Andy's Refugee Camp

Welcome to Andy's Refugee Camp. Here you are safe from the unrest of your own country. You can stay here as long as you need. Thanks to some generous donors you will be given some daily rations to cook and consume at your leisure. You will also be provided with potable water for cooking and drinking. (It is Clearbrook Waterworks water: one of the best!)



The Winter 2012 issue of a Common Place has a sidebar in their piece about the famine in East Africa that was very interesting to me. There is a picture of an average daily ration at a refugee camp. It is the same picture as shown above and is provided by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. See www.foodgrainsbank.ca/ration_meal.aspx for the original piece.
I wanted to try their suggestion of eating a similar meal for a day in solidarity of those suffering from drought and hunger. However, I don't have a scale so I had to use Google to find some conversion sites, in order to figure out how much 50 grams of beans is, etc. I put 1 1/2 cups of dry brown rice in a bag and weighed it on my bathroom scale and it was approximately 1 pound (450 grams). 2 cups may be more accurate, but I'll pretend I got shafted in the daily provisions. 50 grams of dry beans is about 1/4 cup, so you see some kidney beans in a measuring cup, and 50 grams of canola oil is 3 3/4 tablespoons. I decided to salt to taste but I doubt I'll use 5 grams of salt.

As I figured out the measure-ments, I snacked on frozen berries and chocolate chips. I think I am going to try this tomorrow. Too bad I just baked rye bread today! (I used to fast on occasion before my hypoglycemia issues; I found that I was always offered free food at the most inconvenient times!) Complicating this is the fact that we are going to Arizona the next day so I'll be furiously attempting to pack myself and otherwise prepare for our early morning departure including 2 munchkins. I'm already wondering how I will fare with my regular diet while traveling...but anyway, this is just for a day, and I am home from work so won't need too much extra energy. I soaked the beans tonight and will cook them tomorrow. It looks like there will be plenty of rice for me, but the beans and oil will have to be spread out a bit. Why don't they give the refugees a bit more protein and a bit less carbs? Maybe I'll find out tomorrow!!!

Stay posted for the results of my refugee-ing. If I don't post ever again, you'll know that it...didn't work out.