“Hunger Feast” may be a contradiction in terms, but that’s what they called a meal attended last month by 150 people at the Mercy Corps Action Center to End World Hunger in Battery Park City.

More famine than feast, the event was meant to simulate the hunger that afflicts a large segment of the world’s population. The organizers randomly assigned participants to one of three economic groups, and a typical meal that group might eat. Only those in the “high income” group ($12,000 or more) ate a  nutritious meal of salad and pasta. A mere 18 percent of the people in the room fell into that group, mirroring the percentage of well-fed people in the world.

Everyone else was served a meal that would hardly seem sufficient in the developed world: rice and beans for those considered “middle income” by international standards and rice only for the most impoverished group.

The event, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day and organized by Oxfam America, was meant also to call attention to the special burden placed on women in hunger ravaged nations. According to Oxfam, women make up 70 percent of people living in poverty. Their second-class status in many cultures only makes it worse.

According to Oxfam, 925 million people do not have enough food to eat, and women and young children are hit the hardest.

“Women, we ask that you go to the end of the line and let the men serve themselves first,” came the dinner call to those in the bottom two income groups.

Judy Beals, campaigns director for Oxfam America, said she hoped the “diners” would leave the event ready to do their part in the fight against world hunger by working for change—from personal consumption to new national policies.

“We do these events to raise awareness as the entryway into action,” she said.

The message seemed to get through. Following the meal, participants were asked to share their thoughts on the experience with fellow diners.
“I get in my world and I’m like ‘poor me, isn’t my life difficult,’ but it’s nonsense,” said a woman named Lola who had been served only rice. “I live in the richest part of the world and I really don’t need to complain about anything.”

Another woman, one of the “high” earners, admitted to the group that at first “there was a little self inside that said, ‘yea!’” when she learned she would be served a good meal. “But as soon as the food was served I got very uncomfortable,” she said, “When I’m surrounded by people just like me I don’t notice the injustice. But to have all of us under one roof, it is so painfully clear.”