Make a Change – support food banks

Tomorrow, Tuesday, May 31st is Hunger Awareness Day.

According to the national report HungerCount 2010, Food bank use reached record levels in 2010. Nearly 870,000 people relied on the assistance of a food bank in order to have enough to eat.

Food banks throughout Huron County provide assistance to many, but their work relies on you. This year you can make a chance – big or small – that can impact the issue of hunger in our county and in our country.

CHANGE how you SUPPORT your food bank:

Do you know what to donate to a food bank? Many of our local food banks have the capacity to accept fresh and frozen produce and meats. Think beyond the traditional soups and peanut butter – would you like to eat like that all the time?

For a list of suggested items, please visit this handy listing of what types of items are needed at our local food banks.

Financial donations are always welcome – this allows the food banks to provide coupons for milk, eggs and other perishable items.

Or show your support by volunteering at your local food bank!

Make a Change, Make a Difference!

Hunger is a complicated problem and one that many of us feel challenged to make an impact on. Hunger Awareness Day, May 31, 2011 is an opportunity to get engaged with the issue.

Hunger Awareness Day is about raising awareness of the solvable problem of hunger in Canada.

This year Canadians are being encouraged to adopt any number of changes – big or small – that truly can have a positive effect on the issue of hunger in our country.

Yes, YOU can make a change, make a difference!

Celebrating a birthday on food bank fare

Day 2 for our family on food bank rations was my husband’s birthday. But, he’s a trooper and didn’t complain while he and I continued to eat what was “in the box” for the second day. Peanut butter and the remaining hamburger/hotdog buns continued to be a staple for breakfast and snacks. With my husband home from work on his day off, we shared the second can of soup for lunch – a vegetable noodle soup that was far from appetizing but filled the hole. And, we broke out the can of peaches for dessert. My kids continued to eat their own groceries for breakfast and lunch.

Supper was the remaining spaghetti casserole, which had just enough to feed our family of four a second time. Because the organizers of this experiment knew my husband’s birthday was on June 2, they were kind enough to provide a box of six tiny chocolate bars, which we shared among ourselves after singing Happy Birthday.

Now, that the two days are over, I have to say I’m relieved to be putting fresh fruit and vegetables, along with some meat back into my diet. I found myself participating in a “mindfulness exercise” promoted by yoga teachers and meditators as I crunched down on my carrots at lunch today, savouring the taste and chewing slowly to be really mindful about how good it was and how full of nutrition. This experience has reminded me of the need to be grateful for what we have.

While it’s been great to put a bunch of journalists and media “personalities” through the experience, it seems to me that next year, a concentration should be put on politicians, those people who are actually in a position to make political change to a system that has created the need for food banks. Perhaps Huron-Bruce MPP Carol Mitchell and Huron-Bruce MP Ben Lobb could be persuaded to participate so they could gain some firsthand knowledge about how people are forced to live while on unemployment insurance, welfare and other forms of social assistance. As the numbers of people grow – in some cases doubling since last year – it seems apparent that food banks, who depend on the generosity of donors, aren’t going to be able to meet the need forever.

While we might think we understand intellectually about poverty and what it’s like to need a food bank, there’s nothing like eating for two days from someone else’s food box to get a real taste of it.

Reflections

Well first off, let’s be honest and say that this was only two days, so really, in some ways, we were even spoiled with what we had, seeing as how places all over the world see people going much longer with nothing.

However, this is North American poverty, which a lot of people can forget about. Despite your neighbourhood, it’s always going on in your backyard, it’s just a matter of how hidden it is.

This was one of those exercises that I didn’t necessarily want to do, especially now having finished it, it is definitely a few days that I could have done without, but I think it was something that I needed.
Talking recently with my friend Chris about a book called Emergency, it scared us into the realization about how unprepared this generation of men could be if we faced a real life-threatening situation. Many of us have lost the resourcefulness of our ancestors in hunting, gathering, fixing things, etc…

Something like this, albeit a very, very small blip on the radar, teaches us what many people past and present have known for years and have dealt with.

It also makes you look at the Food Bank differently. These aren’t just drives and decorated bins anymore, although there are those things. The Food Bank now has the resources to take in fresh fruit, dairy products and meat and distribute them to those who really need it.
So when I was told to donate as if I was shopping for myself, something Kristylee reiterated several times, it is something I believe in now.

When I first saw the box of food, I thought I would be able to get through the two days no problem, but not until I started making meals and stroking items off an imaginary list as I ate them did I realize the challenge in living like this and how remarkable it is that people do this every day, some for their whole lives.

I took the challenge very seriously, never straying from the box, not for seasoning, not for ingredients, not for free food, not for anything. I really wanted to give it a proper try and it was a difficult two days but it certainly opened my eyes. I felt like if I had strayed from the box or wasted any of the food that I would be doing the Food Bank a disservice and taking food out of the mouths of people who really need the help.

I will be writing a full story that will hopefully include blog entries for next week’s Citizen, if anyone is interested.

And congrats to everyone else who completed the challenge, hopefully this exercise helped the Food Bank out to change some minds and raise some awareness.

Shawn

Dinner and Midnight Temptations

For dinner last night I had the Kraft Dinner that I had left over from my first dinner and my second lunch. It wasn’t too bad, but it still left a lot to be desired. I had a half of a can of beans left over from the first day, so I ate those along with the noodles, in addition to my last hamburger bun, leaving me in quite a bind, should I come up hungry later on in the night.

I was advised by several of my friends that once the clock struck 12 that I was off the hook. I wanted to make it a proper exercise and live off of my food until breakfast this morning. This was much easier said than done.

So my council meeting went late, as they tend to do, and after toiling through the meeting, hungrier than I have been in a long while, swearing that I was having hallucinations and random zone-outs over the course of the meeting, I found myself cruising back into Goderich at about 11:15.

McDonald’s would probably still be open.

Resisting the temptation to get McDonald’s was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make, haha.

It probably would have made for a rough morning, but I had next to nothing left to choose from once I got back to my apartment, just a jar of peanut butter (no buns left) and the can of tuna or the can of salmon, which I was attempting to stay away from at all costs.

I resisted the temptation and got home and went to sleep, albeit after some tossing and turning and random wake-ups due to hunger, I made it to this morning.

Reflections on Food Bank cuisine

Well, it’s day 3 of the food bank experience and I have more food leftover than I ate. I found that if the food available to me isn’t appealing, I’m not as hungry as I thought I was.

Last night, at the hair stylist, when she offered me a coffee while my hair “cooked”, I took her up on her offer. I went straight to a meeting after that so no time for supper and unfortunately, no cookies or muffins at the meeting, just more coffee. Of course, I had some having learned never to turn down the free stuff. By the time I got home @ 10 p.m. I was famished and couldn’t face cooking up KD or the other pasta so didn’t bother.

This morning for breakfast, I had some more bran flakes & milk but also put a cut up banana on it. Soooooo good. I also had some melon and apple cider, obviously not from the food bank box. And I feel like my old self again.

You are what you eat has never meant more to me than after this experience.

I’m working to avoid the hunger – what!?

Unlike Shawn who does NOT enjoy KD (crazy kid) I REALLY do – so to not have milk or butter to make it, was slightly heartbreaking for me haha. Like I said I mixed the noodles with my can of beans and can of tuna – although it tasted OK, it doesn’t anymore. Since i’ve had it for supper last night, lunch today - and am dreading opening up that container of leftovers once again.

Actually, I am at work right now to avoid the hunger.  This is how you know it’s serious – when its 8:30 at night and I’m in the newsroom getting ahead for tomorrow and watching the hockey game to keep me distracted. As I witnessed Ally Anderson eating peanut butter from the jar… with a spoon today… (and could hardly contain my laughter as she did it during my 12noon news cast) I decided this is CRAZY – something needs to be done. We cant’ have people eating peanut butter out of the jar for nourishment!! COME ON PEOPLE…. this isn’t just hunger… this is health and lifestyle.

This challenge was honestly a lot harder than I thought it would be and we only did it for 2 days. I was visiting my parents in Exeter today and my dad had recently made a rather large fruit salad – better believe I packed half of it up and will absolutley be devouring it for breakfast int he morning. Although I KNOW I will find difficult to do so – because I won’t be able to stop thinking about the people who  still don’t have that option.

So AGAIN, I will stress – give generously to the foodbank… check out our website www.1049thebeach.ca and click on the morning show link…. for a link to the Food Bank website which has a list of things you can do to help. Donate as if you are feeding your own family!

Lunch II

Ok, I couldn’t do it.

Despite how hungry I am, I am still not a fish in a tin kind of guy. I was going to crack the can of salmon to add a little flavour to my Kraft Dinner noodles, but I couldn’t do it.

So that being said, what did I have left over? Not much, all I had to garnish the noodles was the second half of the beans from last night and a packet of cheese powder that came with the Kraft Dinner. I went with the cheese powder, but not like I did last night where I sprinkled some on. I put the whole packet in, using a trick that I learned from watching The Sopranos (Cook your noodles, drain the water, and then throw the noodles back in the pot with a decent helping of your sauce and stir it around for a minute). This flavours up your noodles, and then you put the sauce on them.

That’s what I did, and surprisingly enough, it wasn’t that bad. I may not have had big expectations, seeing as how I am the one person in the world who doesn’t like traditional Kraft Dinner, but it wasn’t bad, one of the easier meals. I have to be honest though, I am still waiting for that one meal that satisfies me and makes me full and ready to go out and do whatever. It still has been a tough go.

A long night still ahead, but the finish line is in site.

This has definitely been hard, but I can’t say I haven’t learned about rationing and making the most of what I have in the cupboard.

Lunch…not so satisfying!

Ok,

so I went home for lunch today and had left over supper from last night.  Lentil soup and rice noodles…really I am sick of it already.  I am longing for a latte like nobody’s business and can hardly wait until tomorrow when I will finally get one.

So far this experience has opened my eyes to many things:

1.  I am someone with food allergies and when it comes to an assortment of food there is a lack of it to begin with.  When you tack on how expensive the food is to buy everyday, someone eating from a food bank would definatly have issues eating foods that their body can handle.

2.  The foods in my box were NOT packed full of nutrition but when you are buying non-perishable food items it is difficult to avoid the perservatives and all the added sugar, sodium and trans fats.  A great example of this would be the no name peanut butter that I ate from the jar today.  The second ingredient was icing sugar and corn syrup then followed that!  Not all that healthy if you ask me.

3.  If you revolve your diet around the Canadian Food Guide you will see that you should consume 7-8 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.  Right now I have had two servings of fruit and if you count the dried parsley in my lentil soup as a vegetable that takes me to three for today and then two yesterday.  Not even close to the amount I should be having!

4.  Now I know that when you donate to the food bank you donate the non-perishable foods but sometimes I don’t think we consider how appetizing they actually are for us.  Next time I donate I will be keeping all these things in mind.  I will start looking for things that I would like to eat and also those things I CAN eat and I urge everyone to do the same.

As dinner fast approaches I will be indulging in a can of beans with tomato sauce.  I will let you know how I feel after that.

I am hungry hungry!

Well yesterday sort of worked out in my favor.  I was feeling under the weather with a cold so food was not something I was craving.  I did have an apple sauce from my food box which was suppose to be my breakfast.  I didn’t get hungry until about noon.  Then throughout the day still no hunger pains but by 7:00, BAM!  Hit me like a ton of bricks.  I had some lentil soup and added some rice noodles.  Wasn’t all that satisfying.

I should say that I have many food allergies including gluten, wheat and dairy and the food bank was very accommodating which allowed me to take part in this adventure.

Today I had another applesauce for breakfast with an apple juice (can’t get enough apples today!).  I didn’t feel full after that so I ventured to my box and grabbed a container of peanut butter and had to eat it straight from the jar as I had nothing to spread it on.  Now I am starving again and just waiting to take my lunch break.  I will keep you posted on how that all works out!