Judgement Day
So you think you can live on the food stamp budget for a month? Good on you! Do you think you could do it for two months? For three? For a year? Forever? How long til your preferred brand of fair trade, shade grown, organic decaf whole coffee beans runs out? How long til you slip a little and buy regular celery and regular apples and regular lettuce because it’s on sale, instead of 3x the cost for organics? How long before you buy a cheaper loaf of bread, a generic cheese instead of an artisanal brand? Two gallons of store-brand milk instead of one carton of organic vanilla soy?
When will you weigh whether you could feed your entire family for one night for $1, or $26, and choose the $1 pack of hot dogs? If your EBT card was loaded with just $25 a month to feed both your disabled son and you, would you still buy the organic “happy-meat” hot dogs? If your food budget was limited to what was left over after paying for your transportation and your housing, and you had to choose between food or medicine, which would you buy? Answer truthfully, Grasshopper.
Would you shop at Walgreen’s or CVS or Rite-Aid with the sale paper, and the little coupons, and the $1 aisle? Would you check out the Dollar Store to see what kind of food $1 can buy? Would you visit ethnic grocery stores? Would you venture in the Mission District or Chinatown or Little Saigon to try to save money on produce? Would you ignore the media horror stories about tainted foods (with lead, mercury, insects, pesticides or e Coli) from other countries because imported foods are cheaper at this store or that?
Would you lie to feed your kids? Would you steal food, if it didn’t really hurt anyone? If no one would notice, or if they could afford the loss? Would you do something illegal — maybe deliver a message? Help a friend buy some weed? Trade your EBT card for cash? Help out a 20-year-old who offered you $5 to buy him some beer? What if he was 15 instead of almost legal?
Would you take home the extra crackers on the table? Pocket the jelly packets and the sugar? Drink the cream out of the coffee service before leaving the table? Would you take a piece of fruit hanging over a fence, whether you knew the owner of the tree or not? Would you try to get away with expired coupons, or claim a product was defective in order to get it for free? Would you attend an event just for the food (happy hour, a retirement party, a wedding you weren’t invited to)? Would you offer your body (for scientific research? for a survey? for sex? for — whatever?) if there was a promise of food or cash? No?
How many nutritional risks are you willing and able to take with your own health and your kids’ or elderly relatives’? Would you buy Kool-Aid instead of juice? Would you buy the no-name “drink mix” because it was cheaper than Kool-Aid? Would you eat leftovers or day-old bread? Would you look into a Dumpster to see if there was food? Would you take it if there was? Would you eat it? Would you tell anyone that’s where your food came from?
Have you ever been hungry? Have you ever felt envy toward someone with two refrigerators and a Costco card and all the boneless, skinless chicken breasts you ever wanted? Have you refused when someone offered to pay for your lunch or drink, even though you desperately wanted or needed it? Have you made do?
Would you go to the food bank? Would you suck up your pride and your (whatever) class values and silence your inner Calvinist with the sermon about manifest destiny and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, and ask for help? Would you pray? Would you suffer in silence? Would you be a martyr? Would you martyr your kids, your spouse, your disabled senile grandma, your pets, too?
Where does “I’d never do that” collide with your hungry child? With you, yourself, at your innermost lonely self? Do you know if any of this is true or is it all just academic? Guess what? Most of the above has either happened to me, when I was a hungry single mom (1985-89, 2001-2006), or to others who have contacted me while I’ve been doing the JFSC (June, 2010). Hunger is a great leveler, and a very strong master.
You’d never do any of that, if you were hungry? Really?
Tuesday Menu
Breakfast: Boys: generic Cheerios and milk; Simone: homemade breakfast bars, oatmeal; Patrick: oatmeal. Julia: smoothie (plain yogurt, banana, milk).
Lunch: Simone: tuna sandwich, carrots. Patrick: leftover salad and chili. Julia: 2 scrambled eggs, 2 pieces toast, rescued nectarine (leftover from a lunch), water
Snack: Julia: coffee, chocolate (from baseball snacks).
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6 Comments
Sharron
Amen, Julia, amen.
Angela
A month of awesome posts. Thanks Julia.
Paul & Carla
I admit, I have never been hungry. And I admit to rather rigorous “Calvinistic” personal standards. (Note: I am NOT a Calvinist.) However, you raise very thought-provoking questions and I cannot say that I know how to answer them. I do know that I have a responsibility to not turn away someone who asks for help. I have no business judging them or their circumstances in most cases. God give me the courage to act on my convictions and the strength to be generous…
Theresa in Mèrida
I have been really poor, when I lived in Texas in a small town outside of Houston. I remember getting food stamps (I had to cajole my husband into applying, he had lost his job and I didn’t make enough to cover all the bills) and walking into the store and thinking “Wow, I can buy food, I can buy milk and hamburger!” it was a wonderful feeling. I was so broke we couldn’t afford to turn the gas on and I cooked on an electric frying pan or barbecued.
I used to use a pound of meat for dinner. I never paid more than 99c a pound and didn’t care what it was.No matter how many people I was feeding, I used a pound of meat. I rarely bought hot dogs, too pricey, though I once made hot dog fried rice from 3 turkey dogs, celery and carrots, it feed five people!!
I learned that if meat was semi frozen you can slice it really thin and broccoli stems are tasty.
When I was poor, I learned how to cook Chinese food and Indian food, because it was cheap and tasty.
As for drinking the cream? who ate out?
regards,
Theresa
julia park tracey
The gal who drinks the cream is a real person. She told me about it, and I’ve actually seen her do it. She grew up in a large family with no money and they always did what they had to. I think this was something she did to get milk. I wouldn’t have thought of it, but I guess she didn’t want it to go to waste.
Haylee
I have done (or would do) all of that except take food from a dumpster. I don’t know what your dumpsters are like there but here they’re REALLY repulsive. Nothing edible to be found. We are always SO tight on money – sometimes stretching $10 for a week for two people – so we will do whatever is necessary to eat. I have bought food for the pets with our last dime and lived on crackers and peanut butter for a day or two waiting for a paycheck to arrive. I suppose most people get a paycheck and start thinking about new clothing they can buy or what have you. I get a paycheck in hand and my brain starts yelling, “We can eat! I can buy food! We can eat something we WANT!” Paydays, regardless of how small they are, are awesome. 🙂