The meaning of hunger

There's been a lot of hunger in the news lately. \nSix Chinese asylum applicants in Sydney, Australia, haven't eaten since Oct. 20 to protest their detention, and 27 inmates at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been hunger striking since mid-August. Meanwhile, North Korea and southern Africa appear to be nearing uncontrolled food crises that will require emergency aid. \nAll these stories got me thinking, well, how hard is it to not eat? I mean, I have avoided eating for a 24-hour fund-raising fast before, but I wondered, could I go through with a hunger strike? What does it feel like to fast for an extended period? To me, as part of the upper-middle-class with a house full of food, real unadulterated hunger exists only in the abstract. Well, no more. On Oct. 20 at about 8 p.m., I stopped eating. For the next 100 hours, I did not eat one calorie of food.\nFirst of all, let me say that not eating is damn hard. Not only did I have to avoid the mounds of food that sit around in my house, but my housemates harangued me for my idiotic quest. Also, while most hunger strikers don't do much during the day except sit around, I still had to drag my body to class daily, and Ballantine seemed farther each time. I can't even imagine how hard it would be as a Guantanamo inmate, captured and interrogated for more than three years, to look at a plate of food and refuse to eat it.\nFor about the first 48 hours of the fast, I felt really hungry, and everything reminded me of food (I really wanted bacon), but after that, it became a thoroughly visceral experience. I was tired all the time, substituting naps for meals and drinking water constantly to give my stomach the illusion of being full. Meanwhile, my mental state got hazier and even basic physical activities like playing the piano became real chores. Toward the end, I reached this bizarre, balanced place where I no longer desired food and began to feel quite soulful. But by the fourth day, I knew I shouldn't go further and ended my fast with a small meal of chicken soup.\nI didn't have this column in mind when I fasted, and it is a bit of a departure, to be sure. Normally I write about issues of newsworthy import, but sometimes, in all the hubbub about scandals and disasters, I worry we forget about the humanity behind the headlines. When we hear the term "food crisis" or "hunger strike," it's hard to comprehend the unforgiving, physical nature of hunger. For me, it took 100 hours without food to understand. \nLook, I'm not finger-wagging. I'm not your mom telling you to appreciate your food because "children are starving in Africa." But whatever it takes, I hope everyone can recognize the enormity of hunger, be it in Africa, Guantanamo or Bloomington. \nDon't believe me? Try fasting.