Top 5 Things I Learned from the “Beans and Rice Experiment”

1.  You really can live on beans and rice for a week and not feel utterly deprived. 

I was surprised how tasty most of the meals were, and how filling they were.  Also one can of beans lasts a long time. The breakfast casserole I made on day 1 lasted for the entire week.  Many of the other meals made 3-4 servings.

2.  You can drastically reduce your food bill, whenever you want just by changing what you buy/eat.

This sounds so obvious but it took the beans and rice experiment for me to fully understand it. By eliminating the non essentials I saved $100 this week.  I wouldn’t eat like this on a regular basis because I do value meat, fruits, vegetables, salad, and some “treats” too. However, I don’t feel I “sacrificed” this week and I am glad I could do something good for the folks in need to whom I donated the money I saved.

• 842 million people – or one in eight people around the world – do not have enough to eat. [1]
• 98% of the world’s undernourished people live in developing countries. [1]
• 22,000 children die each day due to the conditions of living in poverty. [2]
• 60 percent of the world’s hungry are women. [3]
• 50 percent of pregnant women in developing countries lack proper maternal care, resulting in over 300,000 maternal deaths annually from childbirth. [3]
• 1 out of 6 infants are born with a low birth weight in developing countries. [4]
• 1.7 billion people lack access to clean water. [5]
• 2.3 billion people suffer from water-borne diseases each year. [5]
• 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and none of the 12 percent lives in developing countries. [6]
• In Michigan, 1 in 4 children, or about 570,000 kids, live in poverty, which means that a quarter of our state’s kids live in a household that makes less than $23,000 (for a family of four). The report goes on to indicate that 341,000 kids in Michigan are living in areas of extreme poverty, meaning a family of four is earning less than $11,000 a year. [7]
• In Macomb, Oakland and Wayne Counties, one in five children live in poverty. In the tri-county area 500,000 people including nearly 200,000 children, live in poverty. [8]

3.  Most people don’t read articles on Facebook.

It doesn’t matter how short the articles are, or if they have recipes.  They like pictures though.  I was told Facebook wasn’t the place for articles, and this experiment proved it.  My pictures of recipes from the beans and rice experiment caused the conversations I was hoping for, even though the blogs I posted on Facebook which contained the pictures didn’t have the same effect.

4.  Doing the beans and rice experiment as a community with my church was very valuable.

I probably would have abandoned the idea after a day or two if this experiment was something I was doing on my own.  I also enjoyed sharing the process with my greater community through blogging.

5.  I am blessed beyond measure.

If you missed my other posts this week and want to learn more about the Beans and Rice Experiment, here’s the week in review.  Click on the blog links for details:  

Day 1: https://www.bestlegalresource.com/the-beans-and-rice-experiment-day-1

Black Bean Quesadillas

 Day 2: https://www.bestlegalresource.com/the-beans-and-rice-experiment-day-2

Bean and Rice Breakfast Casserole

Day 3: https://www.bestlegalresource.com/beans-and-rice-experiment-day-3

Frijoles Negros

Day 4: https://www.bestlegalresource.com/beans-and-rice-experiment-day-4

A Day of Thanks: Remembering the Pokot Tribe.

Day 5: https://www.bestlegalresource.com/beans-and-rice-experiment-day-5-2

Fiesta Beans and Rice

Thanks for sharing this week with me and for your comments and encouragement on Twitter, Facebook, and in our “live” conversations.  I hope it inspired you in some way.  #eatlessgivelife

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[1] State of Food Security in the World 2013

[2] UNICEF State of the World’s Children, 2010 (pdf)

[3] MDG Report – Goal 5, 2010 (pdf)

[4] World Hunger and Poverty Statistics, 2010

[5] WHO Unsafe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (pdf)

[6] Water as Commodity – The Wrong Prescription by Maude Barlow, The Institute for Food and Development Policy

[7] kidscount.org

[8]ForgottenHarvest.org