Thursday's meals:

Breakfast:

Oatmeal, strawberries, brown sugar, and milk

Lunch:

Curry with two carrots

Dinner:

 

Curry with a carrot and two big bowls of salad with dressing

 

Dessert:

 

Can of diced pineapple

Things to report for the day:

 

It did not really happen today, but late last night. I have adjusted well enough to being somewhat hungry for long stretches of the day. I feel a little tired and a little impatient with people at work, and I do not focus as well but on the whole I just plow throw the day. But last night I could not fall asleep (falling to sleep when you hungry is a tricky). I do not have enough food to eat “unscheduled snacks” without risking running out by Saturday. The one food I have enough of to have extra of is my seeming endless bag of Iceberg lettuce and a bottle of salad dressing. At about midnight I realized that I just wasn’t going to fall asleep without eating something and I have to get up at 5:40am to get to work on time so I needed to get to sleep. So there I was in my kitchen a quarter past midnight eating a big bowl of salad and forcing myself to drink water. Eventually I was able to get to sleep. But I was very tired today, and had very little patience for the lady on the bus loudly discussing her friend’s bachelorette party on her phone. Really? At 6:30 in the morning? This couldn't wait?  

 

Thoughts of the day:

Two things really jump out at me today about being on food stamp. First, it is stressful to see you food start to run low. I imagine that my situation would be similar to someone at the end of the month before the next month’s funds come in. You look at the food you have and measure it out in your mind over and over thinking: Is this enough to get to the end of the week? It is stressful. We all have grocery budgets but most of us are not slaves to them. If we are short on something we can spend a little extra now and then and just make up for by not spending as much later. But with food stamps when the money is out, it is out and you have to wait until next month. So you have to plan your budgeting very carefully to ensure the money lasts till the end of the month.  

Years ago I lost a lot of weight (about 80 pounds) so I am no stranger to being hungry for long stretches. But as anyone who has dieted can tell you the first 3 weeks or so are the hardest. The thing with being on food stamps is diet is fluctuating with the availability of food so you never really adjust so the hunger is always sharp. If things were really lean at the end of one month, it would be hard not to want to eat more at the start of the next month when the money came in. I can see how it would be easy to fall into a "feast and famine" pattern at the start and end of each month. Even with the best planning you will always have unforeseen consequences that might result in you running low on food by the end of the month. You left the milk on the counter overnight, the fruit you bought went bad, you burned the beans, your kids spilled all the juice trying to pour it, etc.

So when there is food in the house you are eating well enough to maintain your weight long term (you could even be gaining weight), you're not going to starve. But that might mean that you pretty hungry the last week of most months and you will never really adjust because the cycle will start again next month and the hunger come back just as hard as before.

That leads to the other thing that occurred to me. I believe that the intent of the food stamp program (SNAP) is intended to be a temporary help in most cases. Getting people through hard times until they can get back on their feet. And what is the way that that is going to happen? Most households on food stamps have an employed person in them. If you are able bodied you are only able to receive food stamps for 3 months unless you are employed or in a work training program. So obviously that employment in these homes is insufficient or there income would not be low enough to be eligible for food  stamps. The only way is that a person is going to get off food stamps is to have find better job,  get a raise, or work more hours. But the idea of food stamps should be just enough to get you by is somewhat contrary to this goal. I have notices with myself this week that being hungry most of the day has affected my work. I feel impatient, I have a harder time following conversations and directions from my coworkers, and I am generally tired (the connection with hunger and lack of decent sleep is one I did not expect). I have been able to just push through and get my work done each day. After all it is just one week. But if this was to go on for a month or six months I could certainly see this catching up to me and affecting my reliability at work if my productivity drops the last week or so of each month when I run low on food at home.

Tired, unfocused, irritable; not exactly words you want to put on a resume. So if I really was working a part time job as, I outlined in the scenario for this experiment. Would I get called in for extra hours or offered a full time position if my boss mistook my hunger for a poor work ethic?