What I would do if I were starving is the title of an article which Agatha Christie contributed to Britannia and Eve magazine, July 1931 (vol. 3 no. 7) with illustrations by Grace Golden. In it, Christie takes a light hearted look at what a woman could do if she found herself starving.
Christie begins by taking the title literally. In the first place, she contends that it is not easy to starve. She knew a person, who, for example, survived for fifteen years on boiled cabbage. Then it is possible to go without food for many days. Many even pay to go to a health establishment to pay for the "pleasure of eating nothing for three weeks except a couple of oranges the first day just to break one in gradually...."
As for being out of work, Christie notes that women "have the worst of it in many ways--but not when it comes to starving. They can still fall back on their primitive accomplishments--cooking and sewing...." because "meals and clothes are needed all the time".
Christie declares that if she saw the prospect of no work and no income, she would change her profession and take to cooking. Christie encourages her readers by saying that "cooking is easy!" "You have your cookery book--you read the directions--you follow them meticulously and it happens!" This she contrasts with golf where for her, nine times out of ten, despite following all the directions, the ball fails to fly. Related to cooking, there is also "another woman who will always be reasonably sure of being fed and paid" and that is "the woman who scrubs!".
Finally she considers the job of look after other people's children. This will always be in demand and "worth six meals a day". In her opinion this is more strenuous than cooking and unlike cooking there is "no book of recipes".