As part of an effort to promote Hunger Action Week—five days devoted to promoting hunger awareness—the United Way of King County is encouraging people to try to live on a food-stamp budget (that’s $7 for food per day) for five days, without using any ingredients they already own.
According to the United Way:
This challenge is an exercise of empathy—to live in someone else’s shoes for one week and learn how you can help fight hunger in our community. Remember every household that receives food stamps has a different situation—some are able to purchase additional food, others use food banks or receive meals from friends or family, some people have time to cook meals while others don’t have a place to cook at all. Living on $7 a day is one scenario.
I’m glad the United Way notes that hunger involves many potential scenarios. However, I’m not sure the experience of eating on $7 a day will produce quite the results the United Way is seeking. So far, one person taking part in the challenge has bemoaned the fact that she can’t buy coffee at a local cafe or use her “favorite beans” using her “French press, espresso maker, automatic drip coffee maker and super-seal thermos.”
Another, a writer for the Puget Sound Business Journal, worries about going without “caffeine, alcohol, sweets [and] restaurant-bought meals.”
A third, a reporter for KOMO News, is worried about not being able to buy an “emergency cup” of coffee later in the week after spending part of her money on three bars of fancy dark chocolate (“my sweet tooth refuses to be denied.”)
And a fourth, writing for the Intersect blog, seems surprised to discover that Whole Foods is expensive.
There’s something off-putting about watching privileged people play at being poor, and it isn’t just that their complaints amount to whining about five days without $12-a-pound coffee and $9 sandwiches from the Dahlia Lounge. It’s that “living on food stamps” isn’t the same as actually being poor. People in poverty lack many advantages besides the money to buy better food; and “winning” the Hunger Challenge gives participants permission to pat themselves on the back while ignoring the many privileges that differentiate them from the actual impoverished people.
Those privileges include, but are by no means limited to: Access to transportation (the KOMO reporter drove to three different stores to “hunt for bargains”); proximity to one or more decent grocery stores (if you don’t have a car or a frequent bus route, you’ll probably make do with whatever’s available at the nearest convenience store); access to plentiful information about cheap, nutritious food; and the time (and well-equipped kitchen) needed to cook it.
If I’m working two jobs and spending all my disposable income on day care, I’m probably not going to spend hours lovingly preparing bechamel and bolgonese sauces for a homemade lasagna or fresh-baked bread, or stand over a pot of beans for two hours to make a healthy three-bean salad. There’s a reason people buy food at McDonald’s, and it isn’t because they’re stupid.
The biggest privilege all these writers have, of course, is that they’re playing tourist in a poor person’s world. If a diet of oatmeal, beans and ramen sounds boring after Day 2, imagine not being able to go back to your favorite restaurant—or eat organic, grass-fed meat from Whole Foods, or even enjoying a diet with lots of varied produce—ever again. That’s reality for many people, and it’s something I worry do-gooder initiatives like the Hunger Challenge allow us to forget.
(For more effective ways to participate in Hunger Week, including volunteer opportunities, check out the United Way’s web site.)
