A dollar a day

[chargirlgenius]

Last night on NPR, I heard the story of a girl working on her PhD thesis in Afghanistan. Her project? Spend a dollar a day, or less, on all of her food and water. Even a dollar a day is more than many people have there, and for them, that dollar has to cover all living expenses, not just food and water.

One US dollar a day is the defined international poverty line. Can you imagine? We are rich. All of us. All of you who are reading this. We are all wealthy. Even when I was a poor college student, or after my ex and I separated and I was less than getting by, I was still incredibly wealthy. A dollar a day?

I heard this story when I was on my way to the pharmacy, to pick up a medicine that my insurance was covering. It wasn’t even critical – just a cough medicine to get me through this cold so I could sleep at night. Just like that, go to the doctor, drop off a script, and a couple of hours later, you have the drugs that you need. I’d been to the grocery store earlier in the day, and picked up a few things we needed, and a few things that I wanted. Even though we bemoan the lack of really tasty fruits and veggies, compared to the fresh markets of other parts of the world, I have EVERYTHING at my fingertips.

I honestly don’t even know how much food costs. Even in college, I didn’t pay all that much attention. I need milk? I buy milk. I need bread? I buy bread. I bought toilet paper, buttermilk for Shrove Tuesday pancakes, sausage, fake crab, spinach, bananas, brie, and more. I did all of this without even thinking about it.

We’re rich. We worry more about eating too much, not about eating too little. We worry that we’re getting too fat, not that we’re going to starve. We have so much. We can eat lunch without worrying whether or not that means we can afford dinner.

How would we eat on a dollar a day? Could we? Would it be anywhere near equivalent? I was thinking about this last night. I’d start with a big bag of rice, dried beans, and some onions. In Afghanistan, cooking oil is like gold, because the more oil you have the more calories you’re able to consume. I’d get oil. Milk? What’s the most economical way to get calcium? Would I even be able to? The girl on the radio said she’d wanted some fruit or yogurt, but it was a luxury she couldn’t afford. I don’t even know how much those things cost – just that if I want them, I buy them.

I probably had more than a dollar’s worth of cheese on my salad today.

She also talked about the generosity and hospitality of the people that she met. These people had next to nothing, but insisted on bringing out the best for guests, invited them to stay for a meal or overnight. One family insisted on killing their last chicken for her visit, though they hadn’t eaten any other meat in months.

I don’t really have a point. It just struck, me, and made me think. It’s one of those things that you intellectually know, but don’t often think about. Of course I know that we have a lot, and that there are people who have so little. Rarely does it punch me in the gut like that. The gut is where I feel this – I haven’t had an appetite since last night.

Comments

[etaine-pommier.livejournal.com]

My visit to India - Bangalore, mind, which is a very *rich* city - inspired me with the same kind of thoughts.

Sometimes I think all Americans need to visit a developing nation before they turn 30. Can you imagine how different our culture might be?

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I was in Russia when I was 17. I brought some American candy as gifts for the family - it looked like riches compared to what we were eating. We traveled to Moscow for a day, and I was dreadfully thirsty. There were no water fountains, there was nothing to drink. At the end of the day, I was incredibly relieved when we stopped for a soda, until I realized that all five of us would split half of the 12 oz soda, saving the rest for when we got home. That sip just about killed me with how little it was.

I was thirsty for a good three weeks. I finally started drinking the tap water a little when brushing my teeth, after they warned me not to. Could be why I don't have a colon any more.

[thornbury.livejournal.com]

In college, I took a course on the Sociology of Developing Countries (actually required for my degree). It was an eye-opener.

[aeddie.livejournal.com]

Having spent copious time in 3rd world countries in my youth and college days I see some of this on a slightly different perspective. Most of the time between late 78 and mid 87 I was in the Philippines and I spent 3 months in Nepal in college in 91.

Food costs, at the time at least, were so wildly different as to almost defy comparison. In a semi-remote Nepali village you could eat well at a restaurant for under a dollar.

Also, how do they figure that US dollar a day? Is it income or value? Many rural Filipinos raised fish in their rice paddies and had a few chickens that with careful husbandry provided protein way beyond their initial purchase price, especially once you get past the first generation.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely. During my up-comment trip to Russia, we could buy just about anything that we wanted with a dollar. A huge meal? A dollar. A meal with wine? A dollar. A bottle of Vodka? A dollar.

I poked around a bit for the audio of the story, because as usual, I don't do it justice. With her dollar, she was able to buy barley, a bit of salad greens, a few other things - I don't remember. Fruit, meat, and yogurt was prohibitively priced. Many of the people she spoke with would have to choose lunch or dinner. They could eat two meals a day, not three.

I guess one aspect that interested me was wondering if my dollar would go anywhere near as far in an American grocery store. Would I be able to get an amount of calories necessary for survival?

[aeddie.livejournal.com]

Even at my local multi-ethnic market, some each of Middle-East, Asian, Indian, and Hispanic, I couldn't come close to enough calories to live on for a dollar. Even if I combined all three of us in the house.

We could come close sometimes. They frequently have fruit for 23-33 cents a pound, chicken leg quarters for 59 cents a pound, and other similar prices but we'd have to save to be able to buy in bulk since those prices aren't always available.

And that's one of the problems with living at that level. You can't save for a few days or whatever to buy things for more than that day's meal and you certainly have problems getting refrigerator or freezer.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you can't just head out to BJs or Costco and pick up a huge bag of rice. But shopping is still different in those areas.

When you say fruit and chicken, though, I think we're still in the mindset of getting enough to eat to be *healthy*. Those items are outside of the budget, usually, for the folks she's speaking about.

I wonder if it's economically possible to *subsist* on a dollar a day in America. You're right though, it's not the important question, since prices are so different, more of a random curiosity. :-)

I realized well after I posted that I had a bunch of thoughts tumbling around my head, and when I wrote them down I was still connecting them in my mind, but I'd neglected to connect them in the post... Ah, communication.

[noxcat.livejournal.com]

When you compare my cost of living to my income, I am not welathy. The foods you mention - well, I ould eat the rie, but the beans are right out, and there is no animal based protein in that diet. If I were forced to live on $1 a day, or even $5 a day, I would die of malnutrition. (and not the kind that most Americans dies of. I would not be able to get enough protein to maintain life.)

I am very happy to live my First World life. I would be long dead anywhere else.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I'll take my first world modern life any day! I don't often think about how thankful I am for it.

I don't want to embarrass anybody - I should have left the "you are all wealthy" part out of it. It's just that even when I was in college and dead broke, I never had to choose between lunch and dinner. Starvation has never been a worry in my life. I wish I could have found the interview - it was much more striking than my paltry description of it. :-)

[noxcat.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong - I am comfortable. I never have to worry about keeping a roof over my head, or being able to get that protein I need. (And I have been in the situation where I did have to choose between three squares and a roof.)

But the cost of living here is much higher than in Afghanistan. There you can live very well on $5 a day. Here - forget about it.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, certainly. I should have been more clear that wondering if you could eat for a dollar in the US was just a side thought.

I need to be more careful, in general, not just to you or anybody else on this post, to use this as a "this is what I have to be grateful for", not as a judgment at all on anybody else's lifestyle, choices, or opinions.

[eleanor-deyeson.livejournal.com]

It is possible to live on about $1 per person per day for food, IF the urban area you live near has reasonable program to feed the low-income and near-homeless.

Lincoln Nebraska has a program called FoodNet, where volunteers pick up day-old, dented, and otherwise "unsaleble" food from the grocery stores & distribute. The fruit & veggies often have a bruise or soft spot. But if I picked that tomato from my garden with a soft spot, I'd just cut it out, and the same can be done with unattractive fruits & veggies. The dairy items are often close dated, like expiring today or tomorrow, and the bread isn't "just from the oven" fresh.

http://members.cox.net/foodnet/sites.htm

This is a huge program, with 26 different sites each week. There are no questions about income, or residency status. It's just about keeping usable food out of the landfill.

I usually pick up food from 2 sites per week, and get plenty of bread, fruits & veggies, donuts, and the occasional odd cereal or unpopular snack. The sites I prefer often have dairy, be it milk or yogurt or sour cream.

There are a couple of other programs that provide a bit of chicken or other meat, donated by local meat processors. We get about 3#s usually

So I spend $40 on school lunches, and about $120 on eggs, milk, and the odd item to complete a meal. I've got a bit of that for restocking pantry items when the sale price is really low.

It makes meal planning more spontaneous, and more healthy. We've had a lot of stir fry's with under a pound of meat for 6-7 people, or soup.

The high gas prices last year killed the budget, and the credit, and this allows us to keep paying all the bills. And lots of food stays out of the landfill.

What I don't know is why more cities don't start this same type of volunteer led program. (The volunteers also get food too.)

But without that, no way could we eat on $1 per person per day, except in the height of summer, when the garden is abundant.

FoodNet, etc.

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

What I don't know is why more cities don't start this same type of volunteer led program

I don't know whether we have an exact match, but here in NYC we have City Harvest (http://cityharvest.org/), which collects leftover food from restaurants, greenmarkets, etc. and distributes it to soup kitchens/homeless shelters. There's also a Freegan (http://www.nypress.com/article-13739-dumpster-dining.html) demimonde :-)

[baronessadriana.livejournal.com]

I thought you might be interested in this couple's blog (http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/). They are American and committed to each eating on one dollar a day for thirty days. They blogged about what they prepared, how much it cost and their reactions/feeling throughout the project. It is really interesting.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Nifty! That's probably exactly what I was looking for!

[flonzy.livejournal.com]

I have said it before in a rant about theft in America; people in this country do not understand what it is to live in poverty and to be poor. While some folks are homeless that is rare compared to our poor sitting at home watching TV and complaining how hard they have it.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Not every person living in poverty in the US is sitting on their butts watching TV, and you know it. While poverty in America is defined much differently than poverty worldwide, that doesn't mean that we should be ignoring it, just because there's something much worse out there. Your point that poverty is different here, while correct, gets lost when you group them all together and apply a "lazy" label.

[flonzy.livejournal.com]

Lazy has nothing to do with what I am talking about; I just find it funny that only in a first world nation can we define people with homes, vehicles, and TV as being poor.

[jurgenzuvols.livejournal.com]

Since we are all so wealthy, do you have a Super H Mart or Lotte near you? The Asian Markets seem to do a better job of bringing a variety of tasty fruits and vegetables.

And I'm willing to spend that dollar on a really good orange, because I have another dollar right after that. And I can probably scrounge up leftovers from business meetings in my office space (Yesterday, it was free pizza). They are wealthy too, and I'm a grinch when it comes to spending my money.

-Jurgen

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

We actually don't have any Asian markets in close proximity, unless you count the Chinese owned general store up the road, that has no produce at all. Used to be a redneck place. It's an interesting little dive.

[greta-k.livejournal.com]

When I was in Brazil in 1996, I went into town one day with one of my cousin's hired hands. On the way off of the farm, he stopped at a little house and picked up a woman (his sister or wife?), two children, and a disabled teen (a brother?). The group of us drove to town, and before he dropped me off to do my business, he stopped in a favela (slum) to drop off the woman, the children and the teen. Afterwards, we picked them up again and headed back to the farm.

Seeing a favela up close, and observing the poor in Rio, Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Belo Horizonte, it really opened my eyes as to how people live in other countries and how they utilize everything. Since that time, I have tried to be more cognizant of how much I spend and to try not to waste so much.

But $1 US a day. Wow.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Luana told us some about the favelas. Apparently, you can arrange a tour of one. You pay an insider to take you in and out safely.

What I found most interesting was that some people choose that life even when they have another option. Mind boggling.

[pumaviking.livejournal.com]

that piece had a similar effect on me. we just made yogurt the other day and i found myself wondering if yogurt is expensive because it requires milk, or because you need a little bit leftover from the previous batch to start the next batch. that was a weird thought.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

You heard it too? I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I wonder if milk and diary are just more expensive in general? A cow uses more grain to produce that milk than calories you would get by eating the grain on your own.

[quodscripsi.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately the $1 a day comparison isn't of a lot of use once you realize the amout of logistics we use for our food vs most 3rd world countries. Its great to be able to get all sorts of different things and even out of season but it adds cost as does refrigerating meats instead of buying a live chicken. Next time you go to the grocery store price big bags of flour and beans and peas.
Something else and if you've read Dyers Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages he talks about this. As a society moves "up" and has excess resources one of the things you find is a drastic increase in meat in the diet. Which if you read the news yesterday it doesn't matter much what you eat as long as your intake matches your needs. But this change to larger meat intake has been taking place in China which is one of the the things that heavily stressed the price of basic food stuffs this years. In like the past 5 years China has gone from being an good size exporter to being an importer of grains because instead of consuming grains they feed the grains to animals and eat the animals which is less efficient overall.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I think I made too much of the $1 a day comparison in my original post. What I was really pondering more, and didn't discuss, was the idea of facing starvation, of choosing between lunch and dinner. The stark difference between our world, where most people are worried about eating too much, and theirs, where they're worried about eating too little.

Yep, I was thinking about how this compared to medieval life, and some of what Dyer wrote about. I think when eating that little, there's no way you could regularly get animal-based protein. I was thinking also about milk and calcium, and curious about whether that would even be in reach at all. I think what you say about China is spot on.

I'm happy with my modern, first world life. I wouldn't want to live in a developing nation, be that 21st c. Afghanistan of 14th c. England.

[quodscripsi.livejournal.com]

One of the things we have largely lost touch with is regional and season based diets as well. In many places in the world there are naturally growing plants or nuts that can hugely impact your diet. One modern example here is Pecans. You can always tell when the Pecans are dropping because you will see families of Mexicans, and by that I mean imigrants from Mexico, out in the park picking them up. And it isn't even that food is cost prohibitive generally to them but its like trees growing money when you equate money and food that closely.

Unfortunately it would be hypocritical to blame the Chinese for doing what we've been doing for a long time but the food market has been a mess this last year and it is likely that corn will rot outside of silos here because of it. If this economic meltdown had some good dramatic moments it would make a good movie.

I think I would be far more content living in 13th or 15th century England then today. But I don't think anyone would classify me as normal or fitting in to our world well.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

This is another one of those things that made me think like this too: http://hsifeng.livejournal.com/5963.html

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just wow. Where did you find the pictures?

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

The original source of the story is TIME magazine: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519_1373675,00.html

I can't believe I left that out of my original post. Bad source monkey! Bad!

*head desk*