Sipho Kings  from the Mail and Guardian has got a point. Well actually he  made quite a few very good points and many of them make me cringe:

  1. ‘…I am complicit in our extremely unequal society’  – true
  2. ‘My lunch – with a takeaway coffee – cost R46’ – I spent R34 on a cappuccino and a chocolate croissant. He goes on to say that according to a report released this week by Oxfam, that is more than many families live off for a whole week.
  3. Oxfam’s research found that the top 10% of households spend R29 000 a year on food – this is R2417  a month. We spend more than this even when we are being ‘careful’ and are eating most of our vegetables from the garden.
  4. The poorest 25% of households only spend R8 700 a year on food and  that can be up to 10 people, with only one breadwinner.
  5. ‘The reality is that in this country of some extreme wealth there are people starving every single day … fewer than half of South Africans can eat, knowing they will have guaranteed meals in the foreseeable future.’ – Sobering2014-10-16 10_04_43-www.oxfam.org_sites_www.oxfam.org_files_file_attachments_hidden_hunger_in_south_
  6. ‘Until very recently I was unaware of how serious a problem we have. Sure, I think we all know that there are hungry people in South Africa. It is, however, a passive realisation.’ – Agree
  7. ‘…join the Mail & Guardian newsroom in seeing what one in four South Africans deal with every single day.’  – Will do, but aim to do this for 6 days if I can.

Breakfast day 1:

Oats – PnP Quick Cooking Oats 750 GR R 21.59 1g = 0.02878  30g = 85 cents

Sugar – PnP White Sugar 1 KG R 12.99 1g=0.01299 5g = 6.5 cents

Total cost – 91.5 cents

What do I usually have for breakfast? On a modest day it will be oats, probably more than 30g, with Greek yoghurt (Woolworths R30.95 for 1kg), honey, cinnamon and milk. The yoghurt alone probably costs R4.

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