A Richmond man who is surviving on £1 per day as part of a campaign to raise awareness of poverty has started his week-long challenge.

David Garcia, who is known to his friends as the anaconda because he eats lots and falls asleep, hopes the five day feat will help raise awareness against poverty.

The 68-year-old, who started his challenge yesterday, April 29, had congee for breakfast – a rice type gruel.

He said: “I had prepared sufficient congee to feed me for five breakfasts. I first had it for breakfast in China 27 years ago.

“When I looked it up in my dictionary, it was described as rice gruel with chicken giblets.

“As I approached menu planning for the live below the line challenge, I remembered about congee and thought it would make a cheap but nourishing breakfast.”

When he could not find any chicken giblets, he used a pig’s ear instead to flavour the food.

He said: “To my horror I went into automatic mode and made myself a cup of tea.

“I’ll have to deduct 2p from my budget to account for it.”

For lunch he had four slices of value wholemeal bread, two slices of value meat, a fried egg and an apple.

For dinner he had planned to make rice and dhal but when he realised it would take one a half hours to prepare he changed his mind.

He said: “I decided on stir fried carrots and rice, which flavoured with onion, garlic, chili and soy sauce proved very tasty.”

Tomorrow, April 30, reporter Amy Dyduch is going to meet Mr Garcia for a 40p lunch to see how he is getting on with day three of his challenge.