| ||
More (Archives + Search) | Contact | Subscribe (it's free) | About Us | Wine Agents | Wine Reviews | Good Food Revolution | ||
| Running on Empty by Ivy Knight
[This is a two part series built around Ivy's time at The Stop. Going to bed hungry, have you ever done that? I’m sure there’s a number of girls who have forsaken dinner the night before the prom but have you ever had to go to bed hungry? I haven’t. I’ve never had no choice but to stay hungry. I don’t know what it would feel like, I don’t want to know either. I’ve spent the last few weeks talking with people who know this feeling intimately, who understand starvation from a physical standpoint. Growing up in the woods in Prince Edward Island though, I wasn’t exposed to any of this. There was one homeless man on the whole Island, an eccentric old man who got his Social Security cheques delivered to a store in Cardigan, where he’d cash them, buy smokes and lumber off into the woods. He never asked for anything but he was given stuff constantly. Seeing as he was the closest we had to a big city beggar, flipping him a quarter made a lobster fisherman from Murray River feel like a movie producer from L.A. He had a few abandoned cabins he called home and really never wanted for much. So it came as a real shock to move to Vancouver at eighteen and see the drug-addicted, alcoholic homeless en masse on the infamous Hastings Street. I felt like I was in a war zone and was sure I’d be mugged, raped and killed immediately. I passed by unscathed and within a few months became as blind to them as the average city dweller. While spending time at The Stop I saw a lot of folks who were down on their luck coming in to pick up bags of food at the food bank or grab a coffee at the drop-in centre. I live in Parkdale so I’m used to the people who treat the sidewalks and parks like their living rooms and bedrooms. Do we ever ever ever think of that when we say “No, sorry” to requests for spare change? I’m so sick of people bitching about being asked for change. People who get all self-righteous and say “I work for a living, why should I give away my hard earned money?” Is giving a quarter to someone who is starving going to kill you? And if it is, if it really is gonna break the bank for you to help someone else out, then keep your quarter and shut up about it! I can’t stand listening to some bitch who works at the Gap tell me the homeless man begging change should just go get a job. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world to get a job when you’re schizophrenic, toothless, dressed in rags and possessing no fixed address, let alone a resume to offer the prospective employers who are lined up around the block. People who have never had Fortuna give them the finger their whole lives just don’t get it. Anyone could end up homeless, if you have no family, no friends and you’re in a big, expensive city. It’s a real possibility and it could happen little Miss Paycheque to Paycheque. Dorothy is a thirty-five year old single mother of two children aged five and twelve. She is currently on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) receiving $1100.00 per month for three people. I was put in touch with Dorothy through one of the workers at The Stop Community Center, around Davenport and Lansdowne. She uses the drop-in center and the food bank there. “This helps me bridge the gap between income and eating healthier. I also use another food bank because it has become a necessity. Despite the best efforts of the food bank staff, sometimes we end up with food that is mouldy, rotten, bug-infested or so stale you cannot eat it. Many of the products are documented as unhealthy because of the high salt and sugar content. Sometimes we use other drop-in programs just to get a meal, while this is helpful to access food it is not without risk of contracting communicable diseases such as tb or influenza or bringing home cockroaches, lice or bedbugs.” She lives with Fibromyalgia (chronic pain and muscle spasms), Interstitial Cystitis (chronic inflammation of the bladder lining), Scoliosis and a mood disorder. “I’m lucky, I have subsidized rent but that doesn’t mean I have large amounts of money to spend every month. Eligibility rules for social assistance have tightened, we are treated like criminals until we can prove our innocence. We live thousands of dollars below the low-income cutoff point.” She says. Dorothy was born in Cape Town, South Africa at the height of apartheid. “My family used to donate to food drives for the needy. By the time I was nineteen I had already spent two years in the Naval Reserve. I worked office jobs under government training subsidies until funding ran out, then found work at a temp agency. When I found out I was pregnant the job ended. Having the baby seemed to exacerbate my health conditions. I enrolled in college to study legal secretarial/business administration but was unable to finish as my health deteriorated. Even though I had late-onset post partum depression I tried finding work but I just got sicker. After being written off by vocational rehabilitation services I applied for ODSP, that battle lasted two years.” Dorothy was living a normal life, working, trying to go to school and raise a kid. Her physical ailments put her in this position. You don’t have to be hooked on heroin to get to the point where you’re getting food from a food bank. Single mothers trying to raise their children up healthy and happy have more work to do than the average parent, they have to lift them up over the pimps and drug addicts and class prejudice, then try to feed them before they can even think of working on their education. “My children have not gone to bed hungry, I have. I eat less healthy foods so that my children get better nutrition. I doubt very much that any poor family would admit to their children going hungry, because in Canada we have Children’s Aid who will remove our children and say we are not capable of taking care of them. The Ontario government willingly pays out $2,000.00 per month to keep a child in foster care, but they won’t give the real family that amount to properly care for their own children. I survived apartheid in South Africa to be forced into it here in Canada. Only this time instead of race being the major driver it is economic status.” Most of us can pick and choose when we want to be bad and eat a bucket of chicken or a bag of pork rinds because we know that when we feel like getting healthy again it’s not a big issue. We can just go out and buy leaner cuts of meat, green things, whole grains. The poor can’t buy anything, they are out of the decision making process. They have to take what’s given to them and eat it. My friend Dane grew up in a poor home and he remembers the menu like it was yesterday. “The really tough time was during the 80s and 90s when my dad had no work and my mum could hardly pay the bills. Dad moved away, mum took care of us. It was always the same things to eat, like bread, eggs, milk, cereal, Chinese noodles, pasta and potatoes. Powdered milk was so gross.” Dorothy’s family doesn’t eat pork but they’ve been forced to eat it when canned pork and beans was all they had. “Many people think that poor people are lazy and get fat because they are lazy. The reality is that many of us are malnourished, if you don’t have the right fuel in your body you lack energy and motivation. When you have very little money you buy the cheapest products to make the money stretch thus forcing us to compromise the health of our families. The cheapest products are packed with salt, sugars, preservatives and colouring that contribute to diabetes, high blood pressure, hyper-activity, heart disease…All of these conditions will lead to the government spending more on health care in the long run. The sad part is that this is preventable in the first place. It is unfortunate that the government focus on such short-sighted policies.” I know I already said this but Dorothy is not on drugs, she is on disability. If she weren’t suffering from so many ailments she would be able to work, climb the corporate ladder and buy foie gras and Kobe beef. Dane’s dad took off and his mom had to feed her kids. These are real people trying to cope in desperate situations. A bad car accident could do this to you, this could be your life. I don’t know what else to say. Go find out how to protest the current state of affairs or spend a day volunteering at a food bank or don’t do anything and just keep socking away money into those RRSP’s and hope nothing like this ever happens to you. Find out more about The Stop at www.thestop.org Email Ivy at ladyslenderlegs@gmail.com |   |
 When not writing about food for eGullet and Gremolata or pillow fighting as 'Vic Payback', Ivy Knight works for a living as a cook in Toronto.READ MORE IVY AT GREMOLATA: Stop It: Ivy hangs out at the food bank The Big Smoke: Ivy Does BBQ Hot & Sour Hangover Cure: Ivy finds the best liquid lunch The Acadian Feast: Ivy learns how to really cook from her grandmamman Gone Vegan: Ivy eschews meat on a donkey farm Staff Meals: Ivy reveals what the cooks eat. Why Would You Do This? Ivy wonders why anyone would work in a kitchen. Quebec City Here I Come: Ivy mange tout! Sketch: Ivy visits a unique program for street kids Island Heat: Ivy eats her way through Caribana Sausage Party: Ivy discovers Berkshire pork Fill My Bowl: Ivy attends a gourmet fundraiser Brunch Bites: Ivy does not like brunch Apple of the Earth: Ivy makes potato salad Photo: Chris Blanchenot
| ||
