Food bank diet day 2

[em_h]

I knew the quality of food would be extremely poor, and the quantity not great, but I didn't anticipate that I would be *constantly* hungry. I woke up at about 4 am, unable to sleep because I was hungry, and I had to drink an unplanned glass of my tightly rationed milk in order to get back to sleep.

I don't know how far it's because I'm actually not getting enough calories, or how far it's because the calories I'm getting are so unfulfilling (lots of white bread, white rice, white pasta). I'm eating my tuna for lunch today, and we'll see if that shot of protein helps.

I've never really eaten like this, because even at my poorest I had enough money to buy *some* food, so I could still choose to get whole grains, and expired vegetables from the bargain table, things like that. But when you can't pay anything at all, you have to take what the food banks can give you, and that tends to be highly processed carbs.

I wish that I could get more of my meal program volunteers to do this for a few days, because then maybe they'd ask fewer stupid questions about why the guests seem so picky and anxious about food.

Comments

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

My sister and her kids have had to rely on food banks at a few points, and this is pretty consistent with what they reported. Some visits they got nothing but several loaves of white Wonder bread, and even on the times when it was more than that, it was usually, as you say, almost entirely starchy refined grains, with little to nothing in the way protein or vegetables.

And having to live on crap like that definitely has an effect - in my sister's case, it was particularly problematic because she has chronic problems with depression, and having to live on that sort of food would make it worse, thereby making it harder for her to get it together to find a new job so that she would have some money again. It was like a negative feedback loop. When people don't have adequate food to give them energy, it's hard for them to make any kind of positive changes in their lives that might put them in a position where they no longer had to rely on food banks...

(If you're wondering why they had to do that and my family didn't step in to help, it's because when my sister's going through a rough time she tends to just drop out of communication with everyone so that we have no idea what's happening - we would have helped if we'd known about it at the time! But we only ever find this stuff out after the fact.)

I think anyone who is inclined to make judgments about food bank clients should be required to do what you're doing right now.

[em_h]

Yeah, I was the person who actually drew up the shopping list in consultation with the Fort York Food Bank (people bought their own food, so that we wouldn't be taking food out of the mouths of real food bank clients), and in the end I decided to give people a fairly high-end food bank experience, what with the tin of tuna and three eggs and a quart of milk, not to mention an actual potato. But it's what the Fort York Food Bank would be able to give out in a good week.

I was pretty certain I couldn't get many people to go in on this if it were too authentic -- even as it was, a bunch of people dropped out once they actually saw the list. "But if I ate like that, I would be tired and depressed all the time!" Um, yes ... that's part of the experiential learning that's intended ...

That negative feedback loop is a really important concept for people to get, and not an easy one to communicate.

[aquaeri]

I was pretty certain I couldn't get many people to go in on this if it were too authentic -- even as it was, a bunch of people dropped out once they actually saw the list. "But if I ate like that, I would be tired and depressed all the time!"

That sound you're hearing is me banging my head against a wall.