The other week, I was approached by Pathway to Potential and asked if I would be interested in participating in the ‘Do the Math’ challenge. If you don’t know what the challenge is, a group of individuals (including myself, Tom Lucier, Kara Ro and others) have picked up the standard food bank “box” at Downtown Mission.
From what I understand, these boxes typically last an individual three or four days, though many people have been able to stretch this out to a week or ten days.
Until November 5, I will live solely off the items that were in the box I was given. They will not eat out or accept free food or drink (though they are encouraged to eat at least two meals at a drop-in).
Over the next 5 days, I will be writing about my experiences and showing everyone ready how I managed (or was unable) to live off of what we expect those less fortunate to do.
Here is the list of all the items I received:
- one loaf of bread
- a small batch of dired pasta
- a bag of cheerios
- one small package of soup crackers
- one small package of rice crackers
- one small travel box of Cheerios
- onesmall travel box of frosted mini wheats
- one box of hamburger helper
- one box of kraft dinner
- three individual packets of oatmeal
- a small sandwich baggie of rice
- 10 tea bags
- one 500mL jar of raspberry jam
- one 136g packet of instant potato mash
- a medium sized baggie of flour
- one 106g tin of sardines in soya oil
- one 155 can of sardines in water
- one 341mL can of corn niblets
- one 540mL can of Campbell’s chunky steak & potato soup
- one 540mL can of white kidney beans
- one 680mL can of garlic pasta sauce
- one 398mL can of pear halves in a light syrup
- three 226g cans of vegetarian beans in a rich tomato sauce
- one 398mL can of deep browned beans with pork and tomato sauce
- three 284mL cans of tomato soup
- one 284mL can of cream of mushroom soup
- one 284mL can of chicken broth
- one 284mL can of cream of celery soup
- one 398mL can of cut green beans
- one 156mL can of tomato paste
That is everything I have to make myself three meals a day for 5 days. How do you think I’ll do? To be 100% honest, I have a feeling I will be cheating tomorrow and informed the organizers of this prior to committing as I will be attending an awards gala to see if WindsorEats won the ‘Innovator of the Year’ for the tourism industry in Canada. I will be writing about my experience every day to show you all how hard it really is to eat while living in poverty, even if it is only for 5 days.
