HannahSingleton

After a gruelling first day I changed tactic slightly. Yes thats right, I cheated.

1. I started days 2 and 3 with a banana for breakfast, hoping to give myself enough energy to ensure productivity at work. A lame excuse perhaps, but I felt it was definitely the difference between being able to do the challenge badly, and not doing it at all.
2. After Jo confessed to frying her rice in garlic to add some flavour, I decided that flavoured rice was a reasonable compromise. Others didn't quite agree...

So these days did not see me going out for the usual exciting lunch with the other interns, but sat at my desk with a small bowl of flavoured rice, though enjoying it a million percent more because it wasn't the cold mush from yesterday. While this perhaps lost me marks for lack of authenticity, it meant I was able to proceed with the challenge, and at least learn from the hunger and the monotony of having the same food for every meal.

And my findings? Im still hungry, still tired and have a dull lingering headache most of the time. Its hard to function properly and give full attention to work while this is going on. Plus I realise that not having a choice over food is incredibly unsatisfying. I really do miss planning what my next meal will be.

While the prospect of only eating rice and beans was slightly intimidating to a food lover like me, I still started the week (at 4.30am on Monday) in good spirits, travelling to Oxford with my lunchbox full of rice and kidney beans, ignoring my mothers plea's to wait until Tuesday to start the gruelling regime due to the long tiring day ahead. "No Mum" I insisted, "children living in poverty don't get to choose which days they go hungry on."

By 11am, an hour into my course I started to feel a few hunger pangs, yet instead of feeling disgruntled with my new diet, I told myself this was nothing on how millions of children feel every minute of every day. Keep going Hannah.

By 1pm in the cafe, surrounded by happy eaters tucking into delicious dishes however I started to feel the pressure. Thats right, as I stared down at my very first helping of rice and beans - now cold and mushy, I began to have my doubts. I will be honest, it tasted pretty disgusting. Not willing to be defeated so early on in the challenge I did what im sure every poverty stricken child does when presented with a less than appealing lunch, I heated it up in the microwave, fleetingly worrying about the rule that warns of the dangers of reheating rice, but giving into hunger and eating the now slightly warmer but hardly more appetising meal. Doing so happy only in the knowledge that I had at least forced Lewis to go without butter, mayo and salad in his bid to not make any decisions for himself this week.

The rest of the day didn't improve. The strain of being awake since 4.30am was starting to get to me, and by the best part of course, hearing some of Oxfam's finest speakers, I could barely keep awake. Where I would usually reach for some caffeine filled drink, I took another sip of my water instead and battled with my hungry, tired body to stay alert. 

By the time I got home for my second helping I was almost desperate to tuck into the meat, potato and vegetable dinner my mum had cooked for everyone else. While I was still able to have my second rice meal, keeping hunger at bay for a little while, I was frustrated with this lack of choice.

Tired, bored and definitely not full, I wondered if perhaps my mother was right...was today really the best time to start my challenge? But as I so smugly said before I began, this was indeed the point of the exercise. To really bring home the fact that men, women and children face long, far more demanding days on a regular basis just to survive, and do so often on less than I had eaten that day. I had however thought it would take a few days at least to begin to appreciate this, not a mere 18 hours.

My challenge is that I will only eat two small meals of rice and beans a day only drink water all week.

I'm doing this because I care about the millions of people living in poverty around the world. I think that food - and access to good nutritious food is a key issue of poverty. Climate change is making growing food more difficult all over the world and I want to use my challenge to highlight this.

I live in Stockport and will be asking my MP Andrew Stunnell what he thinks of my challenge - what do you think?