United Way Hunger Challenge Day Two
The Challenge: United Way of King County Hunger Challenge. April 20-24 2009 The rules: Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner spending only $12 a day for 2 people for 5 days. Can’t use food you already have or accept anything for free. My Personal Challenge on top of this challenge: I want to do this challenge with enough food leftover after 5 days to get something it the freezer. Day 2: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 Breakfast was toast with margarine and a peach yogurt. Lunch was avgolemono soup. Dinner was some more penne pasta with meat sauce. I also ate two of the chocolate muffins on day two. I ate one chocolate muffin on day one and let my husband have one. With only two muffins left I did a really nice thing and packed one in my husbands lunch bag. I feel like I’m rationing sugar and about to run out. Good thing I still have $4.50 left, but I think I’ll try to go two days without a chocolate fix. There’s still lots of oranges so I can eat something sweet. I also baked the black bean marinated chicken breasts and made 2 cups of brown rice. Those were cooked so they could be packed in my husbands bag while he is out of town working from Wednesday through Saturday. In the meantime I did some thinking about how hunger was presented to me as a child. Eat Your Dinner There Are Hungry People Down the Street. Hungry people are suppose to be in China or in Africa, not on Main St. or First Ave. Why is it that we don’t hear more people talking about hunger in the US or Canada? Growing up I was told to finish my dinner because their where starving kids in China. But my parents never said at the dinner table “Did you make enough to bring grandma lunch tomorrow?” When my grandma was broke she’d make an announcement. "I’m going on a diet." And when grandma was on a diet she only ate one thing: Fudgesicles. Her logic was that if she could only eat one thing it was going to be her favorite food. Being old school she still felt the need to offer food to anyone that stopped by. "Do you want crackers? I have crackers. And Butter. Get the crackers. And a knife. See if there is some peanut butter up there- the cabinet next to the fridge. Have some crackers." I honestly don’t know how old I was when I realized that she was broke and couldn’t afford food. I knew she got social security checks and money from her husbands pension plan. And what’s worse is she was widowed in 1996 if I remember correctly. I was about 11 when her husband died (she and my grandfather had divorced long ago), so I was in my early teens when this was happening. Of course, when we went to visit my mom usually brought food. So, I usually saw grandma eating and maybe that is why I didn’t think of her as someone who was hungry. I wish I knew then what I know now about freezing food. We could have had grandma sit at the table, she could still do things like grate the cheese and my mom and I could have done the hard work and odd jobs that require more standing. We could have made her a bunch of freezer meals and then my mom wouldn’t have had to worry about grandma eating every single day. Some of the latest statistics I’ve seen are on hunger in the US. With 1 in 10 American families receiving aid for “nutrition assistance” as it’s recently been renamed we all know someone being affected. Read about my first day of the United Way Hunger Challenge. Want to talk to me about this challenge or freezer cooking? I'm on Twitter @FavFreezerFoods Return from Hunger Challenge Two to the homepage of Favorite Freezer Foods.  Custom Search
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