survey area to the town, the costs of transporting maize provides additional cost constraints on families. 65% of those families that had maize meal, indicated that they had sourced it themselves, by barter or by sales of livestock or handiwork. The balance indicated the maize was a donation, either from a neighbour or a relative – and in only 5% of instances, maize was donated by a family member in the diaspora. iv. Additional food information A disturbing 73% of families indicated that they had no food in the house, apart from maize meal and vegetables – and as mentioned, 21% did not have even this. Of those who reported other food items, this consisted mainly of salt, cooking oil, tea leaves, or sugar. One person had bread, and one had beans. The vegetables consisted usually of the local spinach, or alternatively “sour melons”, which have very little nutritional value, but serve to make the maize meal yellow. The majority of families, including those without maize meal, did report having eaten some vegetable item within the last two days, but these were often melons, as already mentioned, of questionable nutritional value. 18% of families reported that they were eating indigenous plants, including munyi, umkhomo, xakuxaku and marula pips. 52% of families reported having gone a month or more – and up to a year – without eating animal protein, with a third of these families saying that they had not had meat for so long they could not even remember when last they had it. 24% of families had eaten meat in the last week, and this included meat provided at a local wedding, at a local funeral, and by visiting relatives. One neighbour had killed a goat and several families reported having had some of this goat, while another family reported that a chicken had died mysteriously and the family had eaten it. In other words, many families eating meat were doing so as a result of a community event rather than through personal purchases. 48% of families reported that apart from maize meal and vegetables, they had eaten no other food items in the last week. Of the families that had eaten something else in the last seven days:  30% had eaten bread  12% had eaten an egg  12% had had some milk, from their own goat/cow  1 person had caught a fish in the dam and eaten it. It goes without saying that meals in these families showed little daily variation, or variation from one meal to another, consisting of maize meal cooked as a porridge in the morning, possibly with tea and very occasionally with bread, and another meal during the day of maize meal cooked as a stiffer porridge (isitshwala) served with spinach or sour melons. Those families eating three meals, would have two servings of isitshwala in the course of the day. For the poorest families, a once‐a‐day serving of isitshwala, with or without vegetables, was being consumed, with a day a week at least without even this. 25