The Unintended Politics of 'Eating Well on $1 a Day'

The popular blogs lifehacker.com and boingboing.net have recently directed their readers to an interesting and provocative challenge undertaken by Jeffrey at grocerycoupon.com: to spend $30 or less on food for a month to feed a single person.

Bound to a set of rules around coupon procurement and use, Jeffrey then documents the frugal highs and occasional culinary lows of the ensuing 30 days. But, in the end, the goal is achieved: through the use of coupons obtained via newspapers and the internet in combination with in-store promotions and catalinas--discounts given on store shopping receipts--he is able to emerge healthy and well-fed after a month of living on $1 for food a day. In fact, he does so well that he is able to donate a large quantity of food to a local food-bank.

So, one the one hand, this challenge reveals just how wasteful we can be in terms of what we buy when we go food shopping and how we go about buying our food. Jeffrey also reveals some important tips he learned and how to avoid paying more than one ought to pay for particular items. In this sense, the challenge is actually quite helpful for anyone trying to do more with less in these uncertain financial times.

On the other hand though, there are some things that are politically problematic about the challenge. And in outlining these problems, I am by no means implying any malice on Jeffrey's part. Rather, I am trying to show that even the most banal everyday acts are deeply embedded within relations of power, relations that we may not even be aware of as they enable us to act in some ways and prevent us from acting in others.

First, the fact that someone is able to take on this challenge by choice--as opposed to necessity--and then blog about it is itself a reflection of privilege. 

Second, some of the rules governing the challenge regarding computer usage reflect this unrecognized privilege. While there are approximately 76.2 computers per 100 people in the United States with 74.1% of the population having internet access, there is a great amount of diversity when these numbers are disaggregated. For example, while at least one person in 77.7% of households who identified themselves as 'White' had internet access of some kind, this fell to 68.1% in 'Black' households, and 63.9% in 'Hispanic' households. Variations based on education were even more marked: only 41% of households where a member had less than a high-school education had internet access in comparison to 93% of those where a member had a Bachelor's degree. I suspect that there would also be marked differences in age categories and income, as well as in households headed by a single parent.

Third, challenges like this remind me of the push towards extreme sports, marathon running, iron-man triathlons, around-the-world sailing jaunts, and off-piste travel that are increasingly becoming the leisure activities for conspicuous consumption by the global upper classes. As a result, there has been a cultural shift over the past two decades towards the veneration of extreme physical challenges completed by an increasing number of privileged individuals who enter them by choice. And while the feats of endurance--both mental and physical--can be impressive, it is odd that similar kudos are not offered to those who must walk miles a day to secure clean drinking water or who brave dangerous conditions, emotional turmoil, and physical hardship in order to migrate.

Fourth, given the concerted attack on welfare, low income earners, minimum wage provisions, and labour rights since the 1980s, this challenge enters a grid of intelligibility where it is likely to be understood by many as evidence that social benefit provisions ought to be a lot less. Moreover, if one is unable to make ends meet, a challenge like this unintentionally gives credence to arguments that one must be lazy, wasteful, and/or generally undeserving of support.

Finally, the $1 a day challenge--even with its explicit aim of eating healthy--unintentionally contributes to the discourse enabled by industrial production and neoliberal ideology where food is to be understood as merely a source of (tasty) fuel as opposed to a rich cultural practice. In this sense, food becomes a source of alienation as opposed to serving one its primary purposes as a conduit for social interaction and exchange.

Photo credits: winterofdiscontent

Comments

[Annelies]

I like your points about structural/positional power! Thinking about poverty in these terms should underscore the importance of public resources like libraries. See for example Chicago Public Library Commissioner Mary A. Dempsey's letter http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/library-taxes-closed-commissioner-reaction-letter-mary-dempsey-20100702

[Kyle]

Thanks for the comment Annelies! I agree about the importance of public resources and the public sphere more generally. Access is always going to be an issue if we leave things up to market forces and doing so will ensure that existing structural inequalities continue.