I recently came upon a post on one of my favorite sites, Imgur.com about a project called Below the line, which is basically a worldwide program designed to help people who normally don't think about going to the store and spending lots of money to get groceries each week realize that most people are indeed quite poor and live on much less. they have a section for the US which shows that people living in poverty have about $1.50 per day on which to eat. So for a single person, they only have $10.50 per week with which to get proceries. Now, some of the commenters did not do the math right, and so thought that a sigle person only had $7.50 per week to get groceries, but I digress. It got me thinking a lot about my childhood, because to be completely honest, we were probably in that boat most of the time, So I have lived with the fact that there was not always enough food in the house for everyone to eat and not be hungry.
However, after reading some of the posts on the wesite, I have become very upset, because their mentality towards the week they spend trying to eat only $1.50 per day was very skewd. The first poster I read decided it was a good idea to spend her money on canned beans rather than dried, to control portion size. Well, i'm sorry, but when you only have a very limit amount of money, you want to try and pack as much calories in at as low a price as possible. By using dried beans instead, they could have had more food to eat, thus more calories to sustain them through the day, for the same price as a "portion controled" diet.
And as for the scope of the project. 7 days does not seem like the best timeline to me. True, most people would not want to volentarily put themselves through hardship for sake of an experiement, but on the premise that each person gets $10.50 per week, if it is a 2 person home, such as me and Dale, that would give us $21 per week, or $84 for a month. True, this is not a lot of money, but there are ways to stretch this amount to cover all our needs, if only the people had open minds.
Making our own bread is cheap, and very filling, giving the person complex carbs that break down slowly, giving lasting energy. Larger bags of rice and beeans can be bought, thus reducing the total price per serving, giving the chance to have a little more with each meal. It does not take into consideration foraging for food, which is cost in time and knowlege, but if one person has the extra time and know how, it should not be a problem, nor hunting or fishing, both of which can be done without consuming personal time if done with snares and traps. Again, this takes know-how and experience, but even setting up traps for rabbits or pidgeons in small towns is legal. If you can handle the fact that something has to die so you can eat, weither is comes wrapped in plastic or fur/feathers/scales is just a matter of packaging. It also did not say anything about using cuopons vs buying generic, or with a sale, etc. While it is true that there are plenty of other sites out there with this info, it does nothing to broaden the scope of how to handle the issue.
While it is good that they are trying to bring awarness to the issue, I guess what upsets me the most is the utter lack willingness to learn new skills, or to think outside the box of what is "Normal" to eat. There are more answers to this issue that just throwing money into the donation box to have someone go and get groceries for people. Since you are here, reading these posts, I can only hope you are willing to open your mind and imbrace new venues of thinking, so that in the case of personal, statewide, national, or gobal crisis, no one you love has to go hungery.
A silly trun on a very famous proverb: Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and cats will plague hi
However, after reading some of the posts on the wesite, I have become very upset, because their mentality towards the week they spend trying to eat only $1.50 per day was very skewd. The first poster I read decided it was a good idea to spend her money on canned beans rather than dried, to control portion size. Well, i'm sorry, but when you only have a very limit amount of money, you want to try and pack as much calories in at as low a price as possible. By using dried beans instead, they could have had more food to eat, thus more calories to sustain them through the day, for the same price as a "portion controled" diet.
And as for the scope of the project. 7 days does not seem like the best timeline to me. True, most people would not want to volentarily put themselves through hardship for sake of an experiement, but on the premise that each person gets $10.50 per week, if it is a 2 person home, such as me and Dale, that would give us $21 per week, or $84 for a month. True, this is not a lot of money, but there are ways to stretch this amount to cover all our needs, if only the people had open minds.
Making our own bread is cheap, and very filling, giving the person complex carbs that break down slowly, giving lasting energy. Larger bags of rice and beeans can be bought, thus reducing the total price per serving, giving the chance to have a little more with each meal. It does not take into consideration foraging for food, which is cost in time and knowlege, but if one person has the extra time and know how, it should not be a problem, nor hunting or fishing, both of which can be done without consuming personal time if done with snares and traps. Again, this takes know-how and experience, but even setting up traps for rabbits or pidgeons in small towns is legal. If you can handle the fact that something has to die so you can eat, weither is comes wrapped in plastic or fur/feathers/scales is just a matter of packaging. It also did not say anything about using cuopons vs buying generic, or with a sale, etc. While it is true that there are plenty of other sites out there with this info, it does nothing to broaden the scope of how to handle the issue.
While it is good that they are trying to bring awarness to the issue, I guess what upsets me the most is the utter lack willingness to learn new skills, or to think outside the box of what is "Normal" to eat. There are more answers to this issue that just throwing money into the donation box to have someone go and get groceries for people. Since you are here, reading these posts, I can only hope you are willing to open your mind and imbrace new venues of thinking, so that in the case of personal, statewide, national, or gobal crisis, no one you love has to go hungery.
A silly trun on a very famous proverb: Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and cats will plague hi