Food For Thought

[plumtreeblossom]

I got a letter in the mail saying that my unemployment benefits have been approved and that the payments will begin this week. Thank goodness.

During this period of unemployment and watching every single penny with nerve-shattering fear, my mind has gravitated to people trying to survive in impoverished circumstances, and how very different life is for them than it is for those on more stable ground. A post by daisytells about roasting turkey put me in mind of something that happened a number of years ago that I wish I'd handled differently.

Back when I worked at The MIT Press, for several Thanksgivings the staff took part in a charity drive that involved assembling a food basket for an impoverished family whose card we'd chosen off a tree in the lobby, and I was in charge of coordinating it. We could put anything we wanted in the baskets, but the one required item was a frozen turkey, to be brought in on the basket-pick-up-day for same-day delivery to the family.

I didn't put 2 + 2 together at the time, but there are several problems with this. Having read all the cards on the tree, I knew that a good number of the families lived in homeless shelters or motel rooms. Lets think about the turkey for a minute.

If you give someone a frozen, raw turkey, it presumes they have access to, at the very minimum, all of these things:

Working electricity
A working refrigerator large enough to safely thaw the turkey (and store leftovers)
A working oven (not a toaster oven) and gas service if needed
A roasting pan (can be disposable)
Plates and cutlery (can be paper/plastic)
At least one person in the family willing and able to roast it

I question how reasonable it is for a charity to just expect this in every situation. For a family living in a motel room with only a microwave and a dorm fridge, what in gods green earth are they going to do with a frozen, raw turkey? In a shelter, I suppose they could ask the kitchen to roast it for them, but unless they have a designated shelf in a refrigerator or something, the meat would probably become the shelter's, not the family's.

If I lived in a facility where I couldn't cook beyond heating things in the microwave, I think the charitable gift of a frozen, raw turkey that I can't cook or eat would make me feel insulted. In hindsight, I think a frozen cooked turkey would be a better (if sub-optimal) choice, since at least it can be thawed and eaten cold or microwaved.

I wish I had thought more about food preparation when I rallied the staff to bring in donated food. I wish I had considered the details involved in cooking a large meal in possibly very compromised circumstances. The family I remember most did have a home of some sort, and was a single-father family (picked by me because nobody cares about single fathers), but how did I know he had an oven that worked, or a roasting pan, or the pots and pans needed to make the Stove Top Stuffing and vegetables? I wish I had focused more on food that can be eaten directly from the packaging. There were several meals-worth of food in there, and I hope he and his kids had what they needed to prepare and eat it. I should have thought to include a disposable roasting pan.

These are the things I've been thinking about lately, the way we seem to sometimes presume that people have at least most of the same basics we have. I get a taste of the other side of this whenever a friend invites me to a dinner at an expensive restaurant that I can't afford and I have to decline (this is true even when I do have employment). I'm realizing that when helping the hungry with food donations, we need to do so with conscious attention to the logistics of food preparation in unknown or little-known circumstances. When we think of "poor family" it's easy to default to something like the Bob Cratchit family, with their humble but safe home and their warm hearth with sufficient firewood. Most impoverished families and individuals today have it a whole lot worse.

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

Thanks; this is the sort of thing I need to think about more explicitly/frequently. :)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

It took my recent brush with financial instability to make me stop and consider the actual logistics of food prep/storage when the place someone is staying isn't an actual home, or is a home but isn't equipped for much cooking. During those weeks after the lay-off and before benefits kicked in, I did a lot eating only from what basics I had in the cabinets. Sometimes I would think "If my power got cut off, I'd have to eat this soup cold from the can." That's something that lots of people have to endure for a while when things are really bad. I give to food drives whenever I can, but I'm finding myself more conscious of what items might be more practical and consumable to more people.

[thesynergizer.livejournal.com]

i appreciate this post. we have been very very poor too, but it was debt and house poor. so it was a choice. when it gets to the point where you can't eat (not can't eat out, but can't eat at all!) then you have to start defaulting on your credit cards ...

have you seen "the pursuit of happyness" if you haven't, you should!!!! (blockbuster rents older movies for $0.99 here ... or maybe you could borrow it from someone) it is worth it. it is exactly about all of these issues.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I've been wanting to see that movie, but I know it's going to make me cry and cry. The trailer made me cry!

Through the first half of my 20s, I was exceedingly poor. At one point I got a dumpy apartment, but my credit wasn't good enough for the electric company to turn on my power. So I had no heat or electricity (I did have hot water because it was included with the apartment). My landlord let me snake an extension cord up to his apartment, so I had one plug and could use only appliance at a time, either the lamp or the space heater, but not both. Since the fridge had no power, I lived on things like boxes of crackers, and burned candles for light. I couldn't cook at all since I didn't have a hotplate or microwave. I lived more than 4 months like that in winter/spring, until my parents finally agreed to co-sign and the electric company turned on my power.

Sometimes it feels like that happened to someone else, not me. But it really was me. 23 years later, I'm in a position where I can afford to donate a little to help people who are living in similar situations. But I know how real that suffering is, and how frustrating it is when the basics that others take for granted aren't there.

[thesynergizer.livejournal.com]

oh my god mare, i had no idea!

you are right, the movie will make you cry. but it's a deep, thought-provoking, do something better for the world, never ever take anything for granted ever again kind of cry. watch it with your sweetie. it's soul food.

we have never been without credit. we have even talked about how being poor now is so different than it used to be BECAUSE of credit. we have had an empty bank account (like money in the low double digits) for months at a time, but never did we live without the basics because we just kept charging everything. right now our cc debt is at about $25,000 ish, and that is after working so hard to pay on it for the last 18 months! we got it down to below $9,000 before we sold our aberdeen house and had to take a bunch more loans out to do it. :-(

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

This society forces people to do that with credit. I know lots of people up to their eyeballs in credit debt. My father and brother both filed for bankruptcy because of it. I'm sure you're not going to let that happen, though.

As for me, other than an epic student loan that I only paid off 4 years ago, I've managed to have no real debt. Yet many financial advisers would say that it's a very BAD thing that I have no debt, for how can I maintain or improve my credit score if I've no debts to pay off?

Its a sick world. I think we would be better off just trading clam shells and animal pelts. :-)

the world fell apart when money was invented

[thesynergizer.livejournal.com]

absolutely. i agree with this more than you could ever know.

and a step beyond trading stuff, just helping whomever you can help because they need the help. a long long long time ago, before wet nurses even (which is when it became upper class to NOT feed your child) women would feed babies who needed to be fed. no trade or payment required. you've got a hungry baby, i've got milk. how is that not obvious?

(sorry for the one-track mind!)

as for you, if you have not enough credit to for a major purchase, maybe you are better off saving up actual cash? that will stick it to the credit score people for sure. (says the girl who has never ever had any amount of real money to her name in her whole life)


i hope you find a job soon! you're in my thoughts.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

if you have not enough credit to for a major purchase, maybe you are better off saving up actual cash?

That's exactly how I live my life! Every major purchase, every overseas trip I've taken, has been paid for upfront and clear, with the rare exception of paying in installments for something (which isn't the same thing as real credit). Of course, the things I save up for are comparatively small. I don't want to own a house or car. Right now I'm saving up to upgrade my elderly BlackBerry. It'll be about $400, but it'll be paid for in full when I walk out of the store with it. It's an astonishing simple life for an urban professional.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

I know a lot of what you're saying; I've volunteered at soup kitchens and spoken to people and you're right. It's so so hard to believe sometimes what some people have to live through. I admire that you've been able to see people as people and not as charity cases. You can see things from their POV, or at least try to.

I think that it would be great for you to mention your 'cooked turkey option' to folks when they start collecting for food baskets. Or add things like 'disposable roasting pans' to the item lists. Or maybe send your post in as a letter to the editor or into some publicly available venue that can spread your ideas. Because they are really good ones.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't work there anymore, so I probably won't get to participate in the basket program again unless whatever new employer I end up with also participates. But who I *should* mention it to is the charity itself. They're probably so swamped trying to get participating food donors that they're not looking at the logistics.

[kencf0618.livejournal.com]

A very thoughtful post. I went to an AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic yesterday; one could either pay $3 or donate canned goods. I happened to overhear "Beans, beans, beans...!" They got a lot of beans.

I'm neither Mormon nor a survivalist, but a quick survey shows that I could get by for a week with what I've got in my kitchen, and a bit longer than that, counting the cat food and the cats.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Hehe! Don't eat the kitties!

One upside of beans is that they can be eaten right out of the can (if you have the canned kind). If they can get to a sinkful of hot water, they can even warm them up a bit. Hopefully they have a can opener. I eat little cans of vegetables as snacks even in the best of times, right the hell out of the can.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I hear you loud and clear on this issue. I know it would cost a bit more but presenting a needy family with a full holiday dinner all cooked and ready to eat would not be a bad idea. One of my neighbors, who also feeds holiday meals to some of our stay at home neighbors, always gets a full turkey dinner from Stop and Shop and serves it up on the holiday. Yes, it needs to be heated up, but a full plate can be microwaved in about 5 minues. Or in extreme circumstances it could be eaten cold since it is already fully cooked. This meal comes with a complete roast turkey a container of mashed potato, a container of butternut squash, cranberry sauce, a green vegetable, gravy, and a pie (pumpkin or apple). One could throw in a half-gallon of cider as a beverage, too if one were so inclined.
I always feed a few elderly "orphans" on the holidays, as does my friend E. I also have a couple or three friends in for dinner, and others are invited to come for dessert after they get home from their family days. Holidays are nice around my apartment.
I started doing this one Christmas when I was by myself - kids away, son with his Dad, mother at my sister's, all very far away. So I cooked a meal in that improvised kitchen in my room at the lodging house and invited some people who lived there who were alone on Christmas. We had a great time, and I was not alone after all. Neither were they.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Jay and I do an "orphans" Thanksgiving every year, and friends who aren't spending the holiday with family join us for a festive meal. It's a highlight of the year, and Thanksgiving marks the anniversary of the day we were first introduced. This will be out 5th Thanksgiving together, and we're looking forward to sharing food!