What was I thinking???

For my first blog, I am going to address the question I have been asked countless times when I explain to people that I am participating in the SNAP Challenge. That is, 'Why in the world would you agree to do it?' I'm sure this answer is going to vary amongst the SNAP Challenge participants, as I feel it was a very personal decision for me. Last semester for my Speech class I gave a speech on World Hunger. I was astounded by the statistics on hunger in first of all, our own country, which is arguably the richest country in the world, and then the statistics of developing countries where people survive on than less than 2 dollars a day. It baffled me that there were people in our country who were considered food insecure, and that this included families with children. As a child in a middle class family, I have never experienced food insecurity. I have never been told there wasn't going to be any dinner tonight. Obviously I am grateful for my current situation, but I feel that something must be done for those who are in less fortunate situations. From this program I hope to gain some perspective as to what it is really like to not be able to afford groceries and be dependent on assistance in order to feed myself.

Another question that was asked of me was "How are you going to do that if you are vegetarian?" When people asked me this I laughed. Did they not realize that meat is exponentially more expensive than beans? Apparently not. What I think is sickening, is the fact that if everyone on the planet followed a vegetarian diet, there would be no hunger. The amount of food that is produced in order to feed livestock is astronomical. If this food was instead, used directly for human consumption there would be a surplus of food instead of a shortage. This fact really calls to me as an environmentalist. I also would like to think that there are people on the SNAP program or other programs similar to it, that do follow a vegetarian or vegan diet, and that they may encounter different problems than those who eat meat.