We had been in our home stay for a week before Rose let me know that most of the family members were only eating two small meals a day. It was hard to keep track of such things in a two-story home with 17 extended family members from three different nuclear families. They were giving us three good meals every day, and at least some family members were always eating with us. But Rose started talking to one of the daughters about her daily eating habits, and came to realize that part of the reason they always shuffled us between the two different eating areas and had us eating each meal with different people was because there wasn’t enough food for many of the family members to eat three meals. This thought affected me a lot, and I started eating less every meal so there would be more left over (though making sure to compliment the food a ton still so they wouldn’t think I didn’t like it!). A few times this left me quite hungry long before the next meal came around, but it honestly wasn’t much of a burden at all.
I have rarely suffered for others. It was only in Lent of this year that I began experimenting with going hungry occasionally for the sake of other people. I have fasted regularly in the past, but for my own spiritual growth or as a corporate Church discipline. What would it mean to go hungry sometimes not because I lacked the money, but because I desired to give it to someone who goes hungry far more often than myself? What would it mean to stop buying all the extra food I don’t need – desserts, bottled drinks, soft drinks, coffees, fast food, restaurant food, anything else expensive – and use the savings to help those who don’t get their basic nutrition? I think that giving up most of these things is not really suffering, since I’ll probably feel better without them, but might it be worth testing whether I can do it even to the point of just a tiny bit of suffering?
What does it feel like to not eat every time I am hungry? Like I said, I’ve only started doing this a few months ago, and only in little bits and pieces. But I think it’s really important, and my experience in the slums here makes me want to stretch it further. When families who only eat two small meals a day take you into their homes and keep generously feeding you three, it makes you think twice about all the stuff you eat that you don’t need.
p.s. – The communities I’ve been living in for the past several weeks are current celebrating Ramadan (“Ramzan” here). Their fasting this month inspired one of my friends here in the slum to fast for 24 hours each week himself – not in religious solidarity with his Muslim friends, but in practical solidarity with those he knows who do not have enough to eat. He is 14 years old. He also has been a vegetarian for several years now in part due to concerns over world poverty and the amount of land use/grain feed it takes to support animal consumption, and he once inspired his family to live an entire month on the same $110 budget as their poor neighbors. This is the different perspective on life that growing up among the half of the world in poverty gives you. How many kids his age could grow up among the constant American messages of “eat eat eat! drink drink drink! Consume consume consume!” and hold onto enough perspective to make the same sacrifices?
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The toughest aspect of consuming less is not the tiny bit of suffering that comes from not eating as much as we want. The real struggle is resisting the media and peer pressure that convinces us that we need this kind of consumption to make us happy. I have had far more friends encourage me to spend more money buying expensive food than I’ve had friends encouraging me to spend less. Expensive foods are the gifts we send each other (and ask for!), expensive restaurants are the places we decide to meet up when we haven’t seen each other, and expensive coffee shops are the spots that we decide to hang out we want to have a chat. Why is it that so many people have encouraged me to spend money in expensive restaurants and buy expensive treats, but would consider it rude to encourage me to spend less? (And, in fact, sometimes consider it rude even when I just make the personal decision not to spend more when everyone else is!)
And those pressures don’t even touch the constant advertising of the food and service industries. Not long ago we could live without fast food, expensive coffee shops are even more recent, and restaurant dining is several times more prevalent than it was a few decades ago. Have any of these trends made us happier, or have they just given us more things for our lives to be dependent on? I doubt that the ice cream cones I eat really bring more joy to my life. But it’s tough to resist the momentary buzz they provide, my entire life history of convincing myself I need them, and the example of all the Westerners around me who keep consuming such things at rates that the world at large will never support.
I am grateful for the experiences of the last year that have deepened my perspective on this. Besides the books I have read, I have benefited from being on a strict budget while with Tim and Amy in Bangkok (not just limiting my food purchases, but causing me to think about them more), from being among the poor in India (not just letting me know how little others eat but forcing me to sit there and experience it while I mow away at my ample portions), living with Mark and Cathy and getting to experience their journey with food (not just learning how to spend so little on it, but getting to see how happy their family is doing it), and just being in a different culture than my own, creating the space to place a halt on “business as usual” and really analyze whether the things I’m doing are right.
p.s. – Several of these insights are new or recently deepened. If you sent us tasty Western treats as gifts while we have been away, thank you so much! It has even been in the process of longing after such things and being so excited to get them that I realized how temporary and meager a joy they provide when they arrive. I treasure the thought and care that went into the gift packages (thank you so much John, Matt, and Mom) much more than the food itself. And for the couple of people I scheduled to hang out with over restaurant food when we get back to America, it’s still on, and I’ll have a good time! I’m continuing to learn how much more we can get out of home-cooked meals together, but we can consider that to be a long-range process and I’ll still love the eating-out experiences to the fullest!
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