Day Four

Only one day of the £1.50 a day challenge to go now. This is the food that we have left.

Today's meals were very much like every other day this week. The variations were 5 bits of bread with peanut butter (using up the other piece I didn't have on Monday) rather than 4, and then the tin of mandarin oranges for dessert this evening.

I don't think I've felt as hungry this time round as when we first did this in 2011. But this time we've had an extra 50p per day, and we are only doing the challenge for 5 as opposed to 7 days. Or maybe we just made better choices in terms of what we bought.

Of course it is not just overseas where families struggle to put food on the table. The dramatic rise in the use of Food Banks is a clear indicator of that reality. And whilst this week has shown that you can eat for £1.50 a day it is difficult to eat a balanced and healthy diet on that amount.

Once again today's figures (except protein and fibre) come out below RDAs. 

Energy ... 1814 kcal ... 73% RDA
Fat ... 61g ... 64% RDA
Carbohydrates ...221g ... 74% RDA
Fibre ... 40g ... 224% RDA
Protein ... 78g ... 141% RDA
Salt ... 6g ... 87% max RDA

My job is not particularly physical, but if I was to incorporate the calories burned in cycling the children to school (8 miles a day - there and back twice), and running (at least 500 kcal), then clearly this diet is not enough. For those who have physical jobs, or spend all day walking around, this will not be enough - and whilst it may have no noticeable affect over 5 days, if it continues for week after week after week then eventually it will have an impact on health.

I had a look today at the 5-a-day thing - eating 5 portions of fruit and veg a day. I'm not totally sure how this is supposed to work, but I have assumed that if a portion is essentially 80 g, then 40 g of carrots is half a portion or 60 g of leek is 3/4 portion. I do know that you can only ever count 1 portion of beans - no matter how many you eat.

Bearing this in mind today's total comes to 4.12 portions which breaks down into:

Beans: 1 portion
Sweet corn: 0.81 portions
Carrot: 0.56 portions
Broccoli: 0.19 portions
Leek: 0.56 portions
Mandarin: 1 portion

but we didn't have any fruit for the first two days and our sweet corn has now all gone.

Just like the sunflowers we looked at the other day, growing your own fruit and veg is another key way for aid agencies to help many poor communities help themselves. Whether it is providing the seed to get started, or the necessary tools, or introducing new farming techniques that improve the quality of the soil, or even providing lawyers to help displaced families re-claim their land after a conflict - the addition of fresh veg into the diet can make a real difference.