Day 5 - Hungry!

I woke up had my breakfast, small bowl of porridge half milk half water and was still Hungry. 10:36AM and its bareable!

Thinking beyond my belly I thought I share this as a friend asked me a question:

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Dear Nick,
I've written this recommendation of your work to share with other LinkedIn users.

Details of the Recommendation: "I'm sure you will manage to complete the challenge. But interested to see what is the more real issue for you: a) being able to purchase/prepare food on a restricted budget, or b) just having less calories (and a more monotonous diet) than one is used to. I know that they are linked but which is the real difficult one."

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David,
thanks for your support and your thoughts here, some of which ive posted in the blog below my picture on the site https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/nickhorslen

Your two points are very valid and id say at moments b) has been harder but overal a) is the issue.

Neither are really that onerous and it shows how lucky we are, what strikes me most and I suppose this hinges on a) to answer your questions, is:

1. Packaged food is so over priced, we also cook fresh meals but when i look at what supermarkets offer and what people buy its shameful really on both sides. Its so easy to cunjure up a simple tasy meal and while time and convenience cleary is an issue in this day and age, this experience has shown me how over stated that is.

2. Im more conscious of the basic nutrition of key staple and food that poor nations live on, To be honest we should eat more of it other than not wanting to push the commodity price up.

3. The lack of control or need for self control has been enlightening this week. Along with the lack of verity by the nature of the budget/campaign that hits hard as does the lack of more exotic tastes and textures.

4. Im more mindful not just of whats on or not on the plate and more what else is around me and so easily accessible ie tea, coffee, phone, internet, tv, car, shower, home, education, healthcare.

5. This experience tells me you can live on £1 of food a day be able to sustain it for weeks probably. However if my family were i'll, if i needed to travel, fix my home, educate my kids then the food budget would be hit, in effect even if people can feed themselves out of extreme poverty they are in effect trapped in it for want and need of the other basics of life.

Im learning that we have and we can fix all these issue, our generation has the opportunity for the first time to fix this once and for all. Its all very interesting.
Im so Impressed at the Y2000 millenium development goals and the progress being made towards 2015, great video here 3min:
http://www.globalpovertyproject.com/blogs/view/574
http://www.globalpovertyproject.com/blog/view/564

If you know an audience that might like to see the "1.4 Billion Reasons" presentation, do let me know http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB4_K0iANxA&feature=digest_mon
http://www.globalpovertyproject.com/pages/presentation

Thanks again for your support!
Nick
Ambassador
Global Poverty Project