The Last Supper

Well...this is it...the last supper!

I just finished the 40 hour famine this afternoon, breaking it with my all time favourite – a cheese and vegemite sandwich...helgas pumpkin 5 seed bread, thick vegemite, mainland vintage cheese...mmm...food of the gods!

I currently have a full belly thanks to a birthday BBQ this evening, where I enjoyed every little bite of flavour – I’m very aware that while I won’t starve over the next 40 days, I will REALLY miss having an extremely wide variety of foods to choose from!

So, exactly what will I be eating you ask? My daily ration is basically 400 grams of either rice, corn meal, lentils, cracked wheat, or chick peas plus a tablespoon of salt, a tablespoon of sugar, 25 mls of oil and vitamins. To work out what I would be eating, I researched different refugee camps from all over the world, and this seems to be the standard. After talking to a few families who have experienced life in camps, I will also have the option of trading some of my staple (rice etc) ration for a piece of fruit or vegetable, or spices and flavouring – so less food, but more tasty. I guess I’ll see if that is really an option I want to explore after the first few days.

Why am I doing this? Lots of reasons, but right now I’m thinking possibly stupidity is the highest on the list! J It started with a random train of thought a few weeks ago as I was discussing the 40 hour famine with some friends...don’t get me wrong, I think the 40 hour famine is an awesome idea, and as a kid I remember how hard it was to ignore those hunger pains (and how even dozens of barley sugars don’t hold them off after the first day), but as an adult, I didn’t really think it would be that much of a sacrifice to not eat for 40 hours...40 days on the other hand, would be huge! Over the next couple of days I thought about some of the families I know who spent years in refugee camps, and recalled a conversation I’d recently had with two kids – one was complaining that we always have fruit for morning tea, and why can’t we have more biscuits, and the other saying how much she looooooooves fruit, and in Africa we never had apples – 2 seven year olds with such a different life experience already, and such a different viewpoint on things they encounter every day. Then (perhaps stupidly!) I blurted out to a couple of friends that I was thinking about eating refugee rations for 40 days, just to see what it was like. They thought it was a great idea (for me to do it – I’m suddenly aware that they aren’t joining me...hmmmm...), and the rest is history!

So...here I am...it’s almost midnight, and there’s time for one final delicious flavour in my mouth. There’s been a hot debate raging in my mind for the last week as I tried to decide what it would be, so I settled with an orange at 11:30 (getting the last of those good vitamins in, and I love oranges lately!) and now I’m ending the day with my favourite cold drink in the whole world...a can of good ol’ Dr. Pepper!

40 days of blah food – bring it on!