Guilt- Filling up the Christmas Hamper

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(Amanda) #1

Every year my school organizes food hampers for the local food bank. They give us a list of the most needed items. I typically buy 1 or 2 full hampers so my students can earn items to complete lists by doing a good deed, completing challenges and working together.

Tonight after work I stopped at the store to pick up items from the list. I felt a huge wave of guilt as I filled the cart with tonnes of crappy carbage! I also couldn’t get over how cheap and empty all of the “food” was. Cookies, jam, crackers, Cheeze Whiz, canned soup, cereal, gravy mix, pancake mix and syrup, the list goes on and on. :roll_eyes:

I struggled with some of the items on the list pre-Keto, but now, it was like going behind enemy lines. To make amends, I bought the best quality peanut butter and tinned meats I could find. :wink:

I understand that fresh meat and veggies are not practical for the small town’s food bank, but there has to be a better way… I don’t know.

Also, I felt like people were judging me, I know they weren’t, they had just as much crap in their carts as I did. I wanted to wrap myself in a protective cloak of bacon, broccoli and full fat cheese!

It may not have helped that I am on hour 67 of my first 48+h fast and NOTHING looks appealing to eat.

(Carl Keller) #2

There’s no shame in getting needy people food to eat. In the greater scope of things, something to eat is better than nothing and it’s not like you have a lot of healthy options to work with. You are doing your best at something most do nothing for. Bless you and your students.

(Laurie) #3

For future reference:

One food bank site I visited preferred relatively nutritious items, such as canned fish or meat, canned vegetables (you could donate canned kale or spinach), and 100% nut butters.

But it’s better to donate money:

#4

I can relate. When my wife and I decided to clean out our fridge and cupboards starting keto, it coincided with a ‘paying it forward’ food campaign in our local area. So instead of chucking out all the food we weren’t allowed to eat, we gave it all to needy families.

Needless to say, we felt conflicted- on one hand we were giving local families some much needed help, but it also felt like we were knowingly passing food which we knew wasn’t nutritious onto someone else. It was a tough one, but as Carl said ‘something to eat is better than nothing’.