, hunger and food justice has become the focus of my career. I felt called to take this challenge because of my passion for food justice and my work on hunger, rooted in the conviction that it is among the gravest and most urgent issues of our time. It’s quite the humbling experience to subject oneself to even such a mild simulation of poverty. I’ve truly learned a lot this week and my perspective has been remolded in simple but profound ways.

Gratitude

I think above all else, living “below the line” has deepened and enhanced my sense of gratitude: for the comfortable and healthy life I lead, for the securities I take for granted, for the opportunities I have, and for the people in my life who have helped along the way. (Major thanks to my mom Suzanne and friends Tasha, Candice, Jenny, Allison, Georgia and Kristy who donated a collective $245!)
Truly, there is nothing like lack to inspire gratitude, and I don’t only mean gratitude for the food I normally get to eat, or the privileges I enjoy daily. Even while undergoing the deprivation of this intense challenge, I was so grateful for my humble rice and beans, every sweet banana, my single egg a day. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but it reminded me of the warmth and compassion of the people I’ve met in developing countries, who have so little in terms of food, shelter and healthcare, but are so prosperous in their gratitude, so generous with their kindness. Of course I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to live that kind of life, but to catch the briefest glimpse of it is inspiring.

Consequences

Hunger – beyond “it’s lunchtime and my stomach is grumbling” – is an almost indescribable sensation. There is the physical emptiness and discomfort, the insatiable growl. Then comes the fatigue and weakness, which only worsen with time. Along with the physical exhaustion comes the mental burnout. Concentration consumes a lot more energy than you might think – without sufficient calories, the body has to divert its energy to physical demands, like keeping itself warm. No fuel = no focus. I was cold most of the time, I felt faint and shaky, I was in a constant state of discomfort and weariness. I became grumpy as my patience dwindled and my emotional resilience lowered. Every element of my daily life was affected. The boredom was not such a big deal, but the lack of choice was demoralizing. What I can’t know is the feeling of actually not knowing where my next meal comes from. Despite my constant state of deprivation, I knew I had just enough rice and beans to make it through the week, and of course that the week would end. I knew if I got to feeling truly awful, I could do what I needed to take care of myself. For the 1.4 billion people living on $1.50 a day, there is no such comfort or security.

Empathy

When you’re among the well-fed, well-educated crowd who discusses issues around food politics,  hunger, obesity, and the wide range of problems inherent in the food system, it is all too easy to point fingers and make assumptions. While I try my best to reserve judgment about other people’s choices, it is often frustrating to watch people actively damage their health (not to mention the environment) with poor food choices. However, it’s too easy to forget that poverty means a lack of opportunity; that oppression is the lack of choice. This truth became incredibly clear to me when I realized that yes, I had made healthy choices for my week’s food, which was satisfying in its own right – but I was hungry all the time. I could have chosen much more calorie-dense foods, or might have been able to afford a larger quantity of food for the same price, and might have been a lot less hungry. It was one thing to do this for five days, but if I knew I’d be hungry around the clock every day, I might choose something else, even if it was unhealthy. At a certain point in the week, I started craving very heavy foods (stuff I rarely touch like red meat and cake) and knew that my body was trying to tell me something. This highlights the unfortunate choice that many people are faced with: hunger vs. health. It should not be a dichotomy, and in some ways it’s a false one – but facing these obstacles head-on is a lot different than discussing the rhetoric over lattes with other privileged people.

Again, I have to say that my biggest take-away from this experience is gratitude. I am grateful that I took the challenge, for the contributions to UNICEF, for the lessons I learned, and for a return to my regular life. I am grateful above all for my privileges, and my renewed commitment to use those privileges to help those who aren’t so fortunate. And of course, I am grateful the week is over! However, you can keep donating to UNICEF on my fundraising page through the end of May.

Struggling on Day 4

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Y’all, hunger sucks. A lot. I’m having a hard time articulating all my thoughts on this challenge because my brain doesn’t have enough calories to function on that high of a level. I promise when it’s all over and I’m nourished again, I will write a more eloquent reflection.

In the meantime, hunger is affecting me in the following ways:

  •  I’ve lost about 3 pounds in the first 3 days. Might sound like a miracle diet, but I don’t recommend it. (FYI, healthy weight loss is one pound per week, and I was already a healthy weight.) It does not feel good.
  • My stomach feels empty all the time, except maybe the first half hour to an hour after each meal/snack.
  • I am physically weak, cold and exhausted all day long. I fall asleep hungry. I wake up hungry. My stomach growls all day. My energy is basically spent by early afternoon and I spend the rest of the day trudging through. I feel woozy, light-headed and just want to sleep all the time – but falling asleep on an empty stomach is pretty difficult.
  • Everything looks tasty and tempting, including things I don’t normally go for (I’ve been tempted to chug milk from the carton, nosh on lettuce while prepping at work, and shove handfuls of chips into my mouth). I’ve stayed strong (some might say “stubborn”) but it’s getting harder and harder to hold out.
  • I completely and fully understand why people living with minimal food security go for calorie-dense foods. I planned a week of healthy food to keep my nutrients balanced (whole grains, lean protein, vegetables, fruit) but if I had chosen more calorie-laden food I wouldn’t be so hungry. As a result, I am craving everything from chocolate cake to cheeseburgers (which are rare indulgences or even temptations for me).
  • I’m thirsty all the time, too. We take for granted how much of our hydration comes from food. Also, water is not as filling as I’d counted on.
  • No part of my day goes untouched by hunger: I am struggling to focus at work, I do not have an ounce of energy to work out (which I sincerely miss), I have very little patience or emotional resilience, I am grouchy and edgy and uncomfortable all the time. I cannot stop thinking about food. I cannot devote as much time, energy, or thought to my daily conversations, chores, and tasks.

It’s taking every ounce of willpower I have left to keep going with this challenge. It’s been tempting since Day One to throw in the towel, and I am rushing headfirst toward the finish line tomorrow night (and drooling over what I’ll eat).

But I resolved to do this because the cause is too important: 1.4 Billion people live like this every day – and for them, there is no end in sight. Tomorrow, when we all break our 5 days of hunger, they will continue to struggle to suvive. They will go to bed hungry yet again, they will have to choose between shelter and life-saving medication, they will walk miles to seek clean drinking water. We cannot forget why we are Living Below the Line: to change the way we look at extreme poverty, to share solidarity with our struggling brothers and sisters, to raise crucial money for the heroes who save lives and strive for change.

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Day Two: Challenges and Relfections

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Living Below the Line is no joke. This stuff is tough. I have seen heartbreaking poverty and hunger with my own eyes, and I have spent much of my life trying to contribute to the fight against it. But none of my volunteer trips, professional experiences, or college courses could prepare me for this week. This is as personal as it gets: the choice to be hungry for five days.

Of course, it’s still a choice. I chose to put down my privilege (just one of many privileges, actually) for just a few days. I can’t know what hunger really feels like. But I can try to walk in someone else’s shoes for a moment and I think we can all learn a lot. Live Below the Line has already raised over $71,500 in the U.S. alone – and even more in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. Could you spare a few dollars to help a child in need?

Some of my own circumstances are certainly making this extra challenging. Yesterday, between sleep deprivation and hunger, I was a zombie by 2:00pm. Today and tomorrow both I will have to work late, meaning I’ll need extra energy and will have to wait a long time for dinner. Maybe hardest of all: my entire job revolves around food: picking up donations, planning meals, cooking for 100, and teaching kids how to make healthy snacks. There are no distractions – heck, even the people I follow on Twitter are mostly foodies tweeting about food! I can’t ignore it.

Reflections from my first two days Below the Line:

  • There is nothing like lack to inspire gratitude.
  • Thank God for hot sauce. I love you, Sriracha.
  • Hunger touches every part of your day and your life. I am exhausted, grumpy, woozy and struggling to focus.
  • I planned much better for what I would eat this week than what I wouldn’t eat. As a result, I’m trying to figure out how to avoid wasting some good food I can’t have. Also, even the things that will last until next week are horrible, taunting temptations (biscotti, manchego, fig-walnut jam from Stonewall Kitchen!). Torture.
  • Rationing out food is stressful and a little tough on my dignity. Can I afford to eat an extra 1/4 cup of rice because I have an 11 hour workday, or will I be too hungry later in the week?
  • There is a direct inverse relationship between how much I’ve had to eat and my level of patience.
  • There is no way I’m making it to the gym this week :( Hopefully my  tiny meals will make up for all the indulging I did over the weekend.
  • Will I want something heavy and indulgent when I complete the challenge, or something green and nourishing? Can’t tell yet: maybe both. Right now I’m thinking pizza, salad, and wine. I should not be thinking about this yet.
  • When you’re hungry, everything tastes better. Much better. (Until it doesn’t – someday this week I’m going to get really tired of rice & beans.)
  • I miss beer.

The good thing is, I have little choice but to focus on why I’m taking part in Live Below the Line: the people for whom I am advocating, the fantastic work which I am raising money to support, the 1.4 Billion who live like this every day. Will you take a stand against extreme poverty? Will you stand with me and for the people whose voices go unheard? Please give to my campaign for UNICEF – I’ve already raised $160. Only $140 to go!

Live Below the Line: Day One

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Today I am running on fumes. A confluence of bad timing means that I started my first day of Live Below the Line by driving to the airport at 4:30 this morning, and thanks to my very busy (wonderful, well-worth-it) weekend, I didn’t have time to make much food for today. Having eaten a hard boiled egg and half a banana so far today, I have virtually no energy and my stomach is growling at me as I write. It’s got something to say…

But let’s backtrack. My grocery shopping went pretty well, but I’ll have to see how it gets me through the week. I subtracted a dollar to account for cooking oil & spices, so I had to budget only $6.50 for a week’s worth of groceries. This was no easy task. I ended up with:
– 1 pound of brown rice, $1.15
– 6 eggs, $2.19
– 1 can of black beans, $0.67
– 10 oz. frozen spinach, $1.09
– 5 bananas, $0.95
– 1 small onion, $0.41

for a grand total of $6.46. I’m planning to sautee onions and spinach to mix into rice and beans. But for today, I had no time, so I brought a hard-boiled egg, a banana and a bowl of plain brown rice (with a little butter, garlic powder, and rosemary) to work. I’m even strategizing what time I eat: having my egg around 9, half a banana around 11, trying to hold out until 1 for my rice, and then finishing my banana around 3 or 4.  Based on my calculations, dividing up my groceries for the week, this amounts to $0.78, leaving me $0.72 for dinner. It’s going to be a tough day.

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I’ll report back later with my relfections on day one. Are you participating in Live Below the Line? How is your first day going?

While you’re here, would you consider making a donation – of any amount – to my Live Below the Line campaign for UNICEF? Because my supporters were so generous last week, I reached my initial goal of $150 a full five days ahead of the challenge! So I doubled my goal to $300.

Every dollar supports UNICEF’s life saving work to bring food, medical attention, education, and more to the world’s neediest children.

5 Day Countdown, $150 in the Bag

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Isn’t generosity one of the best traits? Live Below the Line is still 5 whole days away and I’ve already reached my original fundraising goal of $150 for UNICEF! Of course this means I had to raise my goal, so I’ve doubled it. Will you help me raise $300 to help children living in extreme poverty?

    Even if you can’t afford to give financially, I’m certain you can afford to take the challenge – in fact it would save you a LOT of money on your next grocery bill! Whatever money you save you can donate to the charity of your choice. There’s still plenty of time to sign up.

Six Quarters

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I am never going to run a marathon.

I know it’s always a great experience for a great cause and everything, but me and running? We have irreconcilable differences. But that doesn’t mean I’m not up for the challenge of making personal, and even physical, sacrifices in the name of one such great cause.

Enter Live Below the Line. This exciting challenge and fundraiser is a brilliant and inspiring way to fight against global poverty and hunger. In this second annual event, from May 7-11, 2012, thousands of compassionate participants from the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand will take the challenge to live on just $1.50 a day for five days. In the process, we will build awareness about extreme global poverty, raise money for outstanding charities working on the frontlines of poverty relief, and most importantly, walk in solidarity with the 1.4 BILLION men, women and children worldwide who survive on less than $1.50 a day.

People living in extreme poverty are forced to stretch a dollar-fifty a day to cover ALL their needs: food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, child care, education, everything. Every day. Those of us taking the Live Below the Line challenge are only asked to eat on $1.50 a day, for only five short days of our privileged lives. I feel especially called to this challenge because of my work in hunger relief, and I am thrilled, proud, and a little nervous to take it on.

While all seven organizations represented are fantastic, I’ve chosen to raise money for UNICEF – the global leader in childhood poverty relief, saving countless lives and bringing much needed food, clean water, medical care, education, and more to the world’s poorest children. UNICEF is close to my heart because I’ve worked with kids for nearly 10 years, both in the U.S. and in some of the most impoverished countries in the world. Today my work in food justice targets children living with food insecurity. Children are the most vulnerable to the effects of poverty and they need our protection.

I hope you’ll visit my fundraising page, share it with friends and consider making a donation of any amount. My goal is to raise $150 for UNICEF.
I also hope you’ll consider taking the challenge yourself!!

Follow my progress and updates here on my blog and on Twitter @Bumble_and_Vine. You can follow @LBLUS and use #belowtheline, too.

Playing Politics Against the Poor

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For the most part, Bumble & Vine is not going to be a very political blog. Except for important food policy discussions, I won’t generally be making political statements here. But there are some things I cannot ignore, and because I am an advocate for food justice and for the people who suffer from food insecurity, I believe it’s my duty to stand up and say something when the people and values I fight for are attacked.

While I can’t say that I am altogether shocked by Newt Gingrich’s campaign ploy, I am outraged. Do I expect better from Republicans, during an election year at that? Frankly, no. But I cannot condone the wildly inaccurate and hate-tinged statements he’s been using about food stamps recipients in an attempt to secure the votes of small-minded people.

In case you haven’t heard, Gingrich has repeatedly called President Obama the “food stamp president”, further claiming that “more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history”. Much of the media attention around this ludicrous statement has pointed out that the claim is technically inaccurate, both because food stamp participation started rising while Bush was still in office, and because the president doesn’t put anyone on food stamps. That’s not how it works.

There has also been a great deal of speculation about how pointedly racist Gingrich’s remarks were, linking the first Black president with “welfare” and playing off the stereotypes many people hold about race, poverty and government assistance. While many Gingrich supporters deny any racial element to the remarks, Gingrich himself  has said that if he had an opportunity to speak in front of the NAACP, he would tell African Americans that they “should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps”. I’m sorry, Mr. Gingrich, but who the hell are you to tell anyone, much less a minority group that you are not a part of, what they “should” do? Furthermore, roughly 70% of food stamps recipients are white.

But I feel that there’s a lot more beneath the surface of Gingrich’s remarks and the standing ovation he received from a South Carolina audience. While it might appear that he’s just playing the standard political game and smearing his opponent, I don’t think this actually has anything to do with President Obama. What’s happening here, in my humble opinion, is the fostering and fueling of an all-too-pervasive attitude of resentment and disdain for the lower classes. Gingrich and his supporters are subtly assailing the poor, not the president.

We all know that the recession and the unemployment rate are the primary factors in SNAP participation hitting an all-time high. People are hungry because the economy is screwed, not because Obama wants to give hand-outs to the poor or minorities. But it’s not just the current state of the American economy – tempting as it might be, we cannot blame the economy for everything. I think we need to take a good, hard look at why programs like SNAP and WIC exist in the first place. People who participate in federal nutrition programs do so because of a very real plight: food insecurity. One in six Americans struggle to put food on the table. The very fact that we need federal nutrition programs in the first place is a symptom of the systemic inequality on which our economy is built. The fact that SNAP participation rates have risen dramatically in the last several years is testament to the growing wealth gap.

During my time as a case manager, I worked directly with hundreds of people suffering from poverty and hunger. Fortunately, a vast majority of them already had food stamps, and I was able to help many others apply for benefits. I hope to launch a SNAP outreach component of my current organization that will help more people access the food dollars they desperately need. While SNAP participation may have reached a record high, 3 out of 10 eligible citizens still don’t receive food stamps. I can tell you one thing based on my experience working directly with the people who rely on federal assistance: nobody wants to be dependent. Everyone I’ve met would rather earn a paycheck than depend on government support. But when your choices are limited to going hungry or asking for help, it’s time to ask for help.

The bottom line is this: freedom from hunger is a fundamental human right. Nourishment is our very most basic, most vital human need. If you remember studying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in your college psych class, you’ll have a grasp on this, too: one cannot begin to address larger goals (ie: employment, housing) on an empty stomach. Those who oppose supporting social welfare expenses to help people meet their most basic survival needs like to say things like “go get a job”, much like Gingrich did when he said people should demand paychecks instead of food stamps. To those people, I’d like to say “wake up and smell the unemployment rate” and also “get your head out of your ass”. Putting food on the table always comes first – ask anyone who couldn’t afford to eat dinner last night. What I’m getting at is this: people cannot begin to turn their lives around, secure the education or job they need, or find stable housing until they have the most basic sense of security: a full belly.

Politics are shallow. Politicians will always be politicians; they will always twist the facts, fuel the fire, and say anything to hurt their opponent or gain a vote. But I believe they should keep their nasty word wars to themselves and leave the public out of it. Mr. Gingrich, it is not your place to insult struggling American families. What’s even more alarming to me is how many people applaud such bullying statements; it reflects an abhorrent and ignorant attitude that is unfortunately widely held. I can only hope that a majority of Americans will choose to be bigger people and refuse to reward such conniving, dirty politicians with their votes.

I hope you’ll take a moment to check out this incredibly informative, interactive hunger map posted by Feeding America, the national food bank network. The image below is property of Feeding America. Make sure to click the link so you can zoom in to your state or city for more detailed data.