Hunger Challenge Day 1: Common Food Bank Items

March 21, 2011

spam Today begins day one of the United Way of King County's Hunger Challenge, a week-long exercise in empathy —to live in someone else's shoes for one week and learn how we can help fight hunger. This week, the Foodista team will create healthy meals for $7 a day (for an individual) or $12 a day (for a couple). We'll be creating meals using items commonly found at food banks (see list below) as well as with fresh meats and produce. It's easy to simply bulk up on cheap starches and we're trying to avoid that. Consider this shocking national statistic: one out of every six adults and nearly one out of four children struggle with hunger. Eating nutritiously can be a challenge for anyone, let alone on a tight budget. We hope to inspire you to do what you can to help end hunger for good. We'll be donating what we save this week to our local food bank. Common Food Bank Items

  • Dry beans
  • Rice
  • Peanut butter
  • Canned peas
  • Milk
  • Eggs
  • Potatoes
  • Onion
  • Canned Carrots
  • Yogurt
  • Oatmeal
  • Frozen corn
  • Stewed tomatoes
  • Wheat bread
  • Canned tuna
  • Macaroni and Cheese
  • Chicken Noodle soup
  • Applesauce
  • Pasta
  • Ramen Noodles

Photo by: freezelight

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Comments

Chris's picture

A little disturbing to see how many canned & processed items are on the "common items" list.

Sheri Wetherell's picture

Indeed it is. The processed foods I think are particularly disturbing. That's why I want to focus on how to incorporate (inexpensively) more fresh proteins and produce and use only the food bank items as part of the meal.

United Way of King County Blog » Blog Archive » 's picture

[...] Sheri Wetherell from Foodista gave us a great recipe for Apple Banana Raisin Oatmeal and stressed the importance of nursing mothers getting enough good calories during the day.  She also explored the items typically found at food banks. [...]

Kathleen Flinn's picture

Great post. What I find interesting about this exercise is that it takes a serious effort to find good options for fresh produce. As this shows, food banks can't generally supply that, either.

Hunger Challenge Dinner: Ramen Chicken Casserole's picture

[...] goal for this dinner during the Hunger Challenge was to create a meal using foods typically found at a food bank. For this meal that included ramen noodles and canned cream of chicken soup. We added fresh [...]

Hunger Challenge Day 4: SPAM Hash and Eggs's picture

[...] is a common item found in most food banks (see the entire list of common food bank items), so on Day 4 of the Hunger Challenge I decided to make SPAM Hash and Eggs – a great and [...]