As we look back on last week's £7 challenge - first of all I want to say a big 'well done' to all of you who completed the challenge. About half of those who started at church made it to the end of the week, and although it was hard, I think we're all glad we did it. So what will we take away with us?
Everyone is agreed that we have so much to be thankful to God for, and so much that we take for granted. I think generally speaking, we have no idea just how fortunate we are.
It was also good to see just how little you can live off. We have already made some changes to our shopping/eating/cooking habits, in the light of this experience, and think that this week's shop (general supermarket shop including food, washing products etc etc), for the five of us, is probably about £30 less than normal. Even if it was only half that amount, that would still work out at about £800 saving over a year.
When it comes to awareness of the issues related to world poverty this was a very beneficial exercise. It has highlighted the significance of some of the issues in a way that straight statistics never could. For example, when we hear of rises in food prices, this is a slight concern for us, as strained budgets might be strained a little more - but it is rarely a potential matter of life and death. But when every penny has to be careful accounted for, if wheat or rice, for example go up in price, then something else has to be sacrificed - and that something might be vegetables. Alternatively if health care is needed then maybe what that increase in the food price means is that the family can't eat today.
Also whilst I rarely felt hungry during the challenge, especially after we bought a third loaf of bread, the numbers show that it wasn't a balanced diet. As I've mentioned there was little fruit or veg. although plenty of rice, bread and lentils. Throughout the week I kept a nutrition spreadsheet - which is a lot easier to do when everything you eat can be kept in a medium size plastic box, and is basically the same thing each day. The figures below are my daily average, with the figures in brackets being the recommended daily amount, and the percentage I managed.
Energy in kC...1805...(2500...72%)
Protein in g...59...(55...108%)
Carbs in g...265...(300...88%)
Fat in g...58...(95...62%)
Fibre in g...32...(25...129%)
Although protein and fibre were high, with energy and fat being well down it is not surprising that everyone who took part lost weight - some as much as 2 to 3 pounds (if you take into consideration exercise which added an average of 430kC per day to my total required - that then gives an energy percentage of 62%).
Obviously eating this diet over a long period of time would have health implications. But eating the right foods can make a big difference. Peanut butter on toast was probably one of my best buys of the week. One slice of toast, no marg. or butter, and 20g peanut butter provides about 6% of daily energy, carbs and fat, but just over 10% of protein and fibre. On the days I ran I had six slices. Porridge was also very good as were kidney beans and rice.
Again this shows that little changes to diet can have a big impact. Schemes that allow people to grow their own veg., or improve the quality and quantity of what they grow are great. As are schemes that provide a goat, a chicken or a cow. Little things that have a big impact.
One of the biggest dangers of all this is that we are so overwhelmed by the scale of the problem, and so aware of the 'smallness' and insignificance of our efforts to change things and make a difference, that we end up doing nothing. But small changes really can have a life changing impact on one person or one community. Let's play our part.
