Allan Thompson, Food Box Challenge Participant

Sunday night's experience

I’m pleased to be participating in the Caledon Community Services “Food Box Challenge” for Hunger Awareness Week, but I probably need to make one disclaimer right off the start. I’m not the cook in our family. Nor am I the shopper.  And while I certainly wasn’t expecting this to be an easy exercise this week, it was while grocery shopping with my wife for my “box” this weekend that it quickly became obvious it would be no easy task to stay on program for the week.

Why? Well, let’s check out the box. Here was my shopping list:

• 1 – 1lb bag of pasta of your choice
• 2 cans of beans (Choice of chick peas, pork and beans, kidney beans or lentils)  540 ml each
• 2 cans of soup (Usually tomato, mushroom or chicken noodle) 284 ml each
• 1 box of macaroni & cheese
• 1 package of rice (Uncle Ben’s/No Name)
• 1 can of spaghetti sauce
• 1 can of vegetables 398 ml
• 1 can of meat (175 g)
• 1 Specialty item:  Box of cereal; jar of peanut butter; jar of jam; pancake mix
• $8. – Your choice (Must be spent in a grocery store, not a restaurant)

The box items seemed simple enough to me, but my wife just had too many questions.

A good mom and a fabulous cook, she is concerned about putting a balanced, nutritious meal in front of her family. How was she to plan for the five to ten servings of fruits and vegetables Canada’s Food Guide recommends I need? And as born and raised dairy farmers (both of us), where was the dairy? 

My wife’s also a scratch cooker and so there are few items in our weekly grocery cart from the pre-packaged, prepared food section of the supermarket. In fact pancake mix is one of the items on the list, but it my one and only claim to cooking fame: it is the one thing I can make from scratch that the family will actually eat. And they turn out well too!

One can of meat for the whole week! How could I make that stretch? We choose fish instead and my wife tells me she will turn that into salmon loaf to stretch that out; but that will also require pantry items and we are limited to only five for the entire week.  She tells me this will require some careful planning. (Admittedly, on her part, not mine although I’m the participant.)

An obvious challenge that both my wife and I see right off is that I’m not actually home for many of the family meals during the week, what with the rigors of the council commitments. She tells me if the program is to cover off only the meals for which I’m actually home, she figures I’ll have food left over at the end of the week and that I will be able to continue to finish it off the next week!

Stay tuned….