Survival on relief food is a hard thing to contemplate and some of the relief supplies offered to the famine stricken and hungry in third world nations often amaze common Americans’ imagination. In order to try and understand the predicaments of the populations that survive on this food, I set out to prepare what would be a typical relief food meal.
Relief food offered in most hunger stricken African or Asian nations consists of flour used to cook porridge or gruel and dry beans. These food supplies are usually accompanied by cooking fat and powdered milk in some, but not all instances. The beans and powdered milk are supposed to supply proteins, whereas, the wheat, oat or corn flour is used to supply carbohydrates. This is clearly a diet with limited choices and the menu is rather fixed. However, as a measure of nutritional balance the flour is fortified with other nutritional supplements (Institute of Medicine (U.S.) Subcommittee on Technical Specifications for a High-Energy Emergency Relief Ration, 2002).
In a bid to understand and experience the life of populations surviving on such food, I set out to prepare a meal consisting of porridge and boiled beans. The flour used and dry beans cost slightly higher in large quantities, but when offered in quantities equal to the relief food amounts these would cost less than two dollars, exclusive of fuel. These items were sourced from the neighborhood. To make the experience more realistic compared to actual situations, I chose to use dried wood fuel collected from the yard.
The experience of preparing the meal was grueling in itself and by end of it all, my eyes were bloodshot due to the smoke, and my fingers had acquired burns. Setting the fire was a difficult process and cooking was even more challenging because many at times the wind blew the fire off. But finally, I managed to have my beans and porridge ready after an inordinate length of time-which left me wondering how patient one would need to be when waiting for such a meal to cook on firewood.
The porridge I made out of the flour became too thick and it could not even flow out of the cooking pot after cooling and the beans were tasteless. Perhaps I am used too much spicing, but plainly stating the food tasted yucky and it had a strong smell of smoke in it. The food was very unpalatable, but I guess for the hungry that matters less. The food had no flavor and was not tasty at all, because all that was put in the cooked beans was fat and salt. The mere thought of surviving on such a meal is so distasteful and people with such experiences must be encountering a lot of suffering.
References
Institute of Medicine (U.S.) Subcommittee on Technical Specifications for a High-Energy Emergency Relief Ration (2002),. High-energy, nutrient-dense emergency relief food product, National Academies Press
