Welcome back to Day Five of the SNAP challenge!!!!
What I ate:
Breakfast
Cereal and milk (I finished all of my milk!
NOOOOOOOO)
Lunch
Chicken
slices
Lettuce
and raspberry dressing
Dinner
Mac n
Cheese
Snacks
Brownie
with lunch
Pop-tarts
with dinner
Drinks
Water
How I felt:
Here at
university, my friends and I have this little tradition where every Friday
night we go out to eat for a family dinner. So, you can imagine how frustrated I
was when I thought I had to miss out on this excursion. Lucky for me, I have
awesome friends (not to toot my own horn or anything). Also, if my friends are
reading this by any chance, you guys rule but that is not going to stop me from
belting Frozen every time we get in the car.
ANYWAYS,
when I told my friends of this project, it was pretty difficult to explain. It’s
hard to really emphasize just how important it is to not give into temptation
and eat outside of my budget. Even though I don’t usually live on such a
constrained budget, I really needed to push myself to complete this challenge
so that I could gain a better understanding of those who live in poverty.
But,
despite their teasing (obviously not harmful), my friends decided to spend
their Friday night at the apartments and order in a pizza so that we could all
eat together. They could have their pizza and then I could eat the food I bought
for the project. They were even considerate enough to not buy my favorite
cookie-pizza so that I wouldn’t be too envious of them.
I felt
really blessed to have people in my life that were understanding to my
situation. When talking about it to my mom, she pointed out that a lot of
children often find themselves feeling very isolated when they cant afford to
eat out with their friends because of their constrained budget. I cant even
imagine how traumatizing it must be for a child to feel so different from the
rest of their peers. Even more so, I can’t bear to imagine how strenuous the
situation would be on the parents. I am positive that these individuals love
their children most ardently, and must feel so devastated that they cannot
allow their kids to spend extra money on spending time with friends because
they have other, more pressing issues to worry about (such as paying rent,
paying the electric and plumbing, and god knows what else). This challenge
helped me to really empathize with these parents. Sometimes the cards just aren’t
dealt in our favor, and it sucks that we can feel so out of control of our
lives.
I know
that a lot of you may not have experience with poverty, and I hope that you
never do. However, it is important to not be so judgmental towards these
individuals who are impoverished. I promise, the majority of these individuals
are not lazy people who just want to mooch off the government. I urge you all
to take part in the SNAP challenge so that you could gain better insight into
their lives.
Daily Question: Are you worried of running out of food or
money before the week is over? Are you eating a healthy, balanced diet?
Thanks for reading and I will see you all tomorrow!!!!
Disclaimer: The gifs are not mine; credit to the owners
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