Live Below the Line - The rest of the week.

Thanks everyone for all the support I have received for doing the Live Below the Line Challenge. I made it!

And thanks to your generosity, I have raised £92 (so far, because you can still donate here).

I had a much better end of week. I think being very busy kept my mind off food during the day, and the evening meals were substantial enough to satisfy me and OH. Yes, he cheated - of course he did. I'm 5ft 2, female and was pretty sedentary over that week. He's a 6ft fella and needed more.

I happened to weigh myself on Saturday morning and the scales told me I had lost 4lbs in weight, but don't panic, I recovered the bulk of that over the weekend. This included a huge bowl of spaghetti bolognese, which may have been the size of the cow we were raising money to send to Africa.


Thursday night supper was a soup made with split peas, onion, cumin,  a smidgen of passata and gravy granules, followed by liver and onions in gravy with 175g mash, the potato skin crisps (again) and 80g mixed veg. Offal-y good.

Friday night, we had spaghetti with split pea bolognese, using the rest of the passata, 200g mixed veg, onions and some basil leaves. I'd not though of using split peas as sauce-base for pasta before, but it worked really well and tasted really nice.

What I think I've picked up from this challenge is that I do not have to be afraid of feeling hungry; I do not have to overeat at one meal to compensate for eating light the rest of the day. I've learned the power of menu-planning, and I think I can be more resourceful now in my use of ingredients. On the not so positive side, I've learned that it's easy to under-eat too, and with me that leads to over-tiredness and lack of concentration. I do feel more empowered to get the balance right, though.

Why is LBTL important to me?

This week, European elections have been run, and I have seen a large number of commentators mention certain political parties' stance on the aid budget used as one of the reasons to vote in a particular direction. In this country, we have never managed to reach the UN Council's target of 0.7% of Gross National Income in donations. That was a target set in 1970! Of course, it doesn't help when one country in receipt of aid squanders budget on space programmes, that makes all of us wince. Does the aid budget end up where it needs to go? The government can't say. And no firm deadline has been set for recipients to respond on where that money goes. That might be shocking, but is that a reason not to give at all?

Guess what: I'm sensing a lot of protectionism in the air. If pressure is kept up the way it seems to be from those protectionist politicians, I can't see us ever reaching our promised target. And I do believe we have a duty, a responsibility, to give back to those nations that we exploited to get to be a rich country in the first place. Yes, we have our own poor, scraping by, dependent on food banks. That should make us angry. Because we're still rich as a nation.Why is there such disparity?

Having to give to charity to try to even things up feels like such a Victorian thing to do, but until we have people in power globally who are truly acting on behalf of their fellow humans to make things fairer, charity will be the sticking plaster solution.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. We all have the power to be kind. It doesn't have to be with money, but I'm so very thankful for your support.

Live Below the Line Day 3

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has donated so far to my Live Below the Line Challenge. I'm over the target I set myself already. And if you'd like to donate and haven't done so yet, you can do so here.

Let's buy that cow!

Hope you all had a nice trip to the voting booths today. I liked reading some of the ridiculous party slogans on the ballot paper. "NOimmigrants NOeu NOsomethingelsefascistinlowercaseandoneword"
Oh well.

Yesterday was a much better day. I had the same things to eat for breakfast and lunch yesterday, plus a drink from the machine. I went to meet my writing group last night (they were discussing a short story of Rod Rees's and my novel's first chapter), so I microwaved my dahl and rice at 5.30 and smuggled it to eat upstairs on the bus on the way there. Naughty me.

Of course, my writing group meets in a pub...

Picture me salivating at the prospect of cider! Amazingly, I was fine with my water. I think I was dizzy enough from the lack of food.

Except, I manged to eat a sufficient amount yesterday. How did I achieve that? Well, I had a sneaky second bowl of porridge when I got home and used my pear to sweeten it - this was fine. Who needs extra sweetener?!

What this did though was push my Weight Watchers Points over the daily allowance for the first time this week.

Look at all those smiley faces!

Here's the boringly meticulous MyFitnessPal stats:

(and with that, statto fans, I'm off to bed).

May 21, 2014

Foods	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Cholest	Sodium	Sugars	Fiber
Breakfast
Milk - Whole, 3.25% milkfat, 100 g	60	5g	3g	3g	10mg	40mg	5g	0g
Sugar - Sugar, 2 tsp	30	8g	0g	0g	0mg	0mg	8g	0g
Porridge - Porridge, 50 g	186	17g	2g	2g	0mg	0mg	5g	1g
Lunch
Kingsmill Medium Sliced - 50/50, 2 slice	188	33g	2g	8g	0mg	320mg	3g	4g
Sainsbury's - Cooked Ham Basic Slice, 1 Slice	15	0g	1g	2g	0mg	245mg	0g	0g
Cucumber - With peel, raw, 0.1 cucumber (8-1/4")	5	1g	0g	0g	0mg	1mg	1g	0g
Lettuce - Iceberg (includes crisphead types), raw, 2 leaf outer	11	2g	0g	1g	0mg	8mg	1g	1g
Dinner
Sainsbury's Basics - White Rice, 100 g	351	78g	1g	7g	0mg	0mg	0g	2g
Sainsburys - Yellow Split Peas, 100 g	104	17g	0g	8g	0mg	0mg	2g	5g
Garlic - Garlic, 0.25 clove	1	0g	0g	0g	0mg	0mg	0g	0g
Vegetables - Red Chilli, Raw, 2.5 g/1 chilli	2	0g	0g	0g	0mg	0mg	0g	0g
Aldi New Season - Frozen Mixed Vegetables, 80 grams	39	4g	1g	2g	0mg	9mg	4g	0g
Spices - Cumin, 1 tsp	8	1g	0g	0g	0mg	4mg	0g	0g
Onions - Raw, 0.75 medium (2-1/2" dia)	35	8g	0g	1g	0mg	2mg	4g	1g
Snacks
Porridge - Porridge, 50 g	186	17g	2g	2g	0mg	0mg	5g	1g
Milk - Whole, 3.25% milkfat, 1 tbsp	9	1g	0g	0g	2mg	6mg	1g	0g
Pears - Raw, 1 pear, small (approx 3 per lb)	81	21g	0g	1g	0mg	1mg	14g	4g
Vending Machine - Hot Chocolate, 1 small cup	90	18g	2g	0g	0mg	0mg	16g	0g
TOTAL:	1,401	231g	14g	37g	12mg	636mg	69g	19g

Live Below the Line Day 2

On Monday I felt fine.  About 3pm yesterday I realised I was heading for a crash. I had to eat the pear and very nearly ate the stalk too.

OH was working late so before he came home I was irritable. Couldn't read, write,  the garden went for a Burton (what does that even mean?) and I realised my TV planner was full of food programmes.  Agh!

By the time OH came in I was so ravenous that I couldn't be bothered to wait to take a picture of my food.

Maybe you can see one tomorrow as I am eating the same today.

Dinner : dahl and vegetable rice.

To feed 2:

200g plain rice cooked with 160g mixed veg and a teaspoon of gravy granules.

Dahl was 200g cooked yellow split peas. I'd soaked these overnight and cooked in the slow cooker all day after a quick ten minute rapid boil. I had plenty of time to just boil them up when I got in to be honest.

The mush was added to  sweated onions, a chilli,  half a clove of garlic and about a tablespoon of cumin. Later I added a tablespoon of passata and more gravy granules.  Thankfully it didn't taste like gravy, but it needed some flavour dammit!

The result: not too bad,  but boy did my energies remain dipped and I could feel a sore throat coming on, in spite of all the water I've been drinking.

I then tried to book a train and failed to realise the option for my travel card had unticked so I paid £40 too much. Something to be sorted out today.

I decided to look at Jack Monroe's attempt at doing this to see how she had fared. Unfortunately,  she gets a lot of trolls and commenters who didn't get this challenge at all.

The reason this challenge is a challenge is because it's generally thought that the people doing it are going to be comfortable most  if not all of the time.  The reason it's short is because it's not an a lifestyle plan or diet. It's not meant to be sustainable because it isn't sustainable.  It's not nutritional or sufficient: I barely scraped 1100 calories yesterday.

Is it self - serving?  Well the idea is to raise money for Africa,  similar to when I ran the 10km last year. There is something to be said for the psychology of doing stuff for charity as it generally makes people feel better about themselves.  I am pissed off that we live in a world where charity is needed for anything though.  Mind,  I am busy,  and doing this sort of thing takes a lot less energy and fewer risks than say, agitating for change,  direct action,  fighting in a war zone or giving away all my possessions to go live like an ascetic hermit. I don't care if you think I should.

Anyway,  I'm not finding it fun. Please donate!
https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/donnabond

Live Below the Line Day 1

Like what you read? Please donate here to raise money for Send a Cow!

I had thought I could wing my way through this week Masterchef invention test- style,  but as Sunday was awesomely hot and as I noticed the use by dates of some of the food I had bought were a bit close,  I rethought what I had planned to do when,  and how I was going to store stuff.

The liver went in the freezer for defrosting Wednesday night for Thursday's tea. Half the milk went in the freezer too. Taking a tip from Kath Kelly,  I also froze the bread. There's only just enough for 2 slices each per day,  and I knew I would be heartbroken if I came to use it and found it was mouldy. Separate slices can be prised off the loaf, and sandwiches made by spreading the frozen bread (if you're using any, mine have to be dry this week). In weather like this they are defrosted by the time you've finished making the sandwich. By lunchtime, that's a certainty.

Day 1 menu was:

Breakfast: 40g porridge cooked in water and whole milk. I took this to work a) so I could use my work benefit sugar  allocation,  and so that there would be less of the day to feel hungry.  This involved military tactics of careful transportation and judiciously careful microwaving. I'm well-renowned for explodey porridge at work...


Lunch: ham sandwich. 2 slices of bread,  1 of ham. Plus lettuce and cucumber sticks.  I also took a pear but managed not to need to eat it so that's a treat for today.  The air conditioning was broken at work,  so a very hot office probably helped to kill my appetite.

Dinner: spicy salmon fishcakes with salad, potato crisps and mixed veg.

I cooked the potatoes (175g per portion) in their skins so as not to waste any through peeling.  I'd not done that before,  and when I was peeling off the skins it occurred to me that I could use those too. I put them on a tray and popped in a 175 degree oven for half an hour or thereabouts while I got on with the rest of the dish.

1 and a half onions were fried and mixed with the potatoes, salmon (a pack of trimmings), 2 teaspoons of cumin and these shaped into patties and returned to the pan. I used a nonstick pan, no oil, so ended up with something akin to fishy bubble and squeak.

Some lettuce leaves and the rest of the second onion sliced made up the salad.

This was served with 80g frozen mixed veg per portion cooked in a little boiling water.

 I must admit, it doesn't look much, but it was tasty, and very filling. OH declared me a genius for using the potato skins as I did. It added a nice bit of crunch and flavour to the salad. I'll do that again!

Let's see how that stacked up as nutrition for the day. I built these charts using Weight Watchers and My Fitness Pal, before I decided not to eat the pear. My Fitness Pal tends to be a bit anti-sugar, so I don't let the red alarm me too much (important to watch if you need a low sugar diet). I can see it's broadly nutritional, but lacking in healthy oils - and, crucially, calories. There's not enough of anything there. Not even for a diet! I'm sure that will be rectified on day 2. Bigger helping of porridge for a start...

And yes, OH had his cakes yesterday too.

Doing this has made me mindful of my garden's potential to feed me and how I should be making the most of it. Unfortunately, the sage and parsley I planted out on Sunday in our very heavy Belfast sink planter looked cat-attacked today. I tried to save them as best I could, but I think only the chives, mint and possibly thyme stand a chance. The sink is now covered with the grill from our old broken barbecue to keep the cats off. I used the rest of the brick barbecue to make a Jenga-style cold frame and planted out some more basil, lambs lettuce and oak leaf salad. Tonight I want to weed and net the strawberry patch, to give some of the very tiny strawberry flowers a chance to grow into fruit. Life's good.

Live Below the Line - Please Sponsor Me!

Hope you've had lovely weather, wherever you are.  

Most of the weekend has been spent trying to sort out the garden. Most people do their tidying in February/March and then sow stuff and about now they're enjoying lovely salads and  things they have grown themselves. Trouble for me is that late winter/early spring is my busiest time (job no.2). So my garden has to look after itself. And it grows brambles and gnarly-rooted weeds and very tall meadow grass.

Well, I'm attacking it, better stuff is growing. Progress picture one shows the garden yesterday. It's a bit better since then.

Whilst tidying the, admittedly invisible here, patio I bumped an old burner and was alarmed when about twenty bumblebees flew out.

Okay, this is just one bee. But there were more, honest!

We moved the burner to another location, which worked for a bit and I was able to get on. However, some of the bees didn't realize their house was not there anymore, and they started coming back and buzzing round me. Good excuse to stop the gardening for a bit and go for a nice walk.

Our excursion took us by the riverside, where the sea cadets were practising.

We then wound our way to beautiful Delapre. People were cooling off in the lake (not sure they're supposed to, but still) and someone was water-skiing. We veered off into the verdant woods, spotting bunnies scrambling away into the brambles. The floor was carpeted with harebells, buttercups and forget-me-nots. Very pretty.

We cut through  to the house. A bawling toddler was being made to stand against one of the handsome trees that skirt the lawns for a photo. He was having none of it! Heading right, we found the ornamental gardens and tea rooms. He, we decided to share a cream tea.

Hooray, just enough change!

On the way home, we foolishly decided to stop for a pint at the pub. It's never one, is it?! And with that, our care was somewhat abandoned. Call it sunstroke... oh well, back on the path to frugaldom now.

Today, OH was taking part in a 100 mile cycle ride as he did the 3 Counties 100 Cyclosportive. A gruelling epic cycle ride that takes in Beautiful Rutland Water. This is one of the awesome sights he will have seen:

the Welland Viaduct

He says it was brilliant. He's very sore now though.

 So, while he was out, I decided to get the shopping in for the Live Below the Line Challenge (link takes you through to my donation  page). OH is supporting me in this challenge, so he will be eating the same meals as me. But he is not taking part himself. So he'll be eating cake at the office tomorrow, and drinking a pint in the pub when I won't be at my next Northampton Science Fiction Writers Group meeting.

 

On OH's advice, I am including some things I already had, but costed them out, so as not to waste food. This included 1kg of potatoes, which cost 66p. Unfortunately, I went bust, so have had to reduce the number of potatoes I was going to have to 700g. 2 meals maybe? Two small meals...The rest of my pears from a multi-pack, which have only just started to ripen came to 37p's worth. OH says we should also include the bananas he won today at the end of his race. Mmm... freebies not allowed! That said, I'm having all the tea and stuff I can at work as that's one of my work benefits. Not birthday cake, though. Boo.

We can include stuff from the garden, so long as production costs are taken into consideration. I'm taking basil as 0p, as that cost me nothing, and if we can work out how to use it, rhubarb. Though, I think that would need sugar! All the nettles and dandelion we want, though. Nom!

So here's the week at £1 per person per day.

 

bread (reduced)	£0.34
cucumber	£0.39
cumin	£0.49
frozen mixed veg	£0.89
gravy	£0.20
ham	£0.61
lamb's liver	£0.74
lettuce (reduced)	£0.20
onions	£0.69
passata	£0.35
pears	£0.37
porridge	£0.75
potatoes	£0.46
rice	£0.40
salmon	£1.49
spaghetti	£0.20
whole milk	£0.85
yellow split peas	£0.55
Total	£9.97

Okay, 3p left over... I think an old chilli and garlic clove from the market can take that up.

Wow, that was hard. And to think, if I hadn't got hold of reduced items it would have been even worse. I think to have been comfortable, another £2 would have been awesome. But of course, what this is about is to raise money for people who really do have £1 - or less -  to live on per day. My charity is Send a Cow.

I'll let you know how I get on each day. Every day an invention test!