Living Below the Line

This week Michaela and I are "Living Below the Line". 1.2 billion people in the world live in "extreme poverty", which is defined as living on £1 per day or less. That £1 per day has to cover food, housing, education, everything! For us we are limiting ourselves to £1 per day on food and drink for 5 days. I know it's not the same at all but the idea is that in solidarity with the world's poor we get a hint of what it may be like and raise some money to combat poverty.

You can find out more about Live below the Line here: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/uk/the_cause  We are raising money for Send A Cow who give people in Africa the resources to produce their own food. (They don't only, or even mainly, send cows!)

This is the food we bought for the week:

The rules are that we're not allowed to accept gifts or eat anything that isn't in our £10 of shopping. We are allowed to drink tap water. We're clearly not going to starve but this kind of limitation does focus your thinking quite a bit.             So today was day 1 and for breakfast I had a bowl of porridge and a cup of black tea. For lunch I was in a meeting with a group of people and we went to a café. They all had a nice lunch and I had tap water and a banana that I'd brought with me! For tea Michaela cooked a nice chickpea curry which we had with rice. There is half the curry left to have on a jacket potato another day. It was a decent curry but could have been improved by adding garlic and some more spices but all we have is some basic curry powder. I'd have loved to have some mango chutney on the side and maybe make some raita too. Afterwards a little sweet something would have gone down well but that wasn't an option. I'm not sure that I've learnt an immense amount but I have been reminded of how much we take for granted when we're amongst the wealthiest in the world. 

If you wanted to donate you can do so here: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/team/6-encombe-place