Today so many of us are relearning or finally gaining an understanding around food. We are seeing how precious our sources are. We are realizing how much food affects our health or lack there of. We are beginning to see food scarcity all around us. Hunger is invading our everyday life. For too long we have believed that hunger isn’t an American or Western problem. We know that poverty, classism, homelessness are issues but for most of us hunger doesn’t affect us head on. There is a separation because of finances and access but as that changes the instability of food is front and center. For those who have experienced the other side, this time is no different than any. We have already faced times of adversity where food was either all we had or something we sacrificed for the sake of our household expenses. Now is the time to lean upon those people and their experiences to learn what and what not to do. But how can we hear their voices above baseless complaints, overuse of resources or the here and now where hunger isn’t a thing? Are they willing to help? Or will they keep the stories to themselves as a way to survive?
There was a time I experienced hunger. It was over a decade ago. I was in a completely different state of well being where I should have never been hungry. I had a beautiful apartment. I had a paid in cash car. I had a full time job. I also had a seasonal job for extra money and a retail discount. I had all the luxuries like cable television and a gym membership. I went out to clubs a lot, I had a standing hair appointment and I loved buying new shoes with every paycheck. I was living way above my means and food was something I hardly prioritized. So when I lost a promotion at work and my third roommate moved out I had to rethink things. Suddenly, all the rent had to be paid by me and there was no refrigerator full of shared food. It was supposed to be temporary as I would get that raise and possibly another roommate or not need one. Yet the hunger was extended for the better part of a year. When I found a job that offered me an opportunity to return to school I had to take a pay cut. I also had to get rid of my supplemental income to work and go to school. I got a 425 square foot apartment so I didn’t have to rely upon a roommate. Regardless of the change all the bills were on me. Thankfully, working at a college there were a lot of opportunities for free food like student union pizza night or abandoned conference room bagel spreads. I would organize the open houses for admissions or do a civics sponsored blood drive. I took the remaining cheese and crackers home after takedown. With my low iron I could never donate blood but I got the leftover cookies when the blood drive ended. My go to fill up was double white rice at a local Chinese restaurant. I ate .25 ramen noodles a lot. Dollar store popcorn was also filling. I had to prioritize food over other meaningless expenses and I was always running off fumes. I went back to my original job and they began paying me what I was worth. However, it wasn’t like the fear of being hungry went away overnight.
Looking back my first time experiencing hunger was nothing. I had made a choice to live a lifestyle where food was last on my list. I was also young, naive and stubborn. I felt invincible and I felt like hardship was for other people. For me I had to decide to be an adult. Being an adult meant managing my finances and priorities for survival. I did whatever could pay the bills and anything beyond was secondary. Eventually I ran myself into the ground with this new found determination and I lost my health. When I was sick my job didn’t take my issues seriously. They didn’t approve my short term or long term leave. Then I became a college drop out in my senior year. I wound up with my life on hold for over eleven months. I was a good student and my tuition was mostly covered by grants and scholarships so that was the money I had to live on. I was in and out of hospitals and no one could tell me what was wrong. I had one surgery. I was transferred to a medical university hospital. Then I needed another surgery. I could barely eat anyways but now I clearly couldn’t afford to eat. A friend of a friend would drop her CSA boxes off at my doorstep. I would occasionally muster up the energy to go beg at a local charity as the scrutiny was unbelievable. Hunger was supposed to have a face and I didn’t look so hungry. I drove up in my own newer car. I went home to my palatial apartment. Who was I to ask for any handouts? And of course beggars couldn’t be choosy. I made due with the multiple canned hams, boxes of expired cereal, frozen turkeys and in combination with the CSA produce I found that I could really cook. I had always cooked but now I was a connoisseur of making something good out of what others deemed as bad. I became full on that.
When I got my health in order I felt I deserved a much needed break. I had climbed some rank at work and was doing alright financially. It was easy to walk away from my job and go traveling. The night before my trip I ate an entire container of brie and drank a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. I was going to Europe for the Summer and whenever I got back I would just restart my life. I put all of my things in storage, dropped my pets and car at my mothers and went completely off the grid. When I returned my mother was visibly ill and was awaiting results from a biopsy. Since I was the daughter with no life when the results for Stage IV cancer came I was to take care of her. It progressed so fast despite chemo and various treatments. I had taken a placeholder job but could no longer work and take care of her. I had exhausted my savings and investments to travel. I was living out of a suitcase in her home. I was made responsible for so many things from my Grandmothers needs, to my mothers rental properties, their pets, bills etc. Everything just spiraled out of control. In the midst of it all she had stopped walking. We had no choice but to take over the single story rental home my mother had. The tenant had destroyed the house in her absence. Insurance covered some flood mitigation but refused to replaced stolen or damaged appliances. We lived for a while with no refrigerator and no oven. All we had was a temperamental stovetop, microwave and a toaster oven. On top of that we had the costs of specialists, drugs, supplemental nutrition and on paper my mother was considered upper middle class. There wasn’t a charity or cancer association that would help us considering. A local outreach center was kind enough to pay a few utilities for us as she was on therapy at home. They would also give us donated food to stretch us. Because I expressed that I could cook they would give me a little extra over ripen strawberries or all the asparagus that people disliked. I was the fancy one who knew what could be done with this stuff. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I had no refrigerator to put anything or an oven to cook a bird in. I had to teach myself how to can. I grilled whole turkeys outside. I learned that yogurt could go past expiration and milk could be stored in the snow. I was applying for benefits like an electric bill stipend, food stamps or Obamacare for myself and they were all denied repeatedly. Finally, I was entitled to SNAP benefits but only if my mother signed an affidavit that the food was only for my own consumption. By this point she was on a feeding tube anyways. If she wasn’t here to tell it I think anyone would find it hard to believe. We were like a new face of hunger seldom seen. The caregiver and patient whose hands are tied. The cash poor but still too rich to live.
In each one of these teachable moments I learned more about survival and food. I remembered discovering a new way to eat each time I faced adversity. In the first instance I wasn’t really starving to death. I was just close minded. I had to learn to eat and live within my means. I made the choice to open my mind to things I could afford that would nourish me. The second time I understood what it was like to be judged for hardship. To sit in an office where someone would go over my health and assets with a fine tooth comb to determine whether I should eat. But in what I had hoped to be my final exposure to hardship I was now standing in a donation line. I was begging for someone to understand that what was happening to us was out of our control. I was asking for food without anywhere to put it. I had a dependent who was at deaths door and I knew I had to be there for her. I had to be humble myself and accept whatever I could and make that work somehow. This is why people sold frozen turkeys outside at the corner store. They didn’t do this because they wanted to. They had to. It took me almost all of my life to understand the why behind this. It is like a what came first scenario. At what point do people who need turn into people who have to take? And how much pride must they overcome after asking, pleading, begging for something as simple as food? It really isn’t much. Most of us are just one hardship from homelessness, poverty, sickness and or hunger.
Today I see how people are managing this new crisis. The working class who have been afforded a lifestyle where hunger is for other people. Now so many are standing in the very same outreach lines I once did baffled by the lack of options. Having slept sideways I know how to make something out of nothing. I have filed for unemployment and been ignored and denied. I have used supplemental food benefits and had them taken back for my mothers social security check getting a $17 increase. I have taken donations I didn’t know what I would do without despite them being nearly inedible. I had been looking for a way or a time to approach this subject matter and my experiences. I thought to organize a charity of my own where I could do better for others. Maybe I could create a place where hunger was the mission. A place where we openly discussed it and made space for prevention. Where we sourced viable food, learned how to prepare and store it and then helped others. I began looking for ways to pitch my ideas hoping for investments of knowledge and time. It was so hard to find. The obstacles I faced instead dealt with money and how organizations didn’t want to give to projects like mine. No one flat out said this to me but I was met with unsolicited advice around liability, structure and failure before I could offer any solutions of my own. I turned to volunteerism thinking I could learn where the need was so I could recalibrate. In that I witnessed a cycle that organizations did not want to break where needs were fueled by greed. And now I have dedicated a great amount of time to learning about food systems, waste and sustainable options but as a failed academic I can only observe. It is hard to get in with the movers and shakers most whom know nothing about hunger.
The pandemic has become an opportunity to get beyond intellectual, elitist and classist discussion around food. Restaurants are at a standstill. It is complicated and problematic to source ingredients for a single recipe. Gone are the thought pieces around food ways and gastronomy. Now it is all about the value of food, rising costs, shelf stable options and now meatless everyday. As the privileged and accustomed buy up the storage containers and robust small appliances, the little folk are hoarding all the potatoes, spelt, yeast and oats for themselves. For those in between so many relying upon financial promises their windfalls finally afford them real food. The home cook, the meat and three, the prepper and coupon mom alike are trying really hard to survive this thing. What they need right now is advice and techniques around preventing long term hunger in their households. They want to know how to take full advantage of their slow cookers. They want to learn how to cut a whole chicken into eight pieces. They want to know how to propagate staples like celery and iceberg lettuce. And instead of being educated on things to help us all they are being placated with subsidy checks and an ignorant view of the food supply as we know it. Hunger is on front street and not enough people grasp that. There needs to be some direction on how to stretch a dollar, feed a family for under $80 — $100 a week and how to maintain like this indefinitely. And I shouldn’t be fighting to tell those who need to know. I love symposiums, academic papers and Zoom panels just like the rest of us. But I also know the world needs people to stand up and know that corn doesn’t distribute itself. We have to show people how to survive by doing and living without the niceties of food commercialization. It isn’t a reach to say there are no cans to be stacked now. The shelves are becoming bare as we do nothing. And the crop is rotting in fields, in silos and on trucks. Dumping is just the prestige.
Covid-19 has given society at all income and access levels a lot of hurdles. My biggest advantage is that I know all too well certain food sources are indispensable and irreplaceable. I completely understand that I may not have access to them regardless of my buying power. I do not think a lot of us realize this during these trying times. How do we tell people that are trying to make bread maybe they should just do without for the sake of others? How do we explain that keeping sterilized seeds yields nothing in an at home garden? How do we tell people their boneless and skinless chicken wasn’t naturally like that? And how can we have the audacity to say it without providing alternatives for them to eat well and survive? It is a betrayal of trust to be told the food will return and the stores will remain open knowing that farmers are bankrupt, processing plants are crippled and distribution of most goods are at a standstill. It is also nightmarish to know a good majority of American food supplies are being imported in from countries who do not trust or respect our leadership. If you combine that with our government sanctions, retaliation, trade wars so many mouths won’t get fed. I worry but I know I am safe in my home always making something out of nothing. I want to say this is all I need to do but I worry about my neighbor. I guess the bigger question is who is worrying about us? What happens to society when we forget about who and what fuels us? What do we do when the fuel is all gone? My hope is that we ask the people who have been here before.
