Hunger... BTDT?

The only time I've been hungry is right after I left my first husband. I was on 19 and in fear of my life. I drove 60 miles north, to the next county, and found an apartment. Had something like $6 left to my name after putting down the deposit and first month's rent. Went out and got a job at a buffet-style restaurant; by the time I started work, I hadn't had anything to eat for a couple days. It was so hard to look at all the food on people's plates! I was afraid they could hear my stomach growling, LOL. I made it through to my break, when I used some of my tip money to buy something to eat. I think that was the best meal I've ever eaten in my life!

That was a hard winter. I still remember most of the stuff I ate, because it was so hard to come by. I didn't even have furniture or utensils to start out with. I got a coffeepot at the flea market and some old pots and pans literally out of someone's garbage (person in another apartment was moving out and throwing them away). When I couldn't afford anything else, I'd buy white bread for 20 cents a loaf and toast it under the broiler (didn't have a toaster), and sprinkle a little cinnamon and packets of sugar from the restaurant on it. Nothing like a loaf of toast for dinner, LOL.

A real treat was when my mom gave me a few jars of her canned peaches. I made peach cobbler out of them to 'stretch' them, and man that was good! Nicest thing she ever did for me, I think. Most of the time it was chicken noodle soup (chicken leg quarters were 29 cents a pound) or fried liver from the slaughterhouse, 19 cents a pound, and fried taters. I wasn't a vegetarian then, but it could be that's what made me into one. Especially the liver. BLEAH!!!

__________________
"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

Oh yeah we have many problems, the way we eat is a very important part, and as for growing grains in the desert, it would be simpler to ship the grain in from the midwest, grow grain where it grows good, reduce meat consumption(I'm thinking 50%), and have a well balanced diet, it is amazing (and too long to explain) how much change we can do with just eating sensibly!

Americans are not fat because they maintain a good eating regimen, but rather the lack thereof.

We would no longer have to depend on Genetically modified crops.

Curious, where exactly is this grain in the desert? Usually dry areas are used for cattle since growing crops isn't very economical in those areas. I think most of the reason why Americans are fat boils down to large portion sizes and the high amount of sugars and fats in foods.

__________________
http://www.xanga.com/shackman A blog about whatever

Truly hungry? Not really.... I lived off ramen noodles and not much else for about 6 months once. My dog - who was my baby at the time - was having all sorts of medical issues. The food he was on was very expensive, but its what he needed to be healthy, and so were the frequent vet visits. I made the CHOICE to reduce my grocery budget to a few dollars a week so I could meet his medical needs. A friend of mine took me to McDonalds for their $1 quarter pounder special, and it was the best burger I'd ever tasted!

My youngest DD is from India and came home to me when she was nearly 3 years old. The orphanage she had been at fed them nothing but daal (lentils) and the occasional naan (bread); plainly not enough to fill her belly. The day she came home, she weighed in at a measly 22 pounds - which is what a 1-year old should weigh. She was protein and iron deficient and looked very pathetic She discovered chicken nuggets during her first week home, and after a few months of solid eating she grew like crazy. I'm hopeful that she will never be hungry like that again.

__________________

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Miniature Bull Terriers
www.PatronusMiniBulls.com
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It's true that the Amazon rainforest is being deforested to grow soybeans, but vegetarian demand is an insignificant influence.

When the US and Canada switched to GMO soy, we lost our HUGE export markets to EU, Japan, and a few other places.

Brazil saw their opportunity and jumped. They now have those export markets, and they are trying to meet the growing demand.

__________________

I agree with the liver! I know if I was starving I would eat it but I would hate every bite!

As for hunger...yes I have been hungry. I was raised by my grandfather and great great aunt. Both were elderly, both taught me how to garden, can, meal prep, etc. The problem was the income...no money. They were hard working but did not save enough to put away for retirement.

I too am food insecure. I make sure my pantry is stocked, and both freezers are full. I dont ever want to worry where my next meal is coming from. I wish no one had too.

__________________
Be the kind of woman that, when your feet
hit the floor each morning, the devil says
"Oh Crap, She's up!"

Tammy

I never was truly hungry. I even had enough to eat when I went to survival school in Panama and lived offed what I could find in the Jungles for a week. I even gained 3 lbs at the end.

__________________
God must have loved stupid people because he made so many of them.

I wouldn't say we went hungry but we had one winter where we mostly ate beans. Commodity beans a girlfriend found while cleaning an apartment...she got to keep whatever tenants left behind. A closet full of beans and bless her she shared. Our conversations that winter were what are you having with your beans tonight. Fortunately dh and I both like beans!! Life was ever so much improved when his employer gave him a turkey at Thanksgiving and a ham at Christmas. Now days I'd do better than I did then, but I was 18 with a baby so what did I know! I washed diapers by hand in a tub on the kitchen floor because I needed laundrymat money for groceries.
Yet when I suggested to a friend after she was saying she didn't have grocery money and who uses disposable diapers (she has a washer & dryer) that she use cloth diapers she had a dozen excuses why she couldn't (she already owns cloth diapers). I guess she's not hungry enough yet.

My parents were always hard workers. My mother is a marvelous cook (still is today at 88!) and can fix a great meal with very little. When I was a teenager we lived on a farm. We had milk cows, hens and other livestock. Mom made cottage cheese and butter regularly. She planted a garden and canned. Baked rolls, cakes, pies, yum! We not only never went hungry we had great food all the time. I have a good friend who lived in a similar situation BUT her mom wasn't a thrifty housewife. I was at their home when there was nothing to eat until their father came home from town with a package of bologna & a loaf of white bread. Supper was a glass of water, two slices of unbuttered white bread and a piece of bologna. The kids used to make fun of my friend because she was "fat". As an adult I recognize she had the typical belly of malnutrition. In fact, there were several kids in our school that obvious to me today suffered from malnutrition.

A lot of hunger in the U.S.A. today is due to lack of common sense. Lack of planning. I see mother's with young children walking out of Aldis with flats of canned spaghetti, soda and other garbage. They surely run out of food before their next food stamps arrive. I had a women sit in my office telling me she didn't have money to buy food for her kids and when I suggested she cancel her cable and Internet so she could buy food, she flipped out on me! And another I suggested that if she did not have enough money to feed her children, maybe you should get rid of 5 big dogs and 6 cats. Bad choices usually have bad results.

I guess some would say I hoard food and household supplies. I say I prep for an uncertain future. We still eat beans but its by choice not because that's all we have available.

__________________
This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

I think I'll still have a tiny bit of turkey on Thursday, though..................

Truthfully? The Hungryest I've ever been, running and hideing in the inner city. In the dark in abandoned buildings, from a person that was going to kill me. I was actually hungry enough that the fear subsided enough for me to think of Food.

So who won? in the battle of life and death? I reckon since you're posting (unless your a ghost), that you survived... and your enemy perished? Hopefully you visited a ton of punishment on those evildoer's that kidnapped you and dropped you off in the inner city (zombieland). Glad you survived... and hopefully escaped the IC...

__________________
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Thanks,Texan. I'm alive and doing well out here in the Country.

Yeah, been hungry a few times. Most memorable, got pneumonia and lost my job. Had a young child to feed. Luck would have it that I DID have food stuck back, but if *I* ate, that was one less thing for my daughter to eat. So, I didn't eat except for once a week when I'd have a can of soup...would keep my eyes open looking for coke bottles and when I had enough, would sell them and buy a can of soup for myself. The jobless rate was at an all-time high so it took a couple months to find another job, but my daughter never went without.

Never would have made it through college if I hadn't been good at fishing!

Mon

We grew up with enough food to keep us healthy. We processed everything ourselves and I only remember us buying corn meal and flour from the store. Sometimes rice and oatmeal. I never remember being hungry as a child

I got married at age 15, which was pretty normal around these parts. It was not a bright thing for me to do however. After living with his mother and 4 siblings for a year, it was too much for me to handle. I would have lived anywhere to get away from that for awhile. And we did...

we moved to the creek bank in a tent for almost a year. We took nothing with us but a tent, a coleman stove, a lantern, a can of fuel and a few blankets. I did not even have any shoes to wear. Being hungry, really hungry, can bring you do do almost anything. I spent the day combing the shallows in the creek for crawdads, I caught fish (even learned to catch trout in my bare hands), I snared rabbits and at night I had a sharp stick I made and gigged frogs. I used the creek water to cook things in. I cooked frog legs on sticks over the campfire. I foraged for berries and even made flour out of acorns and baked some of the nastiest tasting "bread" made with berries and crawdads or dried fish. I smeared persimmon pulp over it and called it a meal. I was hungry a lot. We were poor and I was too ashamed to go back home and tell my mother I was starving. When I turned 17 I got pregnant. I remember having a tiny can of corn for the both of us to eat on for two days. I won't even begin to lie and pretend I did not do it. When I was 6 months pregnant I took corn from a field of feed corn at the foot of the mountain. I was hungry. Finally I convinced my husband to re-enlist in the Navy and things were not so bad for us anymore. But from age 16 to 17 I ate more crawdads, frog legs and wild strawberries than I care to mention and still went to bed many night in tears from hunger.

I think that is why I tend to over do it now on food storage. When I got to a place in my life where I could process my own foods, I started canning enough for an army. I intended to never go hungry again. So now, there is only two of us and I can enough food every year to feed about 6 people for a year. We spend around $20 a month at the grocery store, sometimes less. But you cna bet if you come to my house, I will have plenty of food to offer to you. I won't be hungry again, as long as I am able to have a garden, chickens, process deer and can my food. Hopefully I will be able to do that as long as I live. Whoever said it is right....suffering can make you appreciate things. Hunger can make you appreciate a full root cellar for sure. I had no one to blame but myself as well, but just because it was my fault did not make me full...I was still hungry.

The best way to enslave someone is to send them a check each month.
jim

I used to work a lot with the Boy Scouts and a couple times a year I would take three boys on what we called a coffee can camp out. Other than your clothes and a jacket the only thing you could take with you was anything you could get in a two pound coffee can. We would spend one week in the woods and what you had in your can had to provide all your food and shelter for the week. A few boys washed out and couldn't make it, some the first night, but after the first 24 hours most of them had a good time of it. Each boy had to make it on his own, they couldn't pool their resources, but we did join together in the evening at a campfire.

"O"