Take the three day Food Ration challenge
On CBC’s The National recently, the Smith family accepted a challenge to live on the standard rations that a family might receive if they were in a refugee camp or in an emergency situation where they rely on food aid (like the cyclone that recently hit Burma). You can see the video about their experience. Click Here to View the CBC Video
We invite you to take the same three day challenge – by yourself, with your family, with a group of friends, with your class at school, or with a youth group or book club.
Here’s the deal:
1) Purchase (or take out of your cupboard) the standard rations for each individual who’s participating. Here is a daily ration (purchase 3 times as much for each person if you’re participating for 3 days):
Cereal (flour, rice, cornmeal, oatmeal, etc.) – 400 grams
Pulses (beans, lentils, etc.) – 50 grams
Oil (vegetable oil) – 50 grams
Salt – 5 grams
(Note: the cereal and pulses should be unprocessed – no breakfast cereals, no cans of beans.)
Consume nothing other than these rations (plus water) for three days. Use your imagination for meal preparation. Want to increase the challenge? Limit your capacity to prepare the food by using only a small cookstove, fire pit or barbecue and one pot. Keep a diary or write on your blog about the experience.
Yes, it’s an artificial experience about what it’s like to live with real hunger, but perhaps it will get each of us thinking about…
how it feels to have no other options but to live off of the little food that you were given
Stress on relationships, parenting children, carrying on “normal” tasks
Over-consumption of food, our wastefulness, and our expectation for variety in our diet
Share your thoughts, reactions, ideas, experiences, questions, and challenges with us!