WattAgNet: Blog: What would you buy with 40 cents? One egg

We are at the end of the year and in the Western world we have given ourselves the task of using this time to reflect on the good and the bad, and in trying to amend things for the following year. As if there was a difference between this coming Sunday, December 31 and Monday, January 1.

Supposedly, it is also a time for giving, so many organizations take the opportunity for raising funds. A few days ago, I was walking down the street when I saw one of these good people approaching me, folder in hand, to tell me about their non-governmental organization and to ask me for a donation. I could not get my cell phone out in time to pretend I was on a call. She caught me!

After a kind introduction, she told me — imagine you are in the market and you realize that you only have 40 cents in your pocket. What would you buy with those 40 cents?

The answer she was expecting − and may be the most logical− would have been "Nothing!", to allude to the insignificant daily contribution of 40 cents of a Euro to her organization. However, I replied: One egg!

I actually was not very good at my math, because 40 cents of a Euro are enough for two eggs, but the question here was the surprise face of my interlocutor and the hesitation – which lasted just a few fractions of a second – to tell me: “What a good answer, nobody has ever told me that before".

The truth is that, while people may answer without thinking and falling into the sentimentality of these tasks, my answer that I would buy an egg was genuine. How many nutritious, quality foods can you buy with a few cents? What do you think?