Eating on A Dollar A Day? Something smells Fishy...

Eating on A Dollar A Day? Something smells Fishy...

Not too long ago (probably last month) there was a short video intereview available online with a couple who decided to try to live on $1.00 a day for food.  After watching the interview, I felt the couple deserved a 'A' for effort and sincerity, but a 'D-' for execution.

The couple who tried this experiment are a pair of school teachers, which lead me to my first question regarding their logic in setting up this excercise.

The biggest parameter they looked at in deceding a dollar amount was the factoid that some people squeek by on a $1.00 a day food allowance.  What they forgot to factor in is the other factoid - the country where this occurs is also a country where the average wage is $50.00 a month.  Another factoid is that often the areas that have this kind of economy also have a rather ingrained micro farming aspect - most people have some sort of small vegetable patch, raise food animals, hunt or fish the nearby rural areas.  Not always, but often.  As teachers, I'm sort of surprised that they didn't look at all the facts.  They know how to research and how to structure this sort of thing, after all they did go through college and needed to do this kind of setup for their papers.  Well, maybe it's been a long time since they graduated.

So as the teachers set out on this month long trial (and it seemed to be pretty devestating to their general well-being) they made the experiment less about seeing how other people get along and instead, just how limited are your options on a $1.00 a day in America?  As a social awareness excercise - not relevant, but as a tenacity excercise - well, we really CAN do most things we set our minds to.  It was sort of a grade school level attempt at relevance - sort of like holding 'presidential elections' in grade school.  It makes the kids feel involved, even if they have no grasp of what the issues really are.

$1.00 a day in the city in the USA is not a reality, not if you want to maintain your health.  They did acknowledge that getting vegetables and fruit in their diet was almost impossible, but that's where growing your own comes into play.  Ditto with baked goods and pasta.  So, $1.00 not so much, but $10.00 a day - well, that's pretty doable.  In fact, $10.00 a day can provide for a lot of food, if you know how to cook, how to garden (container garden for those of us in apartments or inclement weather) and how to shop.

If you don't know how to cook, I'm thinking you'd better learn.  With the jobs forecast and the tax situation looking pretty grim, sitting down to a cheap and yet tasty, filling meal on a daily basis might just be the bright spot in an otherwise gloomy 2009.

In all, it was an interesting idea and if they'd structured the experiment based on equivalent economics, it would have been a far different experience for them

For those of us who are trying to cut down on the monthly food budget, there's a lot of really good material on line, in your local library and in your family tree.  There's a bunch of recipe sites on line, there's a ton o' cookbooks and magazines at the library and talking to your older relatives about how they got by in times of recession and depression can be a real eye opener.  You can cut that budget down, if you really want to, and still enjoy your food.

Bon Appitet!