Nothing to Eat

“There’s nothing to eat!”

I knew Daddy had a temper, but I had never expected to see it flare at those words. 

“What did you just say? See this pantry full of food? There’s stuff in the fridge, too.  Don’t you EVER say something like that to me again, do you understand?”

I was a teenager who was usually respectful and put-together, but for some reason, that day, I felt whiny and demanding.

I don’t know what had triggered my whining.  I don’t even remember exactly when this happened.  I think it was sometime during my sophomore year of high school, about 4 years into my sports-playing, and just as long since I had started to become exposed to the habits and convenient food of my friends at school.  We were a Hispanic family living in Arizona, and I was the first of two who were born in the United States.  There was a lot of learning and adjusting to do.

That whiny day, I saw something in my father’s eyes that told me I didn’t even know the half of it.  I was smart; I was sensitive.  And I knew that I had struck a chord.  Perhaps that day I was in the mood for a frozen chicken breast, or canned chicken noodle soup, or I was pouty because there were no Honey Buns.  But my parents never, ever let us go actually hungry, and in my teenage angst, I wasn’t even aware of or grateful for that fact.

I never even thought about what my parents sacrificed to make sure we had our carne asada, our beans and rice, and our corn tortillas.  I still don’t know.

I wasn’t even thankful for the aromas that fill a kitchen when your mom is hand-chopping onions and tomatoes for guacamole, or when your Nana is pulverizing and blending red chiles for sauce.

I never thought about how many families go hungry.  No, I’m not talking about Ethiopia or some other foreign country, although that is an epidemic of its own.  I’m talking about the people we work with, go to school with, and make eye contact with daily through our respective windshields.

How many dads in Chicago won’t eat tonight because they’re making sure their babies have bread and milk?  How many grandmas in New York are walking blocks and blocks to the market to get tonight’s dinner for their grandbabies, whose mother passed away, a victim of illness or murder, and left them to her, with a limited income and minimal resources?

And yet we whine when we can’t have our soymilk, or gluten-free bread, or quinoa.

This is isn't just me making crazy stories up in my head.  We need to start putting faces to these stories, because they do exist.  Every human life is a story, and we tend to make our food choices so quickly and abruptly, as if we can’t possibly affect our neighbor.  We spend our dollar without recognizing its power, and we are so skewed in our thinking that we don’t even recognize privilege in our lives, even as we are drowning in it.

Did you know that your morning McDonald’s coffee or pop is a luxury?  There is someone out there who can’t afford to spend that $1.08 because she has to keep the lights on at home, so she muddles through the morning fogginess from sleep deprivation, and makes it through her day without a caffeine fix.  Oh yeah, she worked a double –shift last night, too.

Do you know how many parents argue and cry because they can’t do anything special for their daughter on her 12^th birthday? How much they would love to take her out to the buffet for some fried chicken and mac and cheese, but they just can’t? And we fling around lunch dates, everyday occurrences, and don’t even bat an eye.  Half the time we’re rude to the wait staff too. 

I get really mad and worked up about our entitled, self-indulging ways, but I’m not just all talk.

Twice now this year, I’ve challenged myself to eat simply for a week straight.  Seven foods and nothing more.  I narrowed it down to beans, rice, lentils, oatmeal, apples, eggs, and barley.  That’s it.  No butter.  No hot sauce.  I wanted to know what it felt like. ( I was inspired by the book "7" by Jen Hatmaker)

Do you realize how often we eat “what tastes good”? How much “fun food” we keep around the house?  Could you, could we narrow it down to just survival?  Why are we so obsessed?
Let me get something straight.  I make less than $30,000 a year.  I am a single gal, and I pay all my own bills.  I already eat simply.  I don’t exactly get to sip on a pumpkin-spice latte every day. 

But yet, I know I am privileged. 

It really is all about perspective.  And fresh perspective?  It can really flip your life upside-down.