Food Alliance Members Live Below the Line

Could you be satisfied by only $1.50 worth of food today? 

The world's poverty line is $1.50 per day and many families around the globe, including in the United States, have to feed themselves and their families on that meager allowance.

To raise awareness of global poverty, about half a dozen members of the New Brunswick Community Food Alliance took the "Live Below the Line" challenge, feeding themselves for $1.50 per day for five days.

Live Below the Line is a campaign that challenges people to live at the extreme poverty level for five days to get a firsthand account of what it is like. 

Each participant took what they would normally spend on food in a week and donated it to feed someone else in need. On the Sunday before the start of the the challenge, the members went shopping.

Food Alliance Chairman Keith Jones took his weekly budget of $7 and visited The Fresh Grocer, ALDI, a corner market and the dollar store. He purchased a five-pack of ramen noodles, two cucumbers, a bunch of bananas, a bag of baby carrots, three rolls, seven packs of instant coffee and a carton of eggs.
 
For the next five days, Jones's breakfast consisted of one egg, half a roll and a cup of coffee. Lunch was a boiled egg and some baby carrots and cucumber, and dinner was a pack of ramen noodles.

For Jones, the experience was familiar with a past time in his life in which he had trouble getting enough to eat. 

"This was my reality not too long ago," he said.

But, that didn't make it easier.

During the challenge, Jones's mother was hospitalized, and the stress of her illness further compounded the difficulty of the challenge, he said.

Food Alliance member Vince Rifici portioned out meals using some items he already had in his pantry, tallying costs to to fit the parameters of the challenge.

For breakfast, he dined on oatmeal and a banana. Lunch was a single apple, and dinner was lentils and rice, for a daily total of approximately 850 calories.
 
Like Jones, Rifici's preparation was minimal.

"The guidelines we followed allowed the use of tap water at no cost, which was what I drank and cooked with for the five days,"  he said. 

Jones said that one of the hardest parts of the challenge was planning and preparation.

Since the food he carried was not ready to eat, nor could he stop in at a restaurant, he ended up carrying a cucumber and a pack of ramen around for two days, as he couldn't find a place to prepare them while out and about on his daily routine.

Proper portioning also presented a problem, Jones said: the bananas were gone by the second day of the challenge. 

Each member purchased their own food and handled the challenge their own way, but they had a discussion about taking a "realistic approach" to it, Jones said.

Not all families living in poverty will purchase fresh vegetables and grains, Jones said. They may go for fast or processed food because it's cheap and easy.

The goal of the challenge was to raise awareness of what families in poverty are facing on such limited food budgets, Jones said. 

"(We want to) get people to say 'what can we do to raise awareness?" he said.

Rifici said the next step in the challenge is to spread the word and get more people interested in the issue. 

"People hearing that I did it doesn't have a big effect," he said.

They have to do it themselves, he said. 

For more information on the New Brunswick Community Food Alliance, visit www.nbfood.org.