Telling stories with the Hunger Challenge bloggers

When I let Amy Sherman of Cooking With Amy talk me into the Hunger Challenge, I’m going to have to be honest…I had no idea what I was in for. I mean, I’m Catholic, and besides that, I have a pretty outsized ability to beat myself up and set arbitrary rules for myself, so for real? I just figured it would be a week of crazy eating, that I’d learn something about myself, and that would be it.

So it was unexpected, yesterday, to find myself in a room with a panel of the other bloggers who participated in the Hunger Challenge, telling San Francisco Food Bank staff about what worked for us and what didn’t work, so they could take those lessons and apply them to the amazing work they do to feed the hungry in this community.

Although we’d all been reading along with each other’s stories, there’s something powerful about sitting along with my compadres in the experiment, hearing firsthand what they all learned and experienced. Blogs are personal, but there’s a reason most emotionally healthy people get out from behind their laptops from time to time.

I loved hearing about how Amy lost pleasure in food, which she loves so much in the rest of her life, while struggling to squeeze the most nutrition possible out of her $21 budget for the week. Gayle’s story of snagging every single sample she could get her hands on at her weekly farmer’s market so she could up her fruit intake that week was incredibly powerful. I really hadn’t quite wrapped my head around how much prep work Faith put into the experience. Vanessa embraced the challenge of using ingredients most commonly available through the Food Bank. And Maria, who joined the challenge at the very last minute, unbeknownst to me, burned a pot of rice and had to go without.

And it was amazing to see that huge warehouse full of food and to know that still, every night in this region and elsewhere, people are going hungry. I have hope that’s going to change, because I’m ever-more-convinced that if you feed people appropriately, you’re going to solve a lot of other problems in the meantime.

The question of whether we’d do the challenge again came up, and I, perhaps a little recklessly, said I would. I’d probably change up how I did it—I don’t want to recreate my experience in the Berkeley Bowl, but I remain committed to raising awareness and making a difference on this issue. And I stand in solidarity with my fellow bloggers who are willing to do the same.