So I was scheduled for a wisdom tooth extraction in the new place that I shifted to. Since I dont have a car here, public transport it was, and I am not allowed to eat in the bus! So the only time I could get a quick bite was between 2 buses. And then the tooth extraction happened, so I was not supposed to eat. I kind of spent 3 days on either partial lunch (day0) or liquid food (aka milk with kheericha sattva, shikaran, or jamba juice). I dont have a calorie count but my estimate from how hungry/ weak i felt and how gaunt I looked is that it was far less, may be a half of the recommended 2000. This was totally a first world problem - I could not go out for more Jamba because I didn't have a car, and I could not go out in general because I was too weak.
There are billions of people who probably eat as little as I did and on top of it do physical labor to manage to earn that food. I kind of remember reading that jowar/ bajra/ millet are easier to digest, and I do hope that they are so easy to digest that those poor people who survive only on zhunka bhakar can extract all of its nutrition from the meager food they eat.
A few days ago I had participated in the SNAP challenge to eat only in a 4.5$ a day. The background story is that the US government fixed an upper limit on food stamps that each poor person will get: food stamps amounting to only 4.5$ a day. Then there are these well-to-do challenge takers who basically realized at the end of the challenge that this limit was too little, and how hard life is for poor people. The SNAP website is full of testimonials from people who claimed how hungry and snappy they were in managing to eat in just 4.5$ and all.
Living in Florida, I shop all my groceries including Organic fruits and veggies for the week in under 30$ which means that I trump the challenge each week without even trying, inspite of shopping in Publix (which is costlier than walmart), shopping Organic (which is costlier than non-organic) and being a vegetarian (because apparently meat is cheaper than veggies in the US). What I had not factored in was that there are states with higher taxes than Florida, or states with Federal taxes on top of the state taxes. (Or the cost of electricity to actually cook that rice). My conclusion from my normal, challenge shopping without ever taking up the challenge was that poor people should buy in bulk, and cook at home, and then 3 meals for 4.5$ a day per person isn't a big deal. Actually cooking for more people got progressively cheaper.
What was unrealistic was that my first world perspective assumed that people have a place where they can store the milk and fruits in a refrigerator, or store the rice bought in bulk pestfree, and have access to stove. Dasani's story changed my opinion.
Since my grocery bills were always lower than the SNAP, I never really actively took the challenge. Being on a liquid diet for a totally different reason opened my eyes to how bad really the life is for people who survive on half meals every day.
There are billions of people who probably eat as little as I did and on top of it do physical labor to manage to earn that food. I kind of remember reading that jowar/ bajra/ millet are easier to digest, and I do hope that they are so easy to digest that those poor people who survive only on zhunka bhakar can extract all of its nutrition from the meager food they eat.
A few days ago I had participated in the SNAP challenge to eat only in a 4.5$ a day. The background story is that the US government fixed an upper limit on food stamps that each poor person will get: food stamps amounting to only 4.5$ a day. Then there are these well-to-do challenge takers who basically realized at the end of the challenge that this limit was too little, and how hard life is for poor people. The SNAP website is full of testimonials from people who claimed how hungry and snappy they were in managing to eat in just 4.5$ and all.
Living in Florida, I shop all my groceries including Organic fruits and veggies for the week in under 30$ which means that I trump the challenge each week without even trying, inspite of shopping in Publix (which is costlier than walmart), shopping Organic (which is costlier than non-organic) and being a vegetarian (because apparently meat is cheaper than veggies in the US). What I had not factored in was that there are states with higher taxes than Florida, or states with Federal taxes on top of the state taxes. (Or the cost of electricity to actually cook that rice). My conclusion from my normal, challenge shopping without ever taking up the challenge was that poor people should buy in bulk, and cook at home, and then 3 meals for 4.5$ a day per person isn't a big deal. Actually cooking for more people got progressively cheaper.
What was unrealistic was that my first world perspective assumed that people have a place where they can store the milk and fruits in a refrigerator, or store the rice bought in bulk pestfree, and have access to stove. Dasani's story changed my opinion.
Since my grocery bills were always lower than the SNAP, I never really actively took the challenge. Being on a liquid diet for a totally different reason opened my eyes to how bad really the life is for people who survive on half meals every day.
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