Live Below the Line

[Alec John Moore]

Hi

About a year ago I spent 5 days spending ?1 a day on food. This was part of the Live Below the Line campaign to raise awareness of extreme poverty and the lives of the poorest people in the world. By taking the challenge I was attempting to raise my own consciousness of the issue and "bring to life the direct experiences of the 1.4 billion people currently living in extreme poverty" while also raising awareness more widely of the issue of food insecurity.

It was an interesting challenge and I think I became just slightly more obsessive about food during those five days. This year I am taking the challenge again and hoping to raise some funds for my charity - Salvation Army International Development - to support subsistence farmers in places like Malawi increase production through training in sustainable agriculture techniques and the use of drought resistant crops, for instance.

If you'd like to support me then follow this link: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/alecleggat

Follow this thread if you'd like to know how I get on.

One of the things I came across last year when looking at the issue is this set of photos showing what families in countries as diverse as Germany and Chad eat in a week. A fascinating comparison of conspicuous consumption on one hand and enforced frugality on the other.

http://www.foodmatters.tv/articles-1/what-the-world-eats-shocking-photos

Best wishes

Alec

[Alec John Moore]

I'm starting my Live Below the Line challenge tomorrow. Thanks, Susan from my book group for being my first donor:

https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/alecleggat

Here's my shopping list for my larder for the next 5 days:

Large pot basic yogurt 55p

Basic own brand pasta 30p

Broth mix (barley, lentils, split peas) 65

1 ltr UHT milk 49p

2 tins chopped tomatoes 62p

330gm porridge oats 35p

veg stock cubes 10p

250gm wholemeal flour 22p

160ml vegetable oil 25p

5 fresh eggs from our own chickens 75p (based on the daily cost of their feed)

1 tin tuna flakes 49p

5 small onions 23p

Can't wait.

Alec

[Alan Medic]

Hello Alec

How did you manage to make all of the items add up to exactly ?5.00? I presume you don't have to take into account the cost of cooking food. Given your list of items, what will you use the milk for? Scrambled egg?

It would be very interesting to read about what your menu is each day. Good luck.

[Lu]

Probably using the milk to make the porridge?

[intexasatthe moment]

no.no.no.

make porridge with water !

[Gidget]

I would like to know menu as well. You don't need milk to make porridge or an egg. I guess it would be better to have a hardboiled egg each day as it would seem more solid and therefore more filling. Could make some pastry with oil and milk and make onion savouries. Do you get tea bags?

[Alan Medic]

If you get desperate can you kill one of your own chickens?

[Gidget]

intexasatthe moment Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> no.no.no.

> make porridge with water !

Yes! And then add a splash of milk afterward if necessary.

[Gidget]

Morrisons has large loaves of bread for less than 50 pence.

[Alan Medic]

I think I'd have gone down that route along with cheap baked beans.

[Gidget]

Yes. If you are lucky you can find 4 tin packs of baked beans for a pound. Iceland used to do them but now they are 3 for a pound.

[Alec John Moore]

Hi

Thanks for your responses. I've just had breakfast of porridge made with some of the UHT milk, topped with a few dollops of yogurt. It was surprisingly good. I should have made the porridge with water, intexas, so that I could keep some milk for the pancakes I will make later. Perhaps I'll use both water and milk for the porridge depending on how I can eke it out. I intend to use the eggs for the pancakes. To keep it simple, not much choice really, I'm preparing to make a broth mix stew (today's ration is soaking in a bowl of water at the moment) with the pasta and tinned toms too. I'll make as much as my ration allows and then divide it in two and have some for lunch and some for dinner. I like the idea of using the onions with the pastry. I could soften them in some oil and them sprinkle them on the pancakes before I flip them. I'm also thinking I could add a little yogurt to the broth/stew.

I did try Sainsbury's basics, Fairtrade, tea bags last year when I did this but they were not even worth the 26p or whatever they cost. Today I took some mint from the garden for a refreshing mug of mint tea. You're supposed to work out how much it cost to produce what you take from the garden but I've had the mint plants for a couple of years and I don't know how to work out the depreciation on plants. I have to admit to having bent the Live Below the Line rules a bit by taking my allocations for flour, oil, onions and porridge oats from bigger packs. I think that is necessary though to be able to use basic ingredients.

The main thing I'm sure I'll find is that it is very tedious and time consuming to be thinking about food and cooking it in this way. The constraints of the challenge mean that you can't do what a lot of us can and just get what you want pretty much when you want it. I hope I'll be able to have a fairly healthy diet with a fair amount of enjoyment in the consumption of my meals but it isn't what I would choose.

I'll let you know how I get on.

[Alec John Moore]

P.S. you can follow me on twitter @AlecLeggat if you are into that kind of thing.

Alec

[Gidget]

Can you not cook a large pot of dried beans and then have them over several days with onions and tomatoes, cold or hot? I would chop the onions and use them raw on top of hot beans along with yogurt. Can you use dried chilli flakes?

[Alec John Moore]

Hi Gidget

That's more or less what I'm doing only on a day by day basis. Lunch was actually quite nice today. The pancakes turned out quite fluffy I suppose because there was more egg to flour and milk than is usual. I need to soak/cook the dried peas a bit longer.

Alec

[Gidget]

So what is your breakfast and dinner then?

[Alec John Moore]

Breakfast is porridge with yogurt and dinner is the same as lunch but perhaps with some tinned tuna added as a treat.

[Alan Medic]

Are you at home during the 5 days Alec or do you have to take your lunch with you to work? I also wonder is it a case of not having enough choice for the money you can spend or does hunger kick in?

[Alec John Moore]

I'll be back in the office on Tuesday for the rest of the week. Choice is clearly limited within what you can buy for your ?5 and you have to make it last. So, a fifth of the porridge oats allowance each day for breakfast and so on for the broth mix and pasta. I don't have much salt in my food anyway so I may well have a few of the cheap stock cubes left over. They are mostly salt.

I don't know what your eating habits are but I tend to graze (snack between meals) as well as my 3 meals a day. You can't do that on this regime. I reckon I'll get hungry between meals but I'll be using mint from the garden to make tea which should stave off the hunger pangs a bit.

[Twirly]

Really interesting, and I am full of admiration for you for doing this - not sure I could do it myself. Will be following your progress on Twitter :)

[Alec John Moore]

Thanks, Twirly. I'm just about to make my breakfast of porridge with UHT milk and yogurt. Not much different from what I usually have except for the UHT milk. If you click on #BelowtheLine on Twitter you'll see some fascinating images of how people have decided to use their limited funds.

[Alec John Moore]

My Live Below the Line pancake recipe: 1 egg, 150ml UHT milk or 50/50 UHT milk and water, 60gms wholemeal flour. They are really nice. That amount of batter doesn't make enough. Can I have some more, please?

[Alan Medic]

How many did it make?

[Alec John Moore]

Two like the one in the photo (about 9 inches) and one titchy one. I forgot to say that I added some finely chopped onion, lightly saut?ed. You need to be careful using wholemeal flour in pancake batter since the bran sinks to the bottom and the last pancake can be high in fibre. I could sift the flour and add the bran to the broth mix/pasta gloop. This thread is being quite helpful from a Live Below the Line culinary point of view.

[Gidget]

Maybe you could add a beany filling to a pancake. I have made some lovely pancakes with eggs, cottage cheese and oats, no flour. I know you don't have any cottage cheese in your shopping list but Lidl has a tasty version for under 50p a carton.