It was more of a noodle dish with some veggies than a veggie dish with some noodles. Still, I was proud of my creation last night. With a little spaghetti sauce, macaroni noodles, carrot pieces, and zucchini I created a tasty dish. True, the noodle-veggie balance was off. It was heavier on the sauce and noodles than it would have been were it not for the SNAP Challenge (eating on the equivalent of a food stamp budget) that I am taking this week.

A vegetarian, I am conscious of the food I eat. While I am tempted by junk food and have several sweet teeth, it is a rare day when I don’t eat more than the recommended daily allowance of  fresh vegetables and fruits. Cheeses, legumes, and the occasional tempeh and tofu are my protein sources.

And, though my meal was tasty last night, I begin day three of the SNAP Challenge (food stamps), I feel weighed down and sluggish. My digestive system does not seem nearly as efficient as is usual. The beige wonderland of noodles, rice, almost-fluffy white wheat bread, which is what I can afford on a daily budget of four dollars and fifty cents, fill my stomach. They also are negatively effecting my sense of general well-being. I’ve begun fantasizing about the veggie bake and fruit tray I will create at the end of this week.

But that’s the rub, isn’t it? I have a choice. This is a one-week experience for me and my body will recover. Next week when I make the same dish, it will be a healthier veggie dish with a few noodles. My overall health will not be damaged by a short detour away from healthy eating. My kindred, people who live in our wealthiest nation, live with poor nutrition because as a people we don’t have the will to deal with economic injustices that favor the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

The wealthy get tax cuts; the poor get food benefit cuts. We find funds to go to war while twenty-five percent of children live in poverty (1). Like the skewed noodle-veggie balance of my meal, we have chosen as a country to skew the wealthy-poor balance in favor of the wealthy.

God have mercy on us for our sins against our poor neighbors.

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Related Posts

Opening Our Hearts to the Hungry, Condon United Church of Christ website
SNAP Challenge, um, Maybe Not Today 11-19-13
SNAP: Getting Serious, Getting Anxious 11-20-13