Centre Wellington District High School (CWDHS) culinary arts teacher Chris Jess has completed his challenge to live on an emergency food hamper.
“This opportunity made me appreciate my own food access and security,” said Jess, who completed the experiment as part of the recent “Put Food in the Budget” campaign by the Guelph and Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination.
The group wants the provincial government to increase the amount of money people living on social assistance receive for food, highlighting the challenges of creating nutritious meals on portioned supplies.
Jess said he tried to make the most of his food allowance with his culinary training to make healthy meals, including visiting grocery store disposal bins in search of discarded produce.
“The foods I received were so far prepared; such manufactured foods that I actually spent less time in the kitchen,” he said.
Jess and eight other local residents and their families were challenged to live on a typical food bank hamper for three to five days, sourced from either the Guelph Food Bank or the University of Guelph’s Student Association Food Bank, beginning on Sept. 19.
Jess and his fellow participants were then encouraged to post their experience with the food bank hampers through a blog at www.gwdothemath.ca.
On his blog, Jess wrote about his meal plans and detailed how he would ration food from day to day, to stretch the allowance to create balanced meals, where possible. His blog included photos of his meal creations to show portion size.
“This amount of food is degrading to someone’s integrity,” Jess said on his blog. “Tonight I salute single Moms making this hamper last, who will feed their kids first and go hungry as a result.”
Participating in this type of project was not something Jess ever expected to do, but the result has impacted his personal views on the positive work of food banks and social assistance support needs.
“The provincial standards for support are insufficient,” concludes Jess on day five of his three-day food hamper.
“I’ve been cooking professionally for nearly 20 years and I really employed all of my kitchen management skills and creativity and I’m still out of food … I have the cereal portioned, but no lunch.”
This challenge has altered the way he will teach his culinary students at CWDHS too.
“I’m planning to give my students access to these issues,” he said, including teaching students how to consider making the most of ingredients to prepare adequate meals on budgets and with nutritional factors.
To read more of Jess’s blog visit www.gwdothemath.ca.
