Reflections on Food.

I haven’t written in some time.  Busy, busy, busy…

Seems I was mistaken about long how a week lasts, 5 or 7 days.

I was planning on taking the Food Basket campaign to Sunday, which would be 7 days, but I discovered that wasn’t necessary.  I mean, I could have, and probably should have, but then I would have been showing everyone up on who could last longer on less and who’s into that?  And who am I kidding?  All that was left was the KD and tuna.  I’ve been through that before so won’t go there again.  Ray was happy to have the KD and he made Tuna Helper for the dogs.  They really liked that.

Thanksgiving Weekend was beautiful and we spent Saturday and Sunday walking up and down along the trails that line the escarpment.  I’ll write about that on another post.  I took tons of pictures and spent the evenings creating a map of our travels on Google Maps.  I’ve finished only one of the days and will get to that presently.  Like I said: busy, busy, busy.

I did write up a final reflection that I sent to the paper but it didn’t make it to print.  I think it’s too late now so it’s safe to offer it as my final reflection on food.  Well, final for this particular campaign, because I’ve learned a lot and can’t believe I won’t go there again.

And I learned from my Twitterstream that there’s another Challenge in Windsor, so it seems to be a rolling campaign.  Anyone can do it.

Here’s what I wrote (I removed the redundancies):

I’m sitting at a table in the break area of a conference I’m attending at the Hamilton Convention Centre on knowledge translation, which deals, in a very small nutshell, with how to  bridge the research/policy/action divides to improve health.

I’ve written a few blog posts about my experience as a part of the campaign, reflecting on what’s it’s been like.  I’ve been reading about the experiences of others, how they’ve been managing.  We share similar reflections.

We miss our fresh fruit and vegetables.  The vegetables in my basket are in cans, same with the fruit.  I have an onion and a potato.

Some of us have been getting headaches, around mid afternoon.  I have one right now.  I had to skip out early from a night class last night because my head hurt and all I could think of was a bowl of vegetable soup with a handful of rice thrown in for good measure.  I became obsessive thinking of it.  I was so hungry by the time I got home, it was all I could do to wait for the soup to nuke, never mind wait for rice to boil.  Tonight I’ll go home before class to eat my last can of soup.  I’ll have time to put the rice in then.  We learn as we go.

We have commented on just how eye-opening the experience has been.  I’ve been preoccupied with my reflections on food and who gets what to eat.  I get lost sometimes in my reflections as I contemplate hunger in a land of plenty, for there is plenty of food out there.

But as I mentioned, the shelves of the food bank are bare and Thanksgiving is on the horizon.  Our food banks need help in feeding our neighbors and I’m encouraging everyone to give generously.  And, just as importantly, our politicians need to be told that we support an increase in social assistance food rates by $100 to reflect the realities of the research, which shows the current levels to be woefully inadequate.

People living on the limitations of social assistance suffer from those limitations in ways that many of us don’t realize, in ways that most us take for granted.

Back to the conference and further reflections.

The speakers talked about how to impact research take up, how to influence decision makers.  They detailed a range of strategies.  But the piece of advice that resonated with me, the take home message, among many valuable lessons, is that stories matter.  They touch the heart of our common human experience.  They make us feel.

My story, her story, his story.  We can all tell you in words what the numbers can’t.  What it means to be hungry in a land of plenty.

Better yet, try it yourself .  Tell your own story.