During the school's power outage, I will admit that I engaged in very shameful eating habits. With the help of my housemates, I devoured pretzels, Ruffle's potato chips, chocolate mint M&M's, raw ramen noodles, vanilla cake, Fiber One bars, Goldfish, graham crackers, tortilla chips and salsa, mini Reese's cups, Hershey's chocolate, stoned wheat thins. I didn't know consuming so much junk in such a short amount of time was possible, but when one has no electricity, hot water, or internet, times get a little desperate, and we might just look to food for comfort. Just like Hannah said in her blog post, we were so limited by the food available, it really made me think about how much of a factor power is in our healthy food choices. Yogurt and milk were ruled out. Even the microwave couldn't help us turn to the classic Cup of Noodles.
Even though there was real food in the dining hall, the restriction to what we could be eating (bread, tuna, etc) still was a new feeling to us. We are so used to such a great selection and variety in front of us, that when we are stripped of that, even to a slight degree, how do we learn to live comfortably? Similarly, the possible activities were restricted, such as using phones, showering, surfing the net. I know for my housemates and myself, we were all becoming more and more anxious...without the luxuries of technology, phones, internet, it was an adjustment to every one of us.
Long shelf life and storage ability for food is very important, however I noticed particularly this weekend that those can be the unhealthiest of all. I missed the salads, meat, cheese I ate in during my daily diet. Connecting back to the food deserts, shelf life is important and helpful to some extent, however, it isn't always beneficial to our health. Although resources are limited, it's difficult to not feel helpless in this kind of situation.
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