Earlier this year, I mentioned reading Martha Bayne’s great article on how the food culture and the hungry are moving in opposite directions. After two nights serving soup at Bayne’s Soup & Bread, I recently read about a cause called “Food Bloggers Against Hunger“. As much as I eschew talking about blogs generally, this blog specifically or even referring to myself as a food blogger, I felt this was a good opportunity to contribute to a cause that I really care about.

You may have read about, or seen press junkets, for a recently released film called “A Place at the Table“, a documentary about families going through issues of food insecurity. APatT looks at hunger in a way that is real without being hyperbolic or falling into the trap of sensationalism. The issue is treated with far more calmness and measured speech than I could do. To me the calm tone opens up the dialogue to action rather than reaction. These are not just people getting squeezed by big Ag or by corporate America. It isn’t just those you see panhandling, those out of work or single parent families that struggle.  It is not just inner city folks or people in rural areas.

Far more people than I realized previously are limited to $3-$4 per day per person for food and no job or family situation is sheltered from hunger. Trying to subsist on that $3-$4 per person per day was the challenge I decided to take up for my family (my wife and I have two little girls). Before doing this myself, I would have speculated that I could come up with a few days worth of inexpensive meals, but there are few items worth considering to which I had not paid much attention. Continue reading »