This year for the second year in a row I am spending Refugee Week doing the Act for Peace Ration Challenge. In the challenge you raise money for refugees in camps in Jordan while eating the same rations as a refugee for a week. Your rations are 400g of plain flour, 300ml of oil, 1.92kg of white rice, 170g of red lentils, 85g of chickpeas, 400g can of beans and 120g of sardines/tofu, which is a frighteningly small amount of food when you see it in real life.
You do gain extras like salt, 170g of a vegetable and later 120g of protein, for meeting fundraising targets . There is no tea (unless you earn some), coffee, chocolate or alcohol. With some planning and knowledge of how to cook it is possible although you get very sick of rice. However there are rewards apart from the $810 I have so far raised for Syrian refugees this year.
The Ration Challenge is a reality check, a week long detox from the extraordinary privilege of our life here in Australia with its wide variety of abundant and affordable (for most) food. There are 70.8 million refugees in the world in 2019, not all of whom have eaten as well as I have this week. A family friend who sought safety in Australia by boat had only one bowl of rice each day for ten days until they ran out of food, then three days of fish and ten days of nothing at all. My Irish ancestors who survived the Potato Famine would have thought this box a feast, as would my apprentice ropemaker (soon to be convict) ancestor in Georgian England. In fact there are hundreds of millions of people alive in the world today who haven't eaten as well as I have this week.
The Challenge makes you very aware of the amount of advertising about food in our society. Everywhere you go, everywhere you look there is food or advertisements for food. We eat all the time. Not just breakfast, lunch and dinner but snacking or grazing all the time, and we gulp it down without even appreciating it.
When you do the Ration Challenge you realise just how miraculous salt, a spinach leaf, spices, an onion or a single egg are. You save your leftovers and eat them later or turn leftover rice into rice cakes. you drain every last bit of liquid from the canned beans onto your rice.
We demand variety in our food in our normal lives which is unheard of for the majority of the population throughout history. Yet many people eat the same staple foods every day. All those heroes journeys in fantasy books? They were probably eating food like this not for a week, but for months and over a campfire. Frodo and Sam ate Lembas bread for months but after a week of plain rice for breakfast I want to scream.
But what is the connection of the Ration Challenge to the climate emergency. Firstly the number of refugees is going to increase. Last year, climate related factors caused the displacement of 16.1 million people, by 2050, between 150-200 million are at risk of being forced to leave their homes as a result of desertification causing water and food shortages, rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions. All these people will need to be fed.
We are not immune in Australia either, climate change is already causing food shortages resulting in higher prices and this is projected to get worse. Just this year we have imported wheat (we are normally a wheat exporter), have 25% reduction in sugar harvest, are at a 25 year low in the cattle herd, have an 11% drop in lamb numbers, and have dropping milk production. As this continues we will start seeing empty shelves and higher prices. We are not well prepared for natural disasters either. Shops depend on the supply chain and only stock less than 5 days worth of fresh produce and 30 days of non-perishables and households 3-5 days worth of food.
Many Australians on welfare already experience food insecurity but most middle class Australians never experienced food shortages and are not practically or psychologically prepared for them. This is where the Ration Challenge gives you a chance to learn the skills of rationing, preparing basic foods from scratch and managing the psychological anxiety of scarcity.
This is why, as I eat plain rice for breakfast every day, ration my flour to 50g a day, make my chapatis and lentil soup and manage my cravings for vegetables, I think that the Ration Challenge gives me back so much more than the $810 I have raised for it.
You do gain extras like salt, 170g of a vegetable and later 120g of protein, for meeting fundraising targets . There is no tea (unless you earn some), coffee, chocolate or alcohol. With some planning and knowledge of how to cook it is possible although you get very sick of rice. However there are rewards apart from the $810 I have so far raised for Syrian refugees this year.
The Ration Challenge is a reality check, a week long detox from the extraordinary privilege of our life here in Australia with its wide variety of abundant and affordable (for most) food. There are 70.8 million refugees in the world in 2019, not all of whom have eaten as well as I have this week. A family friend who sought safety in Australia by boat had only one bowl of rice each day for ten days until they ran out of food, then three days of fish and ten days of nothing at all. My Irish ancestors who survived the Potato Famine would have thought this box a feast, as would my apprentice ropemaker (soon to be convict) ancestor in Georgian England. In fact there are hundreds of millions of people alive in the world today who haven't eaten as well as I have this week.
The Challenge makes you very aware of the amount of advertising about food in our society. Everywhere you go, everywhere you look there is food or advertisements for food. We eat all the time. Not just breakfast, lunch and dinner but snacking or grazing all the time, and we gulp it down without even appreciating it.
When you do the Ration Challenge you realise just how miraculous salt, a spinach leaf, spices, an onion or a single egg are. You save your leftovers and eat them later or turn leftover rice into rice cakes. you drain every last bit of liquid from the canned beans onto your rice.
We demand variety in our food in our normal lives which is unheard of for the majority of the population throughout history. Yet many people eat the same staple foods every day. All those heroes journeys in fantasy books? They were probably eating food like this not for a week, but for months and over a campfire. Frodo and Sam ate Lembas bread for months but after a week of plain rice for breakfast I want to scream.
But what is the connection of the Ration Challenge to the climate emergency. Firstly the number of refugees is going to increase. Last year, climate related factors caused the displacement of 16.1 million people, by 2050, between 150-200 million are at risk of being forced to leave their homes as a result of desertification causing water and food shortages, rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions. All these people will need to be fed.
We are not immune in Australia either, climate change is already causing food shortages resulting in higher prices and this is projected to get worse. Just this year we have imported wheat (we are normally a wheat exporter), have 25% reduction in sugar harvest, are at a 25 year low in the cattle herd, have an 11% drop in lamb numbers, and have dropping milk production. As this continues we will start seeing empty shelves and higher prices. We are not well prepared for natural disasters either. Shops depend on the supply chain and only stock less than 5 days worth of fresh produce and 30 days of non-perishables and households 3-5 days worth of food.
Many Australians on welfare already experience food insecurity but most middle class Australians never experienced food shortages and are not practically or psychologically prepared for them. This is where the Ration Challenge gives you a chance to learn the skills of rationing, preparing basic foods from scratch and managing the psychological anxiety of scarcity.
This is why, as I eat plain rice for breakfast every day, ration my flour to 50g a day, make my chapatis and lentil soup and manage my cravings for vegetables, I think that the Ration Challenge gives me back so much more than the $810 I have raised for it.
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