Pictures and Words

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and I am so over rice.

A plate of rice, with a healthy serving of soy sauce.

Despite only having a few slices of bread, and actually being quite peckish, I couldn’t finish this bowl. I got about halfway through, and my mouth wouldn’t let me eat any more. I tried everything – washing it down with water, mixing a bit of water in with it, having a sip of my daily glass of orange juice after each glass…nothing.

It could be because I cooked it with slightly too little water (after cooking it with slightly too much water last night, and it being a little gluggy) or it could be because the body can only take too much rice before going mad, but I really hope it doesn’t last. I have 5kg of rice sitting in my kitchen, and I can’t really afford to buy anything else to feed me for the month.

I tried letting the rice sit in the fridge for a few hours and coming back to it later, but that didn’t help much – I ate the bits untouched by soy sauce, but the brown, sticky, salty rice was not at all appealing.

Rice. I’m over it.

Tomorrow, I’m only going to put soy sauce on the parts of the rice that I plan on eating immediately, so if I can’t finish the plate again, I’ll at least be able to store and eat it later.

My 5 slices of buttered bread, however, were delicious.

From the comments:

“The Vegan” has a suggestion:

What about making up some big batches of spag bol & freezing them? Dried pulses and legumes tend to be quite cheap too, for putting on top of the rice. Of course generally you need canned toms & tom paste & herbs & spices to add flavour, but i’m sure you could improvise and make something that would at least be a bit more filling & nutritious. And do as the Italians do, and not put much sauce on your pasta (or rice).

All of these elements individually are quite cheap – half a dollar here, forty cents there, but you add it up and you’re looking at 5 or 6 dollars, half of what I’ve got left. (and remember, I’ve still got 24 days to go.) If you could buy herbs and spices by the pinch, I’d probably go for it, but you have to buy a bag full, and the smaller the bag, the less value for money you get.

I suspect that if I were doing a “$365, one year” experiment, I’d be able to be a lot more creative, I’d buy big buckets of herbs and spices that would be used in all kinds of dishes. As it is, I don’t want to put a dollar down for a bag of spice which would only be half-emptied by the end of the month, it seems like a waste.

The ramifications on my health would be disastrous though, so I’m almost certainly not going to go for it.

 I do think you should get some cheap greens or frozen veg into you for some nutritional benefits.What about potatoes? With oil & salt you can bake or fry them & enjoy them alone or with home brand sauce. You’ll get an actual vegetable (and if you leave the skins on – vitamin C) and they’re cheap and filling.

I priced potatoes when I was in the supermarket, and they were $2 for a kilo. I’ll check out frozen vegetables and cheap greens next time I’m there. I do like the occasional baked potato, I’ll consider that to replace bread as my daily meal.

Also from TheVegan:

I know plenty of people who have survived for many years eating very little whether due to laziness, eating disorders or poverty without getting scurvy or rice balls. Low energy, not exactly stellar hair. skin e.t.c but they get by. So i think you should be fine long term.

I haven’t been keeping track of my hair or skin, but I had pretty lousy skin at the beginning of the experiment (which I blame on the fact I allowed myself to pig out for a week or so before we began) – at the end of the month, I’ll zoom in on the daily weigh-in photos, and compare my skin from the beginning to the end of the month.

Hopefully you’re right. Scurvy would certainly be interesting, but I’ve heard that it’s bad for you. Rice Balls would be extraordinarily unpleasant.

NC comments:

You can’t “lose” a force because it’s not a physical property – it’s something you exert. “Losing” weight is therefore semantically incorrect.

That’s ridiculous! “Losing” isn’t limited to physical properties – a clock can lose three minutes, you can lose your bearings, you can lose your life, you can lose a bet. “Acceleration” is certainly on the list of things that you can lose.

Jasmine comments:

I agree with the person above about using a tin of tomatoes rather then buying a premade sauce for spaghetti. You can get them for just over $1 and if you use a small amount it might still be a nicer flavour then rice and soy sauce all month.

The pre-made sauce is just over a dollar as well, my worry isn’t price, it’s how long it would last.

Also…I don’t actually like tomatoes. I realise that this experiment isn’t meant to be about my likes and dislikes, but I’m not going to put down more than a day’s worth of cash in exchange for a food I don’t like.

(incidentally, I love tomato sauce, tomato paste, and even tomatoes when they’re in a sauce. But by themselves, I hate the little red buggers.)

Also from Jasmine:

And good choice with getting the cheaper soy sauce- I’ve tried the homebrand soy before and its pretty gross. I can’t stand it. If your freezer is big enough you could freeze your bread if you wanted it to last longer too.

Again with the personal preference, but I really hate freezing bread. It always defrosts soggy. Besides, I’m enjoying having a full five slices/day, so I’m not going to cut down unless it becomes really necessary to do so. I’m glad to know Cannibal Kate made me make the right decision!

Lastly, my friend Em, who has been researching everything she can find about food, sent me this:

Petey, you need some omega 3 and omega 6 fats… brain fats… too! Can you stomach sardines or other tinned fish? It would be very worth your while to get some…

I’ll pop around to the shops tomorrow and grab some sardines! (depending on price) I shall also check out potatoes and cheap greens!

I slept for about 7 hours last night, and had about 1.5L of water today. I accidentally left my water bottle at the pub, so I won’t be able to measure it as accurately from now on (I could buy a new one, or I could just drink from glasses.) I’ll probably keep on having two or three glasses per day. Unless anything particularly interesting water-wise happens, I’ll stop keeping you updated.

Tomorrow: Daily weigh-in!

(total money spent so far - $16.66)

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and for the month of February, I’m eating no more than 28 dollars worth of food. Hopefully I will not die!

A hastily buttered crust.

Last night, at around 5:40am, I awoke from a rather pleasant, non-food-related dream, hungry. Starving. I was so hungry that my stomach actually hurt a little, and I suspect that this is what woke me in the first place.

I’m going to be honest; I’ve never woken up from hunger before, not once in my whole life. It scared me a little.

Despite being incredibly hungry, and incredibly tired, I managed to keep my wits about me enough to do a few things:

1. Not cave in and just eat one of the random pieces of food lying around my house, but instead…
2. Think clearly enough to work out the fact that when I’d calculated that the loaf of bread would last me 5 days at one piece of bread per day, I hadn’t included one of the crusts.
3. Find my bread (hidden in my desk drawer) and butter the crust.
4. Remember to take a photo of the buttered crust.
5. Text myself a message reading “Hungry” so that I’d have a record of what time I woke up.

After my piece of crust I was able to go back to sleep, and had horrible dreams for the rest of the night, about starving to death. I don’t remember the specifics, I just remember being quite happy to wake up.

My current weight:

For the first time, matching socks!

Yesterday morning, I was 72.8kg (for any Americans reading; that’s about 80 pounds.) I’ve lost almost a whole kilogram in one day!

I’d be more worried, but I received this comment from “Jasmine” this morning:

With your weigh ins as well, keep in mind that the changes aren’t going to count for about a week- everybody’s weight fluctuates constantly up to 1 or 2 kgs due to various factors (such as fluid loss/gain, how soon after eating you weigh yourself etc)

For the record, I’m weighing myself about half an hour after I wake up, before I eat anything, but I quite often have a glass of water as soon as I wake up.

Daily Cheesecake

On the floor, you can see evidence of last night’s Tim Tam party. I have cruel, cruel friends.

Are knees meant to face each other like that?

I’m not going to get a chance to leave the house today (I’ve got a lot of editing to do) so there will be no more shopping…but I will be performing tonight in some short-form impro. I wonder if my diet will affect my performance?

Tonight: Daily Food Post!!

(total money spent so far - $16.66)