My typical lunch during the challenge.
$26 dollars a week buys a lot less food than you would think: that’s what the Welfare Food Challenge taught me. Several VCH employees, including me, took part last week in a challenge sponsored by welfare advocacy group Raise the Rates. The group held a challenge for people to eat on $26 for one week, the amount that would be available for food for a single person on Income Assistance in BC.
For many of us working in public health, this was an opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of food security, especially around the health and health care implications for people living in poverty. (See Dr. Patty Daly’s blog from last week.
The evidence shows significantly higher rates of chronic disease and hospitalization for people on low income. Research shows the issue is not simply the food eaten, but the chronic stress, lack of choice and stigma associated with their deprived circumstances. Even for a week, those who shared their stories could see this path to chronic disease emerging.
Here are a few things I learned:
1. $26 dollars buys a lot less food than you would think. I worried about running out of food. By the end of the week I was hungry a lot of the time.
2. I worried bout key nutrients. For example I couldn’t afford milk or dairy products. I was frustrated by the choices the limited budget made me make, even though I did a lot of menu planning.
3. Meals were often monotonous with no spice, sauces or condiments. Meals were not particularly enjoyable especially when I saw what people around me were eating – and in many cases, wasting.
4. I didn’t exercise as much because when I did, I felt tired before I finished. And I craved more food after exercising.
5. The location of grocery stores is important as I had to seek out deals at several different stores in order to stay within my budget. Fortunately, I have a car, though some people do not.
The quality of my diet was definitely an issue although I managed to eat reasonably healthy food. Though I know I would have had to eventually purchase less healthy and more packaged foods in order to get some flavour and achieve more of a sense of fullness. More importantly it was the actual lack of food that posed the greatest challenge. I experienced a constant underlying worry of going hungry. When I started the challenge I knew that poverty makes people sick, and this challenge highlighted the subtle and not so subtle reasons for this.
Ted Bruce
Sina – your comment also reminds me of the importance of social connectedness and support and the importance of that for health. Colleagues like yourself and many many others as well as people who posted comments on VCH News have made me healthier certainly by improving my sense of wellbeing through the support. I must admit during the week I avoided a couple of social events because of the diet so another factor that can make living on low income difficult as there is often greater social isolation.
Sina LePage
Thank you Ted for your courage to take part in the one week Welfare Food Challenge! I use “courage”, as I know first hand how challenging it is to survive in poverty. As I reflect back on my childhood, of some 40 years ago, raised in Richmond by a single parent, I am often amazed that mom was always able to put a salad on the dinner table, sometimes very creatively, but she made it work. I honestly believe that some of my most valuable life lessons & skills came from being a “poverty survivor”. I am so proud of the folks trying to make a difference and “Raise the Rates” for those currently living in or under the poverty scale. As an aside, I am one of Ted’s colleagues, sharing the same work space, so I’ve had first hand experience with Ted’s one week challenge. We’ve had many conversations this week including how many ways to be creative with oatmeal, chickpeas, etc… I congratulate all who took part in the challenge, it was not an easy task and you should be proud of yourselves for trying to make a difference. One of my favourite saying is “a man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds” and this week I saw a man of many good deeds! Way to go, Ted!
Susan McCalla
Thank you, Mr. Bruce for your thoughtful description of a week living on minimal funds to purchase food. As you said, the worry about your diet would be ongoing and stress inducing for sure.
I cannot imagine how parents must feel, who not only worry about their own diets and health but must see their children going hungry and being malnourished.
One of my solutions to this concern is political…advocate for changes and vote for those who support what you believe in. And then make sure those you vote for follow through on their committments!
Ted Bruce
Good point Susan. Advocacy is a core action of public health. The Raise the Rates group that sponsored the challenge has some advocacy suggestions on the challenge website at:
welfarefoodchallenge.org
Caroline Lindholm
Is it possible to have a copy of this to share with friends on Facebook (for example)? I know lots of people not part of VCH who would love to hear of your experience. Thanks!
Rennie
Caroline, while VCH News is intended for VCH employees, it is accessible on the internet so you could send a link to this story and the comments to anyone you feel would be interested and they can view it. They can only comment if they have a VCH or PHC email address however.
Caroline Lindholm
Thanks Rennie–I thought VCH News was strictly intranet and therefore not accessible to anyone outside of VCH/PHC.
Ted Bruce
Thanks for this Caroline. The challenge had a website where particpants posted blogs. There are some excellent ones there.
The site is:
welfarefoodchallenge.org
Or the Public Health Association of BC was tagging my blogs on their Facebook site so you can see them there.
Caroline Lindholm
Thanks for letting me know! I will check it out for sure.
Sina LePage
Thank you Ted for your courage to take part in the one week Welfare Food Challenge! I use “courage”, as I know first hand how challenging it is to survive in poverty. As I reflect back on my childhood, of some 40 years ago, raised in Richmond by a single parent, I am often amazed that mom was always able to put a salad on the dinner table, sometimes very creatively, but she made it work. I honestly believe that some of my most valuable life lessons & skills came from being a “poverty survivor”. I am so proud of the folks trying to make a difference and “Raise the Rates” for those currently living in or under the poverty scale. As an aside, I am one of Ted’s colleagues, sharing the same work space, so I’ve had first hand experience with Ted’s one week challenge. We’ve had many conversations this week including how many ways to be creative with oatmeal, chickpeas, etc… I congratulate all who took part in the challenge, it was not an easy task and you should be proud of yourselves for trying to make a difference. One of my favourite sayings is “a man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds” and this week I saw a man of many good deeds! Way to go, Ted!
Ted Bruce
Ali – I appreciate your comment. During the week I was surprised at how many people told me stories about their own experiences on low income. They all agreed that the amount of funds we are talking about is too low. The best part is they all had great suggestions on how i could manage. From your comment, thankfully no one suggested Mr. Noodle.
Ted Bruce
Thanks Clay – there were a number of other VCH folks who took part as well and they deserve kudos so although I won’t name them I would invite them to post their thoughts here. I did not weigh myself so don’t know what the actual impact was. I did notice my pants were looser so there was an impact on my weight even for a week. I don’t think my health suffered but I would not have expected it to for just a week. I did manage to eat reasonably healthy but the issue really was there was not a sufficient budget to get the calories I probably needed. I certainly did notice near supper time and later in the evening that I was low on energy and the last day I was definitely what I would say “flat” as I had to cut down on my breakfast and lunch servings. As I said the biggest insight was this worry and frustration around my diet and I can see why the research says that is a stress pathway to chronic disease for people on low incomes.
Ali Wakerley
Going to university in Ontario, with minimal help from my parents (not their choice), I lived on $100-150/month food budget, which is about $26-30/week. I remember eating Mr. Noodle every day for 3 months, because I got a Value Pack. I can’t eat it any more, and gag even thinking about eating it. One of the things that this did encourage is finding deals, eating nutritious food, potlucks and making things from scratch. I can empathize with Ted, and hope that his and others experiences help increase the Income Assist.
Clay Adams, ABC
Kudos to you Ted and I am truly humbled by your commitment to this. Everyone in VCH should be proud of what you have been through over the past week (if proud is, in fact, the appropriate word). The lessons learned are a reminder of how lucky most of are to have a healthy environment, warm shelter, transport and – most importantly – an ability to put more than $26 of food in our mouths every week. One question – what percentage of body weight did you lose during the week and do you feel your health suffered as a result of the nutritional (or lack thereof) change?