Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday, October 13, 2025 will be a more subdued affair this year with up to 25 percent of the country’s citizens suffering from food insecurity. Around the world food prices are surging while wages stagnate. For these belt-tightening times, my grandpa’s old advice still rings true.
“Struggle meals” is an expression that I’ve been teaching to a lot of adult ESL learners from around the world this year. These professionals are shocked to hear that 25 percent of households in Canada are experiencing food insecurity, which is on a par with the US, where the current administration is hellbent on gutting food-assistance programs.
How could developed countries experience this level of hunger, the students ask me? The reasons are too complex to discuss in this forum, where social-media snipers lurk in the weeds to blow holes in everyone else’s arguments and opinions. Though I’ve heard economists speak of a global downturn in manufacturing and the rise of the service industries.
From Brazil to China and Japan to Turkey, my online students tell me that food prices are surging while wages are stuck in a holding pattern.
For Canadian Thanksgiving today, I will be giving thanks to Kraft Dinner, ramen soups, hot dogs, Hamburger Helper and the other components of struggle meals, which have nourished generations of college students, famished artists and lower-income earners.
Me, left, with Gramps and Richard.
If you’re saying grace at the dinner table tonight, feel free to quote my grandfather, who resembled a snapping turtle wearing a bowtie. He worked on trains throughout two world wars, the Great Depression and the drought that followed during the so-called “Dirty Thirties.” Gramps knew a few things about hunger and struggle meals. If me and my brother complained at the dinner table about having to eat creamed corn or mashed potatoes or Jello again, he’d snap, “Stop your bellyaching or I’ll give you something to bellyache about. You’ll eat what’s put in front of you and be damn glad you’re eating at all tonight. Many poor devils ain’t nearly so lucky.”
Words to live and dine by.
Thanks for the hardship lessons, Granny and Gramps.
Amen.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Jim Algie’s books are available from Amazon. Some of the albums he helped to make with the Asexuals and Jerry Jerry and Sons of Rhythm Orchestra are available on Spotify.
For a low-cost Thanksgiving feast try this Poverty Potluck on TikTok.
Recent Comments