Earlier this month, we featured food bankers, Michelle and Darrell who took the Food Stamp Challenge for one week to find out how living on $4 in food a day would impact their lives. Today we feature our final story from Leanne.

Switching to non-organic frozen fruits and vegetables when you only usually eat fresh made the Food Stamp Challenge more like a Food Stamp Struggle.  “I had a really difficult time getting used to the taste.  Fresh fruit and vegetables are expensive,” said Leanne.   Even with the few fresh fruit she decided to purchase, she felt she needed to compromise.  “For instance,” she said, “I would have purchased strawberries and melons, but instead I selected produce that would be more ‘hearty’ like apples.”

The challenge ate away her time as she struggled to stay within budget. She spent twice as long in the grocery store to figure out how to best spend her meager budget.  And, as she attempted to cook her usual meals with unfamiliar ingredients, she had to change the way she prepared the food.  Mealtime took much more time than she expected.  “I now realize that I have a lot of learning to do about food!” said Leanne.

Feeling low on energy and not like her normal self, she succumbed to a moment of weakness and drove through McDonalds for a 4-pack of chicken nuggets, only to realize that she had no more money in her budget, and that prepared food items are not allowed on food stamps.  “It was an absolutely humbling experience to have to walk into the restaurant and as for a refund on the $2 nuggets.”

For Leanne, the challenge wasn’t just about feeling deprived of food, her social interactions changed. She obsessed about food.  She felt isolated from her friends.  She couldn’t use snacks to help her get through her hectic schedule. “ I noticed that I was looking at what my coworkers were eating,” said Leanne “Most of my socializing is centered around eating out – I felt deprived.”

Conclusion:

An often ignored component in hunger is the struggle to enjoy food within a limited budget. As our Food Stamp Challenge participants mentioned, they felt the sting of social isolation, longer time spent shopping or cooking, and obsessing about every little morsel that they would have liked to enjoy or watched their friends enjoy. The ability to enjoy a meal is not just about having enough food. It’s about having food you feel comfortable with, food that you can enjoy in a social setting, nourishing food that gives you enough energy to make it through the day. It’s also about having peace of mind to know that you’ll feel nourished down the road.  As our particpants can attest, it’s hard to enjoy what you’re eating today, when you’re not sure if you’ll have enough tomorrow.

Noted wellness blogger, Erica Nicole Kendall does an excellent job explaining Satter’s hierarchy of Food Needs, and how our food needs change based on our level of food security this blog post.

Hunger looks very different from community to community and individual to individual.  Our challenge, and opportunity, as a food bank is to provide struggling Central Texans with both the food and the know-how to eat nutritious healthy and socially satisfying foods.  Our mix of programs, including food access through Social Services outreach, nutrition education, and social eating through Kids Cafe are all designed to meet our community’s needs wherever they are on the pyramid and work with their constraints and circumstances.

As this challenge clearly shows, there’s no one silver bullet to ending hunger.  It takes a broad based approach of services and policy to strengthen American families.  We can’t do it alone.

We hope you will join us as advocates donors, and volunteers and continue to spread the word about the hunger crisis in Central Texas.  Click here to get started.

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Related posts:

1. Three Food Bankers Take the Food Stamp Challenge (Part 2)
2. Three Food Bankers Take the Food Stamp Challenge
3. Food Stamp Challenge Week 2 – Medical challenges on the Challenge
4. Food Stamp Challenge Week 4 – Late Night Challenge
5. Food Stamp Challenge Week 4 – The End?

Tagged Food Stamp Challenge, Hunger Action Month