UPenn Food Stamp Challenge - Shreyans
Shreyans Goenka
| "Day 1 of challenge wasn't really that bad. I had enough food and didn't go hungry, however it was frustrating to have to constantly make choices and give up daily staples like soda and iced tea. The hardest part about yesterday was trying to find vegetables and fruits to add into the diet. An apple at Wawa costs 80 cents, that's almost 1/4th of my entire food budget for the day. Refined grains however, like bread and past is very cheap and so are eggs, however, it is very hard to find cheap vegetables. I am eating sufficiently, but can hardly call this diet nutritious. This was a very hard week. I must admit that I could not follow the challenge religously and cheated by crossing the budget. I found this project to be very challenging not because I was going hungry, but rather due to the limited options available to eat on the budget on Penn's campus. I tried to stick to the budget everyday but managed to do so only for 2 whole days. The major reason I broke the budget was drinks. I drink tea and iced tea everyday and it was incredibly hard to stick to just water everyday. I also don't have much time to cook every day and it is very difficult to find cheap healthy options outside. The days I stuck to the project, were the days I bought pasta and vegetables and cook myself. In the end I am extemely happy that I tried this project as it made me more aware and grateful of the privileged diet I consume. It is extremely easy for us to debate about how people should eat or should not eat, but the extremely tight budget meant I had to eat whatever was availiable and couldn't think about nutrition." |
