Pictures and Words

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if I could survive on twenty-eight dollars worth of food in February, 2009.

A google search reveals that I’m not the first person to have this idea. Reading over those projects, mine is different in a couple of ways.

1. I plan on taking lots of photos of myself, what I eat, and anything else that strikes my fancy.
2. I’m going to be weighing myself each day.
3. I’m not doing this for any political reason, or to prove a socio-economic point about poverty and hunger. I just think it will be interesting!

So, the rules:

• I have only 28 dollars to spend on food this month. I’ll point out that this does not mean that I’m spending exactly a dollar each day – I plan on buying rice in bulk, to last me the month, and some days I’m sure I’ll spend less than $1, some days I’ll spend more.
• There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Someone asked if I was allowed to accept food for free- the answer is no. Obviously not. My housemate Cannibal Kate would just feed me for the month for free if that was allowed, and that defeats the point of the whole experiment. What’s more, no free samples, no free packets of sugar, no free cups of tea…nothing. Everything that I eat will come from the $28.
• Water doesn’t count. I read somewhere that you can survive for up to three weeks on just water – I’m sure it’s not very good for you, but if you can survive on just water for 3 weeks, surely I can survive on water and also a little bit of food for 4 weeks. I’ll mostly be drinking tap-water, but if I’m out and about, and I run out of water, I can buy a bottle without it coming from my $28.
• Cooking comes for free. I will be cooking rice, which is technically using electricity, which technically costs money, but I’m only counting money spent on the food itself.
• Drinks count (except for water, obviously.) I debated this for quite a while, but then discovered “juice-fasting”, which is living on nothing but vegetable juice and fruit juice. As such, any non-water liquid I consume has to come from my twenty-eight dollars.
• I can’t grow any food, or buy a chicken and eat its eggs, etc. Someone suggested buying a heap of bean seeds and growing some beans, but that just seems to go against the spirit of the project to me, so only food that I have bought myself counts.
• Toiletries aren’t food. It’s a lesson I learned at a very young age, and it’s still with me today. I don’t use toothpaste, but if I did, it wouldn’t count. (unless I found myself eating it by the tube.) Similarly, Shampoo, Soap, Deodorant, Razors, Conditioner etc don’t come out of my budget.
• Entry fees for food-related places count. A number of people have suggested going to a market that costs money to get in – that, for the benefit of the project, comes from the $28.
• If it looks like I’m going to die, I’ll probably stop. As interesting as my death would be, I don’t think I’m going to go that far for the experiment. Having said that, anything short of imminent death, and I’ll most likely keep going. Sure, dysentry would be unpleasant for me and everyone around me, but I’d also find it interesting.Also, I’d get to introduce myself as “that guy who got dysentry for the internet”, which has secretly been my dream for many years*. *not true. 

My sister (MeatGirl) and my housemate (Cannibal Kate) have been hard at work, researching vitamins and nutrients, basically trying to make sure I don’t die. This is the shopping list they’ve come up with:

• Rice. Cheap, full of carbohydrates, goes well with everything.
• Kidney beans. Also cheap, and contains all of those vital healths. Can’t live without some healths!
• Oranges/orange juice. Vitamin C, apparently, is good for you! Who knew?
• Caviar and champagne. Cheap and nutritious!

Questions that people have asked about the project:

Do cigarettes count as a consumeable?

Well, I don’t smoke, so it’s a bit irrelevant. If I did smoke, I’d probably count them, because they work as an appetite suppressant. I normally drink 3 or 4 cups of tea in a day, which have a similar effect, and I’m off tea for the month, so yes. Cigarettes count.

Would you like the loan of a rice cooker for that month?

Thank-you, but no. I have my own rice cooker. It is a bit shit, but it’ll do me.

Do you plan on eating a lot?

I suspect I won’t be able to. If it turns out that food is incredibly cheap, then sure, I’ll eat as much as I can. But food tends to be pricey. Thus the challenge!

Other comments:

I recommend rice and soy sauce. A single 50lb bag of rice and gallon of soy sauce was most of my meals for one long and destitute summer, supplemented with instant ramen on occasion. (actually, if it is just for one month, the ramen might be the better route, being eight for a dollar here if you shop around)

One of our legislators out here blogged about trying a week living off of what people on food stamps could afford. She recommended going to a fast food place, ordering something small, then dumping tons of packets of condiments into your bag on the way out the door for seasoning your other food. That’s probably a good idea too. Cheap canned soup from discount grocery stores was mentioned too.

I’m not sure exactly what “ramen” is, but I assume it’s the same as our 2-minute noodles (or, as they call them in England, “Pot Noodle”.) Soy sauce sounds like a good idea, and I’ll definitely be picking up  some cheap noodles. Perhaps I’ll do a variant of this experiment some day where I’m allowed to nick condiments from fast food chains, but I suspect that once the month is over, I’ll never want to be without food again.

If anyone else has any questions, ask away, and I’ll attempt to answer them in the next few days!

I posted on a Brisbane Livejournal community called “Brisneyland” a few weeks ago, asking for suggestions for places to shop for cheap food. Tomorrow, myself and my friend Em, will scour those locations for cheap rice, kidney beans, oranges, and caviar!

Tomorrow: Midnight Postings.