Kristin Nelson, along with her her husband and four children participated in the United Way Hunger Challenge last week. Below she shares her reflection on the experience. For more ways to take action against hunger, visit http://www.uwkc.org/newsevents/events/haw/

Well, here we are at the end of the Hunger Challenge, having fed our family of six (including one infant) for an average of $25.21 per day.   With a dad who used to work full-time for a food bank, our kids hear regularly about how lucky we are to have healthy food in abundance, and this was a chance for us to make that conversation much more concrete.  Interestingly, being frugal to begin with, we found that our diet didn’t change much during the Challenge.  That said, we do have a couple of important advantages: First, we eat an almost exclusively vegetarian diet.  Also, our kids are little (6, 4, 2 and 7 months), which means  they don’t eat as much as they will when they’re teenagers and I have more control over their snacking than I would if they were older.  On the other hand, we buy almost everything organic, which adds substantially to our budget.  And, as the nursing mom of a little one who isn’t yet eating much solid food, I feel hungry enough for two sometimes!

While our kids couldn’t draw much of a distinction between last week and every other week of their lives (with the exception of our six year old saying he wished he didn’t have to eat oatmeal every morning), I spent a lot of time thinking about how having to keep track of every single morsel we ate reminded me of some of the harder times my own family had growing up.  I remember little things, like being limited to one piece of fruit per day (with eight of us in the house at one point, any more would have been a serious budget-buster), or the time my step brother nearly choked to death on a piece of bread and peanut butter he tried to sneak and scarf down quickly while dinner was being prepared, knowing he wasn’t supposed to be snacking.  I also remember being completely amazed when I saw how other kids were free to raid the kitchen at will.  In our house, most things were purchased with a meal in mind, and we would never think of opening a package without checking with my mom first.

I know Food Stamps aren’t intended to provide for “extras,” but I realized this week that one of the joys of motherhood for me is being able to bake an occasional treat with my kids, or share a cup of cocoa or hot apple cider without worrying about how I’ll make difficult trade-offs to cover it later on.  Even more importantly, when my kids are hungry, I know that they know there is always enough.  We may have eaten healthfully last week, but by the end, we were all glad to know that we could wake up on Saturday and enjoy a break from oatmeal with blueberry buckle, orange juice and scrambled eggs.  Without sacrifice.  Without keeping track.  We were thankful for every bite.