Reflecting on the Challenge

In talking to my friend Steve Maritz about the Hunger Challenge that my wife Susan and I recently completed, he brought up a quote by Senator Claire McCaskill who once said, “We give people just enough to eat poorly,” and Steve wondered if we end up paying the price down the road in the form of higher health care costs. It is something to ponder, but as Susan and I went through the week eating only the groceries we were been able to buy with our allotted money, it was clear that we were not eating as healthily as we’d been accustomed to. What’s more, the discipline involved in sticking to the challenge had an emotional toll as well. We even argued over food. Susan said at one point that she thought I had eaten more than my fair share of the rations. We decided to spend some of the $6 we kept from our budget to get more bread, tuna helper and another can of spinach, which is just about the only vegetable we could include. Looking back on it, we probably missed fruit most of all.

There’s an episode of I Love Lucy in which Lucy and Ricky and Fred and Ethel are trapped without food in an Alpine cabin by an avalanche and they begin to argue over the only food available to them – a single cheese sandwich. It’s a very funny episode, but it reflects the not-so-funny reality that having limited food can wear on your attitude, emotions and health. We certainly found that to be the case during our Hunger Challenge Experience. More to the point, that’s a big part of the challenge that many people in our community deal with, and that Food Outreach helps to address every day.

in reflecting specifically on the Hunger Challenge, I’d have to say that two things hit me hardest of all: one, it is nearly impossible for an individual to have a balanced, nutritious meal on $29. And two, while this experience involved a little inconvenience, and was very eye-opening, we only had to live it for a week. For many people this is a reality for months, years, even lifetimes.

It is in our power to do something real and tangible to help people face and overcome their challenges by supporting Food Outreach and other vital health and human services agencies with a generous donation to the United Way.