Locals Stare Down Hunger By Living Below The Poverty Line
By Melissa Wiley in Food on Apr 30, 2013 4:40PM
Hunger is an abstract concept, except when it isn’t. The “poverty line” sounds mathematically precise, a chalky demarcation on a smooth suburban sidewalk. Keep your toes curled safely on its sunny side and you should be able to afford a hamburger, maybe a side salad, when lunchtime rolls around. In truth, the poverty line is a harrowing cliff over which 1.4 billion people worldwide, four times the U.S. population, are cast without choice. It’s a barrier no one crosses willingly. Until now, as part of the Live Below the Line challenge.
Kathleen Olen, a local Chicagoan working in private equity, is subsisting on $1.50 of food a day, the monetary definition of living below the poverty line in the U.S., while raising funds for World Food Program USA. For five consecutive days, she and her boyfriend will consume no more than $15 can buy them.
We spoke with Olen yesterday morning, when she was only one meal of oatmeal and strawberries in. With an eye already on lunch, she mused, “I have some Ramen and spinach and an egg, so I think day one will be OK. It will probably hit me on Wednesday how hungry I really am. I’m a little nervous about mid-week, but so far so good.”
The Ramen 12-pack makes up the lion’s share of the week’s provisions as well as other processed carbs, including a loaf of white bread and a bag of rice. Olen is reserving the three bananas purchased at Stanley’s for week’s end, when she will have long exhausted the limp bundle of spinach, two green peppers, and 2-lb carton of strawberries, many already moldy, scavenged on sale for $0.98.
“We’re worried about the strawberries going completely bad soon,” she confesses. “We also tried to pick the greenest bananas. Peppers and cucumbers and veggies were more expensive than I thought. We got a good deal on some hot dogs and ground turkey, but the hot dogs have an expiration date of Thursday.”
Proteins have predictably proved the hardest foods to factor into such a strict budget, closely followed by fresh fruits and veggies. “We could get rice and mac and cheese and white bread, processed starchy things, pretty easily,” she observes. “The strawberries we got a deal on, but they’re not great. Protein and produce were really hard.”
Olen originally set out to raise $250, enough for the World Food Program to provide a thousand meals “and tons of awareness,” she adds, but has already raised $1,200. She is hoping the figure continues to grow as her rations dwindle through the week.
Rendering the challenge all the more difficult is the fact that Olen counts herself an avid foodie. “Chicago has so many opportunities to indulge,” she enthuses. “I love to do things like go to Next or hit restaurant row. But then a few months ago I realized I was spending more money on food than anything else. So in February I did my own eat-at-home challenge; I didn’t eat out at all for a month.”
She's quick to note the stark divide between cooking for yourself to stockpile spare cash and surviving severe poverty. “I didn’t have a budget to stick to. But I did have to figure out how many groceries to buy, so that better prepared me to understand what I would need to feed myself for five days. At the end of the month, we went out to Moto, but all the money I’m saving this week on food and drink I’m giving to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.”
While Olen is helping direct attention to the world's 870 million people enduring chronic hunger, she's also finding that old cravings die hard. When sojourning on the wrong side of the poverty line, even a cup of coffee lies beyond reach.
“I did this wiling and knowingly, but I would rather have had a little less food than price out my daily coffee. That was the hardest thing for me this morning. We have free coffee in the office, but that’s not part of the deal. It’s just costs too much.”
To donate to World Food Program USA and support Kathleen’s challenge, go here.
Interested in taking the challenge yourself? Visit World Food Program USA.