Eating on a Dollar a Day: The One Dollar Diet Project
October 11, 2008 · Print This Article
Last month two social justice teachers, Christopher and Kerri, set out on a 30-day experiment in what it’s like to live off only a dollar worth of food each day. The couple hoped to use the experience to gain a better understanding of poverty, consumerism and waste as well as raise money for Community Resource Center and ONE, an anti-poverty organization. The project was documented on the ‘One Dollar Diet Project’ blog.
Some of the rules the couple imposed upon themselves include not accepting free food or ‘donated’ food unless it’s available for everyone in their area (i.e. dumpster diving or foraging), and that ramen noodles were only acceptable if there was nothing else to eat. They asked people to sponsor them as they went, taking donations via PayPal, and their efforts paid off – they got a total of $1,032 (their goal was $1,000).
On the first day, Kerri remarked, “It seems odd to me that we have the luxury of doing this as an experiment when there are millions of families who have to budget their meals like this everyday.” That’s what makes this experiment especially interesting – considering the fact that millions of people across the world would be ecstatic to have $1 a day to spend on food. Plus, Christopher and Kerri had the luxury of items like peanut butter, frozen broccoli or wheat gluten cutlets – things that most of the world’s poor never have access to. It really makes you realize how much we take for granted.
One thing that’s great about this experiment is that it calls attention to how much food most people waste on a daily basis. We don’t think in terms of needing every morsel of food that’s available to us, yet the food we collectively throw away could feed millions. Plus, imagine all the trash that Kerri and Christopher avoided while taking part in this experiment!
Check out their journey, which just ended on October 1st, at the One Dollar Diet Project blog.
Link [One Dollar Diet Project]
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Interesting! As someone who cant eat soy, sugar, grains or corn, for health reasons, that would never work for me, but its interesting to get a different prospective of a problem fear of us ever have to face in this country.
I’m all for raising awareness on food waste and how it can be avoided. Hopefully, people won’t have to go to such extremes to realize the importance of avoiding waste. Yet, I fear that that’s the only way to really get the message.