Jonathan Berg

September 21, 2007 – Day Seven

So the Food Stamp Challenge is all but over, with only lunch, dinner, and my Yom Kippur fast separating me from my normal diet.  While obviously I will be happy to return to my standard form of existence (and it will be great to feel fully functional again), in some ways, I feel guilty at the Challenge ending.  After all, a week was hard for me.

I sat here in my office chair feeling like I was doing something amazing.  “Look at the sacrifice I am making,” I said to myself.  My blog has been a tale of hardship and inspirational (at least to myself) discoveries.  I was part of an article on the front page of the West Valley section in the San Jose Mercury News this morning.  My friends, family, and colleagues have applauded what I have gone through, saying that they could not do the same thing.  What a hero I am!! 

But really, what have I actually done?  Not a whole lot.

I am not sure exactly what I was expecting.  I certainly had hoped to inspire my community into, if not action, at least awareness.  Perhaps that will still happen.  Perhaps the flood of letters to local congresspeople is on the way.  I know mine is.

I lived for a week on $21 for food.  But just doing so did not help the world.  I am therefore donating $100, my normal weekly food budget, to Mazon so that I can have done something positive out of my experience.  I hope very much that anyone reading this will perhaps be inspired to do the same.  One week of my normal food budget is five weeks of food for someone out there who needs it. 

In this, perhaps I will make a difference.

September 19, 2007 - Day Five

I am starting to feel a change in my moods. I am getting irritable, easily distracted, and more easily annoyed. This is not something I had really counted on.

I am getting enough calories. At least I think I am. I am not going to bed hungry, which is a positive thing. But something is missing, and I am not sure what. I am not a nutritional expert, so I can’t tell you if it is Vitamin B, C, D, A, Q, X, or any other. But those are the things that are absent in my diet this week. My one windfall is my orange juice, which is basically saving my sanity (and health).

I was interviewed this morning by Mike Cassidy from the San Jose Mercury News. A thoroughly enjoyable experience all in all, he asked me a question that got me thinking. He asked if I had big plans for my first meal after this Challenge, which will be Saturday evening after the end of Yom Kippur. I said that I hadn’t really thought about it, but that I was looking forward to really eating again.

Thinking on that now, I guess that is really the point of this whole Challenge. For me, this all has an end. I know that, come Saturday evening, I will be back on a normal diet. My mood will get better. My focus will return. Those people really living on $21 a week don’t have that. When this week is over, they will go shopping again for next week. My “game” is their life. I can’t even imagine that.

September 18, 2007 - Day Four

I had a very scary thought last night. I was making my white and pink bean chili with diced tomatoes, which my schedule and budget say has to last me until dinner on Thursday, and I thought, “What if I drop this?”

One of the advantages to having some money to play with is that if I drop my chili, or burn my toast, or just flat out don’t like my soup, it’s ok. It might inconvenience me, mess up my evening, even ruin a plan or two, but in the grand scheme of things, it is not a big deal. I can just make something else. Living on $21 a week, that is not possible.

Had I dropped my pot of chili, I would have had to see how much I could gather back up, and how many meals I could stretch out of that. I would have to see just how far my two loaves of bread could take me, and where I could find enough nourishment to make up the difference.

I did not drop my chili, but somewhere out there last night, I am sure someone did. That thought, more than anything so far, put this whole thing in perspective for me.

September 17, 2007 – Day Three

Breakfast today was a staple:  PB and J.  Then again, breakfast every day so far has been PB and J.  Breakfast every day for the rest of the week looks to be the same.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like PB and J sandwiches.  I like them very much.  But for a week? 

Going into this Food Stamp Challenge, I was worried about keeping up with a semi-normal caloric intake.  Now, though, after spending $19.39 out of my $21.00 at Safeway on Saturday, I worry about enjoying eating.  I worry about having variety in my meals.  I found calories to be affordable.  I did not find the wide array of food that I had expected to find when I prepared my shopping list.

Since what I ended up getting for my money is the key to this Challenge, here is my list of food for the week:  2 loaves of bread (buy 1, get 1 free!), 1 jar of peanut butter, 1 jar of jelly (mixed fruit jelly was on sale and the only one I could really afford), 2 pounds of pasta, 1 pound each of lentils, white beans, and pink beans, 1 16-ounce jar of diced tomatoes, 1 16-ounce block of cheddar cheese, and a gallon of calcium-enriched orange juice.  Everything is the generic Safeway brand, and my total savings from my Safeway Club card was over $18.

It was really interesting to me to shop in this fashion.  While I have always been a guy who looked for bargains at the grocery store, I will admit that I didn’t really look at what foods cost.  Let’s take eggs for example, which I had planned on being my main source of protein for the week.  A dozen eggs were $3.69.  Living on $21, that just isn’t in the cards.  My wife went shopping with me for her food for the week.  Planning on two fewer dinners (her parents are in town and will take her to dinner tonight and tomorrow night) and several fewer lunches, her food cost well over $35.  It really made me aware of just how little $21 really is.

I figure to be structuring my week like this:  Saturday lunch and dinner were pasta with a little cheese, with leftovers for Sunday lunch.  Sunday dinner and Monday lunch were lentil soup.  Tonight’s dinner will be white and pink bean chili, which will hopefully last for all non-breakfast meals through Thursday lunch.  Thursday dinner and Friday lunch will be another pot of lentil soup, with Friday dinner being a full pound of pasta in preparation for my Yom Kippur fast.