Pictures and Words

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and every day, hundreds of people from around the world look at photos of me in my underwear. I hope I do not die!

Millions of potatoes, potatoes for me.

Everyone has their own theory about why I’ve felt like shit for the past two days:

“i am”:

It’s possible that a lack of protein in your diet is contributing to you feeling like crap and getting the shakes etc. Get some eggs, milk, cheese, or beans/legumes into you

“Jasmine”:

I think you aren’t getting enough iron- the symptoms you’ve written in here how you’re feeling is exactly how I feel when I am iron deficient. Plus you haven’t really been eating anything with iron in it. (apart from the sardines) 

I have no idea what the costs of these foods are but if meat is too expensive for you to buy, have a look at possibly eating some of these: dried fruit (particularly apricots), chick peas, lentils, broccoli, other green leafy vegetables, beans, nuts (like cashews- except I know those are expensive). 

“Elle”:

I’m starting to think you have no boxers with elastic.

I did some research, and it sounds like I’m suffering from iron defiency.

It really sucks.

Last year, I worked on a pair of TV shows (Robbie and Peter and The Map Shop - I’m planning on getting the edited versions out there in the next few months. Stay tuned!) for about 5 months solid, without having any time off. It completely wiped me out, and I spent about 4 months just recovering. I would lie around the house, completely fatigued and exhausted, without the motivation to do anything. It was an unpleasant time in my life.

The last two days have felt like that. I feel tired all the time, but I don’t want to sleep. I can’t muster up the motivation to do anything, and both my personal and professional life are suffering. I just feel miserable all the time – I’m not only physically exhausted, but I’m depressed about the fact that I’m not getting anything done.

I’m not hungry, it’s not a matter of “too little food” – I really do think it’s resulted from the complete lack of iron in my diet.

Interestingly, knowing what it (most likely) was cheered me up quite a bit. I still couldn’t do much beyond bum around the internet and lay on the couch, but at least I knew what was causing it.

“Luka” (the man I met in the supermarket) got back to me today, with a list of suggested foods:

• Dried apricots are very high in iron, but might cost too much.
• Parsley also very high in iron.
• Tahini stupidly high in calcium (more than any other food.)
• Potatoes do contain iron.
• Avocado excellent source of vegetable fat and low density lypo-protein LDLP.
• Cooking with olive oil will provide extra fat also butter can last a while and will provide energy in your food.
• Cabbage is very cheep and provides important nutrients goes well in rice.
• Finally, fruit shops (small ones) often have a $2 box of veggies and fruit all has been marked damaged or close to its end date but you can get quite a bit for $2.

I didn’t end up going into the city today, so I didn’t get to grab some bread. Instead, I went to the cheap vegie place up the road from my house, to see if they had a box of cheap vegies. They didn’t, but they did have potatoes at 69c/kilo, and apples at $2/kilo. I got a bag of potatoes, and a single apple as a treat. (bananas were a bit out of my price range – I was happy to pay up to about 50 cents for an banana, but they were all weighing at around 85.)

It was tiny, but delicious.

The apple cost me 18 cents, which is pretty good value. It was a pleasant apple. Would eat again, A+++++. (7.5/10)

Potatoes and milk, according to wikipedia, have everything that one needs in a diet:

• Vitamin A
• Vitamin D
• 27 mg of vitamin C
• 620 mg of potassium
• 0.2 mg vitamin B6
• thiamin
• riboflavin
• folate
• niacin
• magnesium
• phosphorus
• iron
• zinc

Milk, I’ve already discovered, is out of my budget, but according to Luka, potatoes contain iron, and apparently milk is only responsible for a few things on the list, so I assume potatoes cover the rest! Potatoes: the miracle food.

I bought one potato for every day remaining, and three for today. All for 86 cents!

The sack contains 1.34kg (25 miles) of potatoes. They’re unwashed, but I figure I can run them under the tap. Wikipedia tells me that most of the nutrients being in the skin is a myth anyway.

I will buy another loaf of bread tomorrow, because I seemed to function best when I was eating lots of bread, but my diet shall be supplemented by potatoes.

I admit that they are not very big.

Unsure of how one eats a potato, I asked around, and apparently the best way to eat them on their own is either “mashed” or “roasted”. Roasting can be done either in the oven, using aluminium foil, or in the microwave (without aluminium foil.) I, being rather hungry at the time, elected to go with the “microwave” option, because it’s substantially faster.

It occured to me that this is actually the first time I’ve used the microwave this month.

It has dials! Dials, like we're still in the analog era! Whenever I use it, feel a bit like I'm using a steampunk microwave.

I washed the potatoes for several minutes, but couldn’t get most of the dirt off. They were quite shiny, but still quite dirty. I microwaved the ‘toes for about 5 minutes, and then ate their innards with a fork.

I added some butter, since I already had some, and dairy food seems to contain lots of everything that I’m missing.

The potatoes were alright – I prefer spaghetti, or rice, or pretty much anything else. Eating around the skin was particularly tricky; if I stopped paying attention, I’d get a mouthful of dirt. I refuse to peel them – I’ve peeled potatoes before, and it’s a painful, long, dull experience.

Once we were potatoes.

I don’t feel particularly better, but it wasn’t a lot of potato and I only ate it about half an hour ago. I’d give the potatoes 4/10. I wasn’t really hungry when I started, so I can’t measure how filling they were, but they were a bit flavourless, and I accidentally ate a bit of dirt. I can’t get that taste out of my mouth.

From the comments:

My cousin Gavin weighs in on the chicken issue:

While I am no longer a Coles employee, I can offer some insights: We were always allowed to buy the BBQ chickens, even at the discounted prices, but we weren’t allowed to get them discounted further. I think the lowest I saw them was at $2 for a whole chook.

I would definitely pay $2 for a whole chook at this point. I was seriously considering checking out the supermarkets to see what the cheapest meat was, until I worked out that it would definitely be upwards of a few dollars. I only have a few dollars left!

From “RIUM+”:

Here’s a suggestion for you that may be okay for your rules – buy something in bulk and then go halves with one of your flatmates, taking only half the food and paying only half the amount. Then you can still get the price drop of a bulk discount, since that’s what you would be paying anyway if you were living on a dollar a day longterm. It also lets you get things that you might not be able to afford due to having to buy more than a month’s worth of at once to get a wider variety of food with more nutritious value – eg some powdered milk.

While that’s definitely okay by my rules, neither of my housemates are particularly yearning for powdered milk, or any of the other stuff that I’m after at the moment. It feels a bit strange suggesting to them that they split the costs of some random food items. (“Hey, Cannibal Kate! Split a lentil with me?”)

I could just split the costs with “my future self” or something, but that feels too much like cheating.

Luka had another suggestion in his email:

There’s a supplement called “Spirulina” – it’s a very nutrient rich plant based algae.
6g has more iron than 100g of lean beef, and more calcium than a full glass of milk. It will give your brain many essential nutrients, among other things.

I’d never heard of this Spirulina, so I went looking for it, and the stuff sounds freaking amazing. NASA have included it in their most-recommended food to take into space, and everyone seems to rave about it.

It reminds me a bit of when I first heard of Orthomolecular medicine. The first few sites I found just raved about it, talking about how doctors and drugs were a waste of time, when most medical ills could be cured with nothing but the right fruits and vegetables.

Suspicions started to creep into my brain when I discovered a page claiming that cancer could be cured by carrot juice.

I did a bit more research, and discovered that Orthomolecular medicine has very little scientific basis. It’s a lot more like a religion than a genuine form of medicine – those who are “in” claim that it’s changed their life, and cured all their problems, while those watching from the outside think that they’re slightly self-deluded, and the whole thing is a sham, and a complete waste of time.

Has anyone heard of Spirulina? Is it shammy, or is this some genuinely amazing substance with no bad side effects, that I’ve just never heard of until today?

How I feel:

I’ve felt better today than I did yesterday, but that’s not saying much. I don’t have the wooziness or headache that I had yesterday, but I have felt completely exhausted all day, and my attention span/memory is still all over the place.

I managed to get a bit of work done today, but I’m still a day or so behind on an editing project I need to have finished by the end of the week.

The worst part was only a few hours ago – I was having a really interesting argument with my cousin about science fiction. I love a good argument – I enjoy discussing different opinions to my own, because you get to learn something, discover alternative points of views, and (if you’re open-minded enough) even change your mind about something.

Arguing with my cousin is particularly entertaining, because he comes at everything from a different angle than I do, but most importantly – he justifies his logic, and isn’t afraid to change his mind.

Tonight though, I couldn’t get my brain to concentrate enough to argue efficiently. I couldn’t focus, and my argument largely consisted of “No, but I’m right because I am because I said so.” I couldn’t grasp concepts that he was throwing at me, and I had to think my points through about ten times before I said them (leaving me a minute or two behind in the conversation.) Eventually, I just snapped, and made quite a nasty remark.

“You’re being a jerk, Peter,” my cousin said, and when I didn’t say anything, left the room.

He was right. I was being a jerk. I went and apologised, but there’s a good chance he’s still annoyed at me, and I can’t really blame him. 

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to keep going like this. Unless the bread that I’m getting tomorrow (which I actually planned to get today) works miracles, I’m going to have to call it quits. This experiment is wreaking havoc on my job, and ruining my personal life as well. I’m a grump, and a bit of a misery to live with. I miss being able to think, and I’ve got deadlines to meet.

I don’t want to stop – I’m really looking forward to a celebratory dinner on the night of the 28th, and seeing what else happens, but it’s reached the point where I might have learned the most important thing that I’m going to learn: no, I can’t survive for 28 days on 28 dollars.

Maybe I picked all the wrong foods, maybe I should have planned my diet better in advance, but it’s equally likelythat this experiment can’t reasonably be completed in Australia. The other blogs that conducted similar experiments are all American-based, where I’m reliably told that food is less than half the cost it is here. America, land of cheap food, cheap books, and a lot of really stupid systems of measurements.

I’m going to tough it out for at least one more day – I’m performing some improv tomorrow night, and I’m going to use that as the test. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to buy a loaf of bread, and fill up on it. If that doesn’t improve my mental state to the point that I’m not a total disaster on stage then I’m going to have to drop the project. If tonight’s argument is anything to go by, I’m likely to just break down and have a sulk in the middle of a scene, and that’s no fun for anyone.

Total spent today: $1.04 ($0.86 on potatoes, $0.18 on an apple.)

Tomorrow: The Daily Weigh-in. (possibly the final Daily Weigh-in!)

(total money spent so far – $20.32)

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and for the month of February, I am only spending twenty-eight dollars on food. It is an interesting experiment that may result in what some call “death”.

Soup, Soup - a tasty soup, soup. A spicy carrot and coriander, chili chowder! Crouton, crouton - crunchy bread in a liqid broth. I am gaspachio - uh! I am a summersoup - mm! Miso, miso - fighting in the Dojo. Miso, miso - oriental prince in the land of soup!

Last night, after posting the Daily Food Post, I went and had a bowl of the cheap tomato soup I got from Coles. It was…forgettable. It reminded me of something, but I can’t work out what – tomato sauce? Vegetable juice? (certainly not Campbell’s Tomato Soup, the god of all soups.) It’s triggered a memory in my brain, but I can’t work out what. 3/10. I’d eat it again (and will, in fact, until the can is empty) but I won’t be particularly looking forward to it.

It got rid of the shakiness and hunger pangs though, and I wasn’t asking much more than that.

The whole time I was preparing and eating the soup, I had Cannibal Kate’s latest baking creation staring me in the face:

My housemate, Cannibal Kate, likes to bake. These were originally going to be "Valentine's Day Biscuits", but she forgot to make them in the shape of hearts, and then couldn't find her red food dye.

I was sitting, starving, waiting for the jug to boil, and staring at a plate of delicious biscuits…it sucked.

Today’s weight:

70.8kg - 0.6 down from yesterday.

70.8kg (450 grams) suggests that yesterday’s “same weighty” was not caused by the spaghetti, but simply another fluctuation, like Day 5’s “random gain weighty”.

It continues to be a fairly steady loss.

Cannibal Kate had already gone to work when I woke up, so I had to use the autotimer on the camera. I had to take the photos about 6 different times, so excuse my less than enthused facial expression:

These photos are much easier to take when there's someone else there. This is my second pair of boxers without elastic.

I’m not feeling too bad at the moment. I’ve got to go into the city in an hour or two, so I think I’ll buy a banana on the way in (if the floods of North Queensland haven’t quadrupled the price already) and cook up some rice to have while I’m in there. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m going to try going back to bread, see if that provides me with more energy.

I’ll check in and let you know if it worked tonight!

Tonight: Daily Food Post

(total money spent so far – $19.22)