I'm on a diet......
Yesterday I was caught. I had a meat main dish and a vegetarian guest for lunch. The really sad thing is that I made minestrone and could have left out the Italian sausage or at the very least dished out some of the soup before I added the sausage. I quickly made tomato soup with cheese tortellini so there was something to go along with the minestrone, but it was a poor substitute for a good rich vegetable minestrone.
This experience reminded me that meat should be a luxury in our life. Over the last 7 years of living in America I’ve slipped into the habit of planning most of my meals with meat. And not just adding meat to minestrone, but serving large slabs of the bloody beasts. How quickly I’ve forgotten life in Africa. How quickly I’ve forgotten the everyday lunches of beans and rice and the simplicity it brought to my life. Meat was so incredibly scare in Sudan that it was saved only for holidays. Ali Kaunda, our Ugandan co-worker in Southern Sudan always saved money to purchase meat for the feast of Id at the end of Ramadan because he wanted to make sure that his children would not forget how meat tasted. And the meat always came with bones to make eating it last longer.
It is obvious that I’m going to have to cook more intentionally to make my life more compatible with my friends in Africa.
That is why I’m thinking about going on a diet. For awhile now I’ve been reading about the poverty diet. It is a three day experience of living off of the amount of money given to those who use food stamps. For someone in Randolph County, that is about $3 per day per person. I’ve gotten into the habit of not thinking about what each meal costs. That is a bad habit. Hurricane Katrina called our attention to those who live on the edge financially and the difficulty of facing disasters with no financial resources. Just because I don’t have to worry about what each meal costs doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t.
It is called solidarity. Living in unity with humanity. All of humanity, not just those from my socio-economic level. I’ve become a bit narrow in my lifestyle and my vegetarian guest opened my eyes to that fact today. Meat should not be a requirement for a meal, it should once again become a luxury. It is time to think about incorporating Meatless Mondays or a meatless day back into my lifestyle. It is time to think about meals in solidarity with the 3,000 people in our county who depend on food stamps to put food on their tables. It is time to eat more beans and rice and to simplify my life with healthy, fiber rich, preservative free food that is affordable to everyone. It can only be good for my body and my checkbook. And maybe the testimony of my life and my grocery cart will matter to my friends in Africa and to those who only have $3 a day to spend on food.
This experience reminded me that meat should be a luxury in our life. Over the last 7 years of living in America I’ve slipped into the habit of planning most of my meals with meat. And not just adding meat to minestrone, but serving large slabs of the bloody beasts. How quickly I’ve forgotten life in Africa. How quickly I’ve forgotten the everyday lunches of beans and rice and the simplicity it brought to my life. Meat was so incredibly scare in Sudan that it was saved only for holidays. Ali Kaunda, our Ugandan co-worker in Southern Sudan always saved money to purchase meat for the feast of Id at the end of Ramadan because he wanted to make sure that his children would not forget how meat tasted. And the meat always came with bones to make eating it last longer.
It is obvious that I’m going to have to cook more intentionally to make my life more compatible with my friends in Africa.
That is why I’m thinking about going on a diet. For awhile now I’ve been reading about the poverty diet. It is a three day experience of living off of the amount of money given to those who use food stamps. For someone in Randolph County, that is about $3 per day per person. I’ve gotten into the habit of not thinking about what each meal costs. That is a bad habit. Hurricane Katrina called our attention to those who live on the edge financially and the difficulty of facing disasters with no financial resources. Just because I don’t have to worry about what each meal costs doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t.
It is called solidarity. Living in unity with humanity. All of humanity, not just those from my socio-economic level. I’ve become a bit narrow in my lifestyle and my vegetarian guest opened my eyes to that fact today. Meat should not be a requirement for a meal, it should once again become a luxury. It is time to think about incorporating Meatless Mondays or a meatless day back into my lifestyle. It is time to think about meals in solidarity with the 3,000 people in our county who depend on food stamps to put food on their tables. It is time to eat more beans and rice and to simplify my life with healthy, fiber rich, preservative free food that is affordable to everyone. It can only be good for my body and my checkbook. And maybe the testimony of my life and my grocery cart will matter to my friends in Africa and to those who only have $3 a day to spend on food.
posted by Pam at 8:53:00 PM
0 comments
