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The Hunger Challenge

September 8, 2010 on 4:40 pm | In Main Category | 11 Comments

San Francisco is a city overflowing with fabulous food. With its hundreds of upscale restaurants, San Francisco is considered by many to be the most sophisticated dining site on the west coast. However, in this affluent city 150,000 people are not sure where they will find their next meal. That’s equivalent to 1 in 4 children and 1 in 5 adults. Furthermore, nearly 42,000 San Franciscans currently rely on food stamps, a number that has grown by approximately 55 percent in the past 17 months.

While the food-stamp program has expanded rapidly, San Francisco food-security advocates consider it to be insufficient. Today, only one-twentieth of San Franciscans are food-stamp recipients, compared to one-eighth of all Americans. One could attribute this discrepancy to there being less hunger in San Francisco than the rest of the nation, but, in actuality the exact opposite seems to be true. The San Francisco Food Bank estimates that 25 percent of children and senior citizens and 20 percent of adults in San Francisco are food insecure, meaning they are at risk of being unable to acquire food for their next meal. Compare that to a national average of 15 percent.

It’s hard for many of us to understand the meaning of being food insecure. Many of us worry about what we will eat at our next meal (Hmm, will it be a grilled chicken Caesar salad or a BLT sandwich with a side of minestrone soup?) rather than if we will even be able to eat our next meal. That’s why the San Francisco Food Bank has presented us with “The Hunger Challenge,” an invitation for participants to live on the same food budget as an average food stamp recipient – $4 per day per person. It’s a way to experience first-hand the struggles associated with food insecurity. The challenge lasts one week beginning Sunday, September 12 and I have decided to participate. I invite you to join me on this journey – whether that means signing up for the Hunger Challenge yourself or simply reading about my experience. As I walk in the shoes of a food stamp recipient, I realize that I will have a hot shower each morning, clean clothes to wear each day, a safe home to return to after a long day work, and a warm bed to sleep in at night. Thus, I will only encounter one of the many hardships endured by the poor every day. However, it is my hope that this experience will help me gain a better understanding of what I call the “food insecurity epidemic” and provide elucidation on ways people like me and you can help to alleviate this societal problem.

I plan to chronicle everything about the experience – the difficulties of shopping and menu planning with $28 in my wallet, the challenge of resisting the temptation to buy a cup of coffee on the walk to work, the task of making tasty and satisfying meals with meager resources, how I feel physically and emotionally, and the reactions I receive from friends and family members who may not understand the purpose or significance of the challenge.

So let’s get started!  Here are the rules issued by the San Francisco Food Bank:

1. Do not spend more than $4 a day or $28 a week (per person) for your entire food and drink budget. This is the average amount that food stamp recipients have to spend on food.
2. Do not accept any free food from family, friends, or at work.
3. If you have a garden, price-out any produce you use from your garden based on supermarket prices in your area and include that cost in your $28 budget. *Keep in mind that most urban poor do not have access to the land, tools, or time needed for gardening.
4. If you forage for food, consider whether the urban poor would have access to those food items in their neighborhood.

By: Hannah Schmunk

*Here’s the link to the Hunger Challenge on the San Francisco Food Bank website: http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5420/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=2921

*Read more about the city’s hungry at: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/High-cost-of-living-works-against-citys-hungry-97540574.html#ixzz0sTJF80ix.