Third World Eating: Day 2

I made it through Day 2! I had to work from 6 to 8am, so I waited to have breakfast when I returned. This is a bowl of quinoa with edamame and arame (seaweed). This was not a cheap dish to make, but once again, it was leftover in the fridge, and I only had 1/2 cup of it. Homemade, it cost about 40c. I have bought this exact thing in the store and it is about 4x more expensive. The hard-boiled egg was 17c. It lasted me about an hour before I was hungry.

Lunch was a cup of rice, (2c) and some more of the cauliflower dish that I had yesterday (44c). I am eating on small sized dishes to make it seem like it is more than it is! I feel like I'm getting a lot more variety and nutrition than would be possible if I were really in a third-world country. Spices really help a lot, and the amount used in all of the dishes makes them cost a penny or two. I just don't think they would be available in many parts of the world. The next time I send a care package as part of a service project, I'd like to include small packages of spices.


Dinner! I know this looks like a piece of chicken with rice, but nope. This is more of the hummus from yesterday, costing 45c. The rice adds 2c more. This meal actually filled me up a bit more than I thought it would. The hummus is sprinkled with a dash of paprika.

I can say that I felt hunger for most of the day. It wasn't enough to keep me from doing what I needed to do, but I definitely noticed it. Looking at these pictures, it seems like it should be plenty of food for one person. So I figured out the calories in these foods, and came up with 1857. That's certainly more than enough to sustain life, but less than I am used to eating.
Total cost today: Exactly $1.50.




Another thing: I was out and about today, and I saw this. Watermelons, the first I have seen of the season. Ordinarily I would have bought one, just on an impulse. But then I realized that the price of one of these watermelons would be the cost of an entire week of meals in the third world!

Sobering.