This week's temptation has little to do with food, but more about the significance of food ...
News of the famine in Somalia has been lost in debt ceiling crisis stories and the usual celebrity pop news. And this is likely difficult to believe given how much food people have in the United States, but more people are starving or underfed in new ways.
Being poor can often mean you don't have much, but you have some food. When you are very poor and food prices are rising at amazing levels, harder choices are the result.
This summer, outside a major downtown metropolis farmers market, I have seen two different people for two different reasons on a hunger strike.
Having a hunger strike outside a farmers market is only part of the point; the market is right across the street from City Hall. But the juxtaposition of food and hunger strike, plus the world's rising food costs, made for a curious question. For what reason would you go on a hunger strike? And how long would that strike likely be?
We are also in the month of Ramadan, the Muslim observance where they fast from dawn to dusk, but then feast once the sun is down. Ramadan is going without food as a sacrifice, not as a hunger strike.
Unfortunately, some people have a harder time doing a hunger strike because of low blood sugar.
Naturally, we go about 10 hours without food on a regular basis each day. We sleep during that time. But the idea of going 20 hours without food is extraordinary.
When you are on a hunger strike — a real hunger strike — you go 24, 48, 72 hours, and longer without food.
Whether your cause is social, political, or some other form of -al, hunger strikes are serious business. And even if you go a short time without food, maybe even in solidarity with someone's cause, you might just appreciate food all the more, especially when you live in a country with an abundance of food.
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