Ration Week Challenge (trigger warning: crude humour)

I’ve got a little bit of a habit of taking on dumb challenges.  These usually involve restricting one’s diet, or daily habits.  Unfortunately, for the most part I fail horribly at these challenges.

In 2016, I took on the Sober October challenge, where the challengers have to give up drinking for a month to raise money for Macmillan Cancer charity, but I upped the ante.  If I raised £50, I’d also give up chocolate, £100, I’d give up meat, £150 go full vegan, £200, I’d also throw in.. masturbation.  I started it only weeks into living in London and had no idea how hard going vegan was.  Even the larger Sainsbury’s in North London didn’t have any vegan ready meals, their “free from” line typically had lactose powder or egg in some or another.    

I lasted about 3 weeks in and was purchased a “Golden Ticket”, this meant a night off the challenge, which I then took advantage of, indulging in a lamb curry, a rake of beer and was relieved of my burdening balls.  Not through a hand shandy, but well it’s amazing how charming you can find yourself when your centre of gravity is progressively lowered and you have a few beers in the hatch.  After this point, I kept finding myself purchasing tickets to enjoy a whole rake of forbidden fruits.  Surprising the m-word was the last thing I enjoyed in any respect.

Ration Week

This year, I took on Concern’s Ration Week Challenge, where participants have to subsist on the same ration package that a Syrian refugee has to live on.  This meant the following:

·        1.5 kg of rice

·        80g of chickpeas

·        200g of red lentils

·        1 tin of kidney beans

·        1 tin of sardines

·        400g of flour

·        5 different spices

·        10 teabags

·        1 clove of garlic

 

To incentivize participants being pushier with their sponsorship drive, certain rewards can be unlocked for hitting milestones of sponsorship levels – a certain amount of protein, vegetables, a tin of tomatoes, milk, etc. all come into the equation.  Certain amounts on certain days might give you a teaspoon of honey, or coffee.  I wasn’t a big fan of this side of the challenge.  Whilst I’m glad that I raised about £230 for a charity with relatively low admin/marketing/operational costs declared, I think expecting people to donate more in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis means that the rewards are for those with more affluent friends. 

The Week Itself

As you can probably tell though, whether they earn the rewards or not, someone who has an active lifestyle and is used to having a lot of fruit, bread and meat in their diet is probably going to struggle.  Perhaps as a consequence I cheated, multiple times. 

The ration packs are barely enough for those refugees who aren’t constantly moving, as a result of being “kept” in camps or some substandard housing.  Their energy requirements are fairly low and they are somewhat likely to cook together in the shared accommodation.  Other refugees would be likely to have it far worse - having to do insanely dangerous journeys, crossing boarders, getting on cramped boats and risking their lives facing off against the authorities and harsh conditions.  You only have to do a Google or YouTube search to see how horrendous the conditions are.  What these people may have may be even scarcer.  

So in that respect, I felt pretty bad cheating.  The week was designed to get an idea of how rough it could be without the middle class first world privilege many of us have and yet.. this skinny-fatboy dropped the ball multiple times.

If truth be told, I was unsure of how committed I’d be from the get-go.  Rather than start it on Sunday morning, I started it from about 5.30 PM on the Saturday, with the intention of ending it 8 PM the following Saturday.  That meant I could load up on a massive burrito bowl, beer and little cheese and ham crackers.  Sunday came along and I mostly ate rice, though blew my bean allowance that evening when I went to a local Tex Mex place called Boojum, had a a bowl of rice and beans.

Eating food from restaurants, canteens and cafes was allowed, if the meals contained only the ingredients you had from the rations.  This meant, whilst the burrito bowl was a slight stretch as I had a small amount of hot sauce on top, it was “legal” within the “ruleset”.  Same as the lentil soup which I ate several days from the work canteen.  Or at least, I think it was because I don’t know what was in it despite lentils – possibly tomatoes, or onions and I hadn’t “earned” my vegetable allowance because my friends have financial commitments beyond boosting my ego on a frivolous dietary-based charity challenge.

So for Sunday through to about Wednesday morning, I ate rice, lentil soup, more rice, rice and beans, the worst ever falafels ever made from the 80g of chickpeas and a few bits of flatbread, by basically mixing flour and water. 

Wednesday morning came and I had what is referred to as a “head fog”.  Something that almost all participants experience.  Whether this was from a calorie deficit, lower than usually expected caffeine level, or a lack of nutrients is unclear, but I felt rough.  There was a guy on the Facebook group for the challenge who was encouraged to pack it in as he had a physical job and had fainted on it.  I myself had a bit of Street Theatre to work, essentially storytelling facts about Belfast’s martime history.  I dropped two lines.  Hard.  Stared confused, like a rabbit in the headlights and had my fellow actor pull me out of the quagmire I found myself in.  I did recover and after the first minute or so belted the rest of it out strongly, but I was gutted of how bad that went.  Drama within drama.

A free breakfast – sausage rolls, beautiful brioche bun bacon butties, coffee and shortbread were on offer.  I couldn’t refuse.  I comfort ate and felt simultaneously worse and better for doing so.  I went back to work and then in the evening, I went to a producers networking event.  I stuffed myself with more free food. 

Thursday and Friday morning meant free breakfast and milky coffee in work.  I wasn’t passing it down.  After all, the rest of the day, I had rice to subsist on.  Or more lentil soup with no bread.  In fairness, I still managed to train Muay Thai once on Thursday, then twice on Friday, but by then, my energy levels had essentially been rejuvenated to having a calorie allowance somewhat closer to my usual intake.  Even though, the Friday sparring session was a bit closer to boxing Eeyore, than Tigger.

Today (Saturday) I’ve cheated again.  Starting the day with a mocha.  I then ate rice, kidney beans and a pancake made using the aquafaba of the kidney bean can, along with of course water, flour and (cheating again) an egg.  A teaspoon of honey that I hadn’t “earned”, made it great.  

I’ll probably not eat again until dinner tonight.  This is largely because if I’m sticking anywhere close the rules, all I have left to eat is rice and maybe a tiny portion of lentils.  Some participants have “given” m their “allowance”, because they either didn’t like lentils, or eat less in general.  The idea is that refugees share and some family members eat less than others as they do everywhere.  Like I found with the vegan side of doing Sober October, meal prep is a little bit boring and irritating, so if you’ve not done a dry run of some of the dishes before the challenge began, you may not be bothered or have the energy to make a mess of a kitchen during the challenge itself.  Consequently, you virtually end up fasting a good portion of the time.  Or at least, you learn to stop unnecessarily snacking.

Roll on dinner tonight, although every good restaurant that does “European” dishes appeared to be booked out and we’ve gone for a well-respected Indian establishment. I love Indian food, but being that the main carb staple is rice, I would have preferred somewhere with chips, spuds, or pasta on this occasion.  I’ll be so glad to see other carbs, meat and SAUCE that if my mother wasn’t there, there’d be a real danger of me using the peshwari naan as a fleshlight under the table.  Almondy, coconut goodness for all.

Take Aways

I love food.  It’s one of my favourite things in the world, but as someone who knows they may need to have a more “aesthetically pleasing” body – i.e. hint of an ab or two, I’ve been aware that I may need to change my diet up, especially as I drift past my mid 30s towards my middle aged years.  Additionally, if I ever want to get those bucket list MMA/Muay Thai fights, I would ideally fight at a weight 10-15 kg less than my usual walking weight of 92-95 kg.  Getting in the habit of diet restriction in advance of that will be beneficial in knowing what to expect.

Having dabbled with this, I will look to make more vegetarian and vegan dishes.  I typically consume meat at an unhealthy amount, sometimes as much as 3-4 times a day, past the point where the protein is beneficial and towards the point that it’s probably clogging arteries and quickly turning into fat. 

I may try ration week again, or look to experiment with food a bit more.  It was very impressive seeing what people taking the challenge made with what little ingredients they had.  There are some real MacGuyver home-chefs out there.  If I do try it again, I may give myself the full rewards from the start, rather than trying to stick to the “sponsor me” bonus system Concern try to push.  This might make me a bit more compliant overall.  Even if I can justify “Refugees probably wouldn’t turn down free food”, it is still slightly defeating of whatever purpose I can instil upon the challenge.  Ultimately though, to quote a one-time Family Guy character, “I play by nobody’s rules by my own, and sometimes not even those.”

Lastly, despite the guilt of failing/cheating, I am obviously have a slightly larger glimpse of what it is like for those who have only limited amounts of food.  Whilst short of the war in Ukraine turning into WWIII, full blown climate change, or the apparently maniacal oligarchs pushing late-stage capitalism onto all of us several levels worse than they already are, I am unlikely in my lifetime to experience hunger, or starvation to the extent that refugees do, or even some of the poorest in our society.  Whilst the “check your privilege” trend which emerged in online discussion a few years ago was often irritating and cringe-inducing to even those of us whose political opinions are largely on the left, I have another moment where I must accept with gratitude the privilege which I have.  This might mean I aim to give a little bit more towards those that I think need it most, or I’ll feel more justified in my constant shitting on the established elite.  I just hope it doesn’t make me any more insufferable than I likely already am.