While most of us are complaining about too much food over the holidays, Evan in Lansing blogged about living on $30 in food per month in November. I cannot even imagine what that must be like, but there are many who live just that way, month after month.

ypsi~dixit writes:

(snipped from the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice's newsletter, which is meticulously and expertly scribed by Chuck Warpehoski):

"Several months ago ICPJ organized a welfare simulation in Lansing for a group of business leaders involved in the state's Welfare to Work project, it was a powerful simulation, and the Lansing City Pulse did a cover story about it.

"Well, that cover story got one reader thinking about poverty in America, so he decided to do a little experiment and try to live a month on only $30 worth of food.

"He wrote about it on the web, and you can read about his month at: Hungry for a Month

It's interesting to read Evan's thoughts and see how his perception of food changes over time. On Day 10 he writes:

The experiment is 1/3 over today, and even though it has only been 10 days, I'm already thinking about food in a very different way than I used to.

...Living on a dollar a day, taste isn't an issue. It all tastes the same. Bread, noodles, beans, rice...it's all pretty much the same thing. And since you know that's all you're really going to be eating, you stop thinking about taste.

This month, all food is the same food. All that matters is that you get it, not how it tastes. And since the flavor and intrigue of food is gone, so is the fun in thinking about it. Food becomes mechanical rather than entertaining. So no, I don't think about food all day long.

Read ICPJ'S Ripple Effects: Living on $30 in Food Per Month by yspi~dixit
Read Just Hold It Together by Lawrence Cosentino of the Lansing Pulse