Food Outreach

Hunger Challenge - Vegan Style

2011-09-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, my friend Colleen approached my husband and I and asked if we'd like to be members of a new board she was putting together for Food Outreach. The Board, called, Friends of Food Outreach (AKA: FOFO) was to be made up of just a handful of people who believe in the mission of FO and have a desire to get out there and spread the word by creating events, or a buzz about the organization. Colleen knows about my background and has a firm understanding of how I feel about food as it relates to health, so of course this was an easy and very enthusiastic "YES!" for us both to hop on board.

This year the FOFOs have started to really create a name for ourselves and it has been a lot of fun to meet and interact (read: party) with our fellow board members. However, it was not until recently that we really got a taste of the struggle that lies within the clients of Food Outreach. September is Hunger Action Month and during this month Food Outreach has challenged all those who are willing to participate to spend only $29 per person for all of the food you will eat in a seven day period. The days do not have to be in a row (mine have not been), but you do have to stick to only the foods you purchase with in that allotted dollar figure. Why only $29? Because on average, a Food Outreach client is eligible for a $29/week “food stamp” allotment, certainly not enough to purchase the nutritious foods that can improve their treatment outcomes- which by the way absolutely sucks.

I teach vegan cooking classes and I started down this plant-based way of eating after the big C made two appearance in my family IN ONE YEAR just three years ago. Food Outreach provides nutritional meals to help support for those individuals who have been hit by said 'C' and HIV/AIDS. I am all for prevention, but these folks who have compromised immune systems and really are in need of nutritionally dense fare may not be getting what they need because "healthy food" is too expensive. At least that's what the consensus is.

Being on a plant-based (vegan) diet, I thought this would be an interesting challenge.

September has been a bit of a maddening time, as we have been in and out of town, I am prepping for cooking classes, etc...ya know, just life stuff, but you've got to eat- so I took a half hour last week and just ran to the store to spend our $58 (2 people).
This is our food for seven random days throughout the next couple of weeks. We have completed two days and I am now kicking myself for not putting together a menu and planning a bit more carefully. On the other hand, FO never really knows what will be donated and in what quantity, so perhaps making sense out of my mish mash of food is what they have to deal with on a regular basis, ours is just on a significantly smaller scale. I only have to figure out meals for two people, not 200.

I of course did not purchase any animal products and those can be costly, but I did pick up some veggie burgers, crumbles, organic tofu and that nice roll of basil and garlic polenta. Splurges. It killed me to not grab more fresh produce, but knowing that our challenge days would not be consistent, I didn't want to run the risk of buying and having something go bad. Normally, that would just really irritate me, now the stakes are higher. So, instead I bought a lot of frozen vegs and really saved $$$ with the beans. I have soaked (and sprouted) and cooked them all. I'm happy to have my staple of hummus (sans the tahini) in the fridge, though I am eating it by the spoonful since I could not afford pita and didn't even think about grabbing a cuke.

Here is a picture of one of our first meals and as look at everything I bought I see a theme: red/green/tan. I have a feeling that a lot of my pictures will look similar as I bought a ton of canned tomatoes, an extra large bag of frozen broccoli ($2.99 - holla!) and enough beans to last us through the year - or so I say that now.

I didn't feel like being too creative for the first meal, so I just grabbed what I had the most of and got to work. Sauteed an onion, added a few cloves of minced garlic, threw in the broccoli, and added a can of chopped chili-style tomatoes. Later on I popped a handful of garbanzo beans to round out the protein element, but all in all, not a bad start. Most definitely NOT gourmet and not the most well thought out meal, but it was quick and somewhat nutritious. I say somewhat because fresh and local tomatoes would have been a better choice- but let's not split hairs.

Every Little Thing's Challenge Wrap-Up

2011-09-26T18:32:00.001-07:00

I wanted to recap the Hunger Challenge before I moved on with new recipes. It was a rough week but enlightening in its own right. I am one person that was able to chooseto eat on a food stamp budget and for that I am grateful. I truly hope this challenge didn’t offend anyone . The point was not to mock or imitate those in need, but to force people to step outside their comfort zone and spark thoughts about hunger in our country. With those goals in mind, I certainly succeeded with the challenge.

Some final thoughts:

Eating on $29 a week per person is doable. It’s not fun, nor is it easy. But doable? Yes.
Time is a key component to eating foods that are healthy, natural, and filling on a limited budget. I spent days researching sale prices and simple yet filling recipes. I grocery-shopped for two hours. I cooked full meals almost every night. This week took time that I’m confident most on food stamps don’t have.
There is no room for error when you have no extra food. Burn your dinner? Eat it anyway. Goopy cottage cheese? Sorry, down the hatch.
Eating isn’t fun. Sure, our meals were tasty and filling. But were they fun? Meh, not really. I couldn’t get creative. I couldn’t try a new recipe. I couldn’t experiment. There wasn’t that enjoyment in the cooking process that I’ve come to love in the last year. I cooked because we couldn’t afford not to, and that was that.
Forget your social life. No money, no restaurants. That’s all there is to it.

My goal was to attempt a natural and healthy diet on a limited budget, and I think I succeeded. I would never expect a mother working two jobs to pay rent for her two children to cook the way I did last week. That said, planning ahead just one meal can spark a change and make this kind of budget doable over time.

I also wanted to point out that I went to three stores for this challenge. I wanted to stay as close to home as possible, so I chose two grocery stores within 3 miles of my house, and the local farmer’s market. Again, most on food stamps aren’t going to three different stores, but I wanted to show the variety of food I was able to purchase, and what was the cheapest at each store, in this area.

I purposely chose to shop at the farmer’s market because many are now accepting food stamps – in fact, in Detroit and the surrounding area, farmer’s markets are doubling the worth of food stamps! Obviously not everyone has access to farmer’s markets, especially those living in inner cities and more urban areas, but I wanted to at least showcase the possibility for those with one nearby.

All in all, I thought it was a successful challenge. Maybe not realistic, but it certainly pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me think about my food and those in our country that go without. After all, wasn’t that the point?

Check out my blog for my final Hunger Challenge recipe - a basic black bean soup that was pretty tasty, if I do say so myself!

Every Little Thing's Challenge Day 6

2011-09-23T04:45:00.000-07:00

It’s officially Day 6 of the Hunger Challenge – can’t believe it’s almost over! If you’re looking to catch up on the other posts…

I’ve noticed a craving for sugar. I haven’t kept track but I know I’m eating less sugar. How did I notice the craving, you ask? Well, a coworker brought in donut holes this morning specifically for me and my partner at work. She literally plopped them down on my desk and told me to eat them. And do you know what I did?

I ate them.

A lot of them.

I’m normally not a donut person and I was shoving these down like my stomach was bottomless – I had this intense need for more sugar! Obviously this doesn’t excuse my cheating on the Challenge but I had to fess up and wanted to describe how I was feeling.

Otherwise, we’ve been doing well, though I notice how empty our designated shelf is getting and it makes me nervous.

On Wednesday night, we had stuffed peppers for dinner, based on my original quinoa-stuffed pepper dinner.

It was affordable and a good mix of leftover bits of food in the fridge. The only problem was that we were still hungry after! We each had a bowl of cereal and called it a night. Our peppers were small, so make yourself two peppers!

Check out my blog for the recipe!

I filled our peppers with a mix of quinoa (here’s how to rinse/cook quinoa), leftover pinto beans from the chili, onion, leftover chopped poblano, and topped with pepperjack (I was going to use corn but got lazy).

The quinoa takes about 15-20 minutes to cook, then two small-to-medium peppers stuffed with the quinoa mixture take about 45 minutes to bake in the oven, at 400 degrees.

Top with cheese during the last five minutes and throw under the broiler for supreme meltiness!

Rice would work just as well but quinoa provides a lot of protein! You can also mix in meat if you have it – sausage works well.
I’ll have a wrap-up post on Sunday – have a great weekend!

Every Little Thing's Challenge (almost) Day 5

2011-09-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

**Be sure to check out my blog for photos of my delicious dinner from last night!**

Almost day 5! Wow, I can’t believe the Hunger Challenge is over halfway done. It’s going well so far, but I see our dwindling piles of food and worry about days 6 and 7, which I’m sure is a common feeling for those on food stamps.

One thing I’ve noticed is how many people at work offer me food after I explain the Challenge to them. I’m not even sure they’re doing it consciously, but I’ve had more food offered to me this week than ever before! Cookies, pie (on which I relented Day 3), BBQ sandwich, chips, soda, you name it, I’ve been offered. It makes it difficult to turn it down but I feel fortunate that I have these food options, whereas plenty of people have zero free food options, or aren’t willing to take any.

It was yesterday afternoon that I really started to hit my wall with the Hunger Challenge. Last night was my fourth night of cooking in a row and while I cook often, I normally mix in leftovers, take out, or something so easy it doesn’t qualify as cooking (poor man’s nachos, anyone?). I didn’t have that luxury this week. I sat at work just dreading cooking tonight, wanting so badly to order Chinese food or make a box of Annie’s Mac & Cheese. But sesame chicken doesn’t fit into a $60/week budget, so I cooked. Again.

When you’re on such a limited food budget, every piece of food matters and you often have no choice in the matter. I’ve eaten goopy cottage cheese, cereal with nuts in it (I hate them in my cereal), and more popcorn than I care to think about because that was all I had. I couldn’t throw the cottage cheese away because it was goopy. I couldn’t buy a new box of cereal. I ate it. I survived. I moved on.

I’m hoping this will translate into post-challenge menu planning. Basically, I’m hoping to get over myself and eat what I have in the house instead of ordering Chinese because something in my fridge is too “goopy” to eat.

Anyway, here’s our dinner from two nights ago – baked pasta! It was delicious and made excellent leftovers.

I was planning to use cottage cheese but at the last minute found a half-filled container of ricotta in the back of my fridge. Half the container would have cost about the same as the cottage cheese and in the name of not wasting, I used that instead. If that’s cheating, so be it.

I kind of…winged it.

One box of $1 pasta (100% whole wheat, all natural).
One box of $1.39 sauce (100% all natural tomato puree)
Chopped onion, garlic, leftover poblano, and the other 1/4 lb of beef.
Dollops of ricotta or cottage cheese.
Shredded pepperjack.

Boil the pasta. Brown the meat. Mix about 3/4 of the pasta with all the ingredients in a casserole dish. Bake until bubble (15-20 minutes).

It was honestly really tasty and just your basic, hearty, Italian dinner. It filled our bellies, gave us some fiber, protein, and veggies, and made a delicious lunch the next day.

We’re getting low on food. Breakfast for dinner is planned again for tonight, with only one more work lunch to pack tomorrow (thank goodness). I’ll keep you posted – likely making black bean soup for Saturday!

Question: Do the store-brand items at your grocery store stack up to their name brand counterparts?

Every Little Thing's Hunger Challenge Day 3 (already?!)

2011-09-20T04:43:00.000-07:00

(Just FYI: meal photos will also be posted on my facebook page!)

It’s the dawn of day three of the Hunger Challenge and things are going well! Our two dinners so far have been outstanding – on the other hand, lunches and snacks have been quite underwhelming. I really miss having snacks throughout the day and a variety of food in my lunchbox. I also miss sparkling water that I drink during the day (I know, cry me a river right?). That said, it hasn’t been horrible by any means.

I have cheated once. I was offered a small piece of pie at work yesterday and I took it. I felt guilty about it but the craving for sweetness to end my meal was overwhelming. I realize that many people on limited budgets and food stamps don’t have access to these kinds of freebies – it was my own weakness that pushed me to take it.

Breakfast: Small bowl of cereal and a hard-boiled egg. This does the trick until at least mid-morning - it mimics what I typically have, though the cereal I eat is more filling (more fiber and protein).

Lunch: Yesterday, leftovers (chili and cornbread…and pie). Today, PB&J, slice of cheese, leftover cornbread.

Snack: 1/2 cup cottage cheese, though I haven’t eaten it yet because it’s on the goopy side. Evening snack has been popcorn with a little salt and butter. I’ve also had a spoonful of peanut butter and peanut butter toast with milk.

Dinner on Sunday night (and Monday’s lunch) was a very basic chili recipe – I say basic but there’s a little twist that hit this chili out of the park. It starts with a P and ends with “oblano.” You can usually get miscellaneous peppers for a decent price at the grocery store or the farmer’s market. My market has jalapeno’s for a quarter! Also, keep the seeds in if you want plenty of spice! Even without the seeds, the chili had quite a bite to it.

I used dry beans so I got to soaking early in the day. I did the “quick soak” method, which involved putting the beans in a large pot with enough water to cover by a couple inches, bringing the pot to boil, then cover, take off heat, and let sit for two hours.

After soaking the beans, rinse with clean water, then add back to the pan with fresh water (3 cups water to every 1 cup beans). Bring the new bean/water mix to a boil then simmer, partially covered, for 60-90 minutes. Mine only took 60! You can also boil in broth with spices for extra tasty beans. There are a lot of fun ways to cook beans and I’m a bean newb so check around for great recipes!

For the full chili recipe, check out my blog! It's excellent, I promise.

Our dinner last night was a pepper, onion, and pepperjack frittata, potatoes, and toast (photos on my Facebook page!). It was delicious and something we have often, actually. I used 5 eggs for the frittata, meaning we have 7 left for one more “breakfast-for-dinner” night, plus one weekend breakfast (egg sammies!). Tonight I’m making baked pasta, tomorrow quinoa-stuffed peppers. Black bean soup is thrown in there somewhere as well!

Question: Does your local farmer’s market accept food stamps?

(Not all of ours do, but I wanted to show what you could get at the market. Many around the country do!)

Rhubarb and Honey's Hunger Challenge Concludes

2011-09-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

On Friday, our participation in the Food Outreach Hunger Challenge concluded. I had planned to spend the evening blogging about the final days of challenge, but after some initial attempts at this post, I decided I needed to take a step back and truly think about the lessons I learned over the past five days.

When I agreed to participate in the hunger challenge, I hoped that I would be able to show that a person living on food stamps could eat well-balanced, nutritional meals comprised of good, clean foods ... and be satisfied, both physically (ie, not hungry) and mentally (ie, happy with the variety and content of their diet). Boy, was I in for a rude awakening.

If you've read my previous posts (here and here), you'll know that the first day on the hunger challenge was a huge struggle for both The Chef and I. In one short day, we were both incredibly hungry ... and we became quite anxious about our ability to live on the minimal amount of food we were able to purchase with our allotted budget for the week. It was at this moment we knew just how hard the challenge would be.

The next two days were a bit better on the hunger front, but we were both left unsatisfied. We found ourselves with limited meal choices, which meant we were eating the same things over and over ... and we were only flavoring our food with salt and pepper since we didn't have any money to buy spices. In a word ... boring.

The last two days have been much of the same. Our breakfast choices were the same as those we had the other days of the challenge. Our lunches continued to consist of leftovers. Our dinners were actually a bit bleaker than the two previous days. We made another soup that, although inexpensive, didn't hold a flavor candle to the one we made on Wednesday. While we didn't go hungry, the fun we've always had cooking and eating just wasn't there anymore.

So, what are all the lessons we've learned over the last five days?

1. First and foremost, we will never know exactly what it's like to live on a food stamp budget. Many people living on food stamps don't have cars and rely on public transportation. In addition, many people living on food stamps work at least two jobs, leaving limited time to shop. For them, just getting to a grocery store is difficult. For the clients of Food Outreach, who in addition to living on food stamps are also living with HIV/AIDS or cancer, getting to a grocery store is sometimes impossible.

2. The weekly food stamp budget ($29 here in Missouri) is not enough to have a complete diet comprised of good, clean, organic foods ... and not go hungry. As evidenced by how little food we were able to purchase with our allotted budget, it just isn't possible to "eat well" and not be hungry. I'm certain people living on food stamps want to eat better. I'm certain they want to feed their children better. There just isn't money to do so ... and since being hungry is horrible in so many ways, I can understand why some people living on food stamps choose cheap processed foods (usually with little nutritional value, which is extremely detrimental to persons living with HIV/AIDS or cancer) to make their food dollars go farther.

3. There are ways to stretch a food stamp budget ... but they require significant planning and time. The "to use coupons or not use coupons" on the hunger challenge was debated among many of my food blogger friends. Some chose to use them, some didn't. For those that did, they found that they spent a significant amount of time obtaining the coupons and then closely checking the items they purchased to make sure the coupon would work, which made their shopping trips longer. Coupons can be great and will help stretch a food stamp budget, but unfortunately, time isn't on the side of someone living on food stamps.

4. The pleasure of eating—something so important to the pleasure of life—can easily be lost. As I mentioned above, the fun we've always had cooking and eating wasn't there. I think the fact that we always knew that our next meal would be one we'd just eaten made everything less appealing. One of the great powers food has is to bring people together and bring enjoyment to your day, and it makes me sad that this is so easily lost when one only has limited food to eat.

5. There is no "typical person living on food stamps" ... it could be your friends, your neighbors, or even someone in your family. Some of the more eye-opening revelations that occurred during the hunger challenge came when reading the comments that were elicited from readers of my blog and my fellow food bloggers participating in the hunger challenge. So many people commented on their experiences as current or former food stamp recipients, and not one story was the same. Never assume you know what someone living on food stamps looks like.

6. Never, never, never take food for granted. We all know it's easy to take everyday things, especially good food, for granted, and our experience with the hunger challenge drove that home for both The Chef and I. So, it's simple. If you're lucky enough to be able to eat good, clean food on a regular basis, enjoy it ... and perhaps share some with those around you.

There's an old proverb that says, "An empty belly hears nobody." Normally when I'm hungry, I grab a snack and fill the hole in my belly. But when there isn't anything to snack on, that hole gets bigger and eventually develops a voice of its own ... one that constantly whispers in your ear, "You're hungry" ... over and over until it's all you can think about. It's no surprise it drowns everything else out.

As I mentioned above, I will never know exactly what it's like to be a person living on a food stamp budget ... but I do know though that I've learned a little bit more about their struggles, and because of that, I will never take my ability to make carefree food choices for granted ever again.

~Kimberly
Rhubarb and Honey

Every Little Thing's Hunger Challenge Day 1

2011-09-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

Today, Sunday September 18, is day one of my Hunger Challenge. All the groceries have been purchased. All the meals have been planned. It’s now up to execution and mind over matter.

For photos of my purchases, check out my blog post here.

My first challenge was truly grocery shopping. I typically love to grocery shop but today I was almost dreading the trip. I’m typically a pretty budget-minded shopper but this time, I had to be extra careful, and it wasn’t as fun as my usual grocery store romps. I added prices up as I went along, careful not to go above the magic number: $60. I sacrificed when I had planned to splurge (if by splurge, you mean spending an extra $.50 for name brand), to ensure we’d have enough food for the week.

My food came from three sources: the local farmer’s market, Schnuck’s, and Dierberg’s. All items purchased are all natural or organic, even store-brand items, with the exception of the Cracker Jacks and Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix. Here’s what I purchased from each store:

Farmer’s Market:

Bell peppers (5) - $2
Onions (1 lb) - $2
Red potatoes (6) - $2
Green beans (1/2 lb) - $1
Sweet corn (2) - $1
Jalapeno and poblano peppers – $1
Eggs (2 dozen) - $6
1/2 head garlic – $.50
Grass-fed ground beef (not pictured – 1/2 lb) - $2.50

Notes: The ground beef was already in our freezer, purchased at $5/lb. Similar prices could be found for regular beef at the Dierberg’s and Schnuck’s butcher, where you could purchase however much you needed. Eggs were another food option I wasn’t bending on, and I got great deals on the peppers and other misc veggies!

Schnuck’s:

Organic diced tomatoes (2) - $2.26
Organic tomato sauce (1) – $.68
Organic crushed tomatoes (1) - $2.26
Nature’s Pride bread (1) plus 1/2 loaf already purchased - $3.09
Schnuck’s brand whole wheat pasta (1) - $1.00
Schnuck’s brand pasta sauce (1) - $1.39
Schnuck’s brand creamy peanut butter (1) - $1.67
Organic strawberry jelly (1) - $2.69
Organic chicken broth cans (2) – $.86 (grocery distressed!)
Schnuck’s brand whipped butter (1) - $1.78
Prairie Farms sour cream (1) - $1.18
Cracker Jacks (1) - $1.00

Notes: All Schnuck’s brand items are all natural and contain no artificial anything. I wanted to buy all organic dairy but it just wasn’t possible. I would have preferred organic peanut butter and pasta sauce as well but again, not possible on this budget. The Cracker Jacks were on sale and something sweet for after dinner, and the clearance organic broth was a lifesaver!

Dierberg’s:

Borden block cheese (2) - $4
Daisy cottage cheese (1) - $2
Heritage Organic milk (1) - $5.59
Jiffy corn muffin mix (1) – $.50
Mom’s Best Honey O’s (1) - $1.75
Mom’s Best Oats and Honey (1) - $1.75
Bananas (4) – $.93
Bulk organic black beans (1 lb) - $1.70
Bulk organic pinto beans (1/2 lb) - $1.05
Bulk organic popcorn (1 lb) – $.92 (cheap snack!)
Bulk organic quinoa (1/4 lb) – $.92

Notes: The bulk bin really saved my budget! Also, this Mother’s Best brand of cereal is always a really great price and 100% all natural. I splurged on the milk – found out when I got home that it’s not even a full gallon! More like 3/4 of a gallon. Expensive but something I didn’t want to bend on.

Grand total: $58.97

Under budget (remember, I live in Illinois, where people receive $35/week instead of $29, so I'm compromising!! The $1.03 leftover will be used to cover any emergency bread/PB/pasta purchases towards the end of the week.

I was proud that 98% of my purchases were all natural. I have told people from the beginning – all natural is first and foremost. If you can afford organic, more power to you, but all natural should be a priority! I think I did well keeping that in mind.

Tonight we’re having a basic chili recipe for dinner (posted tomorrow). We’ll see how the rest of the week goes! I do have to admit we have one change of plans for the week – weeks ago, I inadvertently bought St. Louis Cardinals tickets for Friday night, and had planned to visit Taste of St. Louis beforehand for dinner. We are still planning to do so, but will add an extra dinner likely Sunday evening.

I’ll keep you posted!

Question: Do you think this challenge can be misconstrued as offensive? Why or why not?

(See some of my thoughts on this in my last post)

Hunger Challenge – Final Thoughts

2011-09-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

We successfully completed the hunger challenge. We were never hungry as we predicted, but we did not expect the monotony we experienced with what we did have to eat, admittedly a small price to pay if you have few food dollars.

We mostly heard astonishment from people when we shared we were doing the challenge. “You can’t eat for $4 a day,” and not surprising it was new news that $29 is all that is allotted per person weekly for food while on SNAP (food stamps). Someone suggested eating from the McDonald’s dollar menu, which is not possible since SNAP cannot be used for prepared foods. People asked if we were eating a lot of pasta and rice, which may be a fill-up-you-belly option, but one that lacks vegetables, is higher calorie, and is hard if you are living with a disease like diabetes, prevalent with many Food Outreach clients.

The most arrogant, rude, and ignorant comment we heard was from someone who said that if people would just get a job they wouldn’t need food stamps. WRONG. An August 2011 USDA report stated 60% of those who receive SNAP DO have earnings, granted they have to earn below 130% of the Federal poverty line. For a family of four that’s a monthly gross income of $2,748. Trying to actually LIVE on that would make the hunger challenge look like child’s play!

We’ve posted some lessons learned in prior posts, but to recap:

You shop somewhere inexpensive, close to your home, and infrequently. Most SNAP recipients shop monthly and then run the risk of not having enough food at month’s end. Hopefully they have access to other resources such as Food Outreach or a pantry that gets food from Operation Food Search.

Coupons are helpful in keeping food costs down, but a SNAP recipient may not have access to newspapers or the Internet/printer.

You eat inexpensive foods and have limited choices. Fresh fruits and vegetables are infrequent. Ditto for low fat meats and fish (other than canned, fish is not likely in your food budget at all). And forget about a pantry of spices, which is an easy way to jazz up bland foods without a lot of added sodium (key for someone with hypertension, another secondary condition of some diseases such as HIV/AIDS).

Healthy eating is very doable, but it requires a lot of planning, time (e.g., dried beans are much cheaper than canned, lower sodium too, but must be soaked and take a while to cook), and discipline (you make your meal plan for the week and you stick to it).

Your social life does not revolve around food like ours does. Likely you eat to survive. Period. But it’s not joyful or celebratory. Certainly no nice dinners out – because you don’t feel like cooking (you don’t eat then!) – or even to celebrate a birthday, anniversary, or graduation.

The simplest things, like a pot of freshly brewed coffee (or a second pot if you want more) or a mid-afternoon snack like an apple to combat a bit of hunger fatigue, ARE luxuries.

These few days have been a miniscule view of what it’s like to eat the way those reliant on SNAP do. An eye-opening experience for sure. We’re blessed that we have the choice to go back to our normal routine. The night after we ended our challenge, we had grilled grass-fed tenderloin filets, and organic red potatoes and corn on the cob (from our CSA box) with basil butter. Did we think twice about how lavish our meal was? YES. I really struggled in writing this post. We are so fortunate, and it was hard for me to really capture how this experience has impacted us. We already know we are doing the challenge for a full week next September.

We did end up finding a new black bean chili we really enjoyed and it can be found on my blog.

Denise and Craig Evans

Johnna52's Hunger Challenge planning and shopping

2011-09-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

Hi there! I'm Johnna, a gluten-free, vegetarian food blogger from KC. Inspired by friends and family in St. Louis, my husband and I area participating in the Hunger Challenge this week. I'll be blogging here and also at Johnna52 about my experience. Inspired by my husband's Aunt Judy and Stefani of the Cupcake Project, we will attempt to eat nutritious vegetarian and gluten-free meals for $29 per person for the entire week.

I've followed along as other bloggers share their Hunger Challenge stories. I'm broadening my shoulders and stiffening my backbone for the backlash of negative comments, from folks telling me I don't get it, that I don't really understand hunger. They are right. I'm blessed with an ample food budget and while I've experienced financially lean times, I've never been on food stamps or gone to bed hungry. I'm participating in the Hunger Challenge to learn, to gain understanding. I also hope to prove to myself it is possible to eat gluten-free on a very tight budget.

As I planned the week's menu, I decided to make use of coupons and a Living Social deal to Whole Foods. I thought I would use public transportation to get across town to Whole Foods and had my first eye-opening experience. To get from where I live, on the north end of Kansas City, to Whole Foods in the south part of the city, would require me to ride my bicycle 6 miles, transfer 3 times on the bus and spend a whole lot of time waiting on said buses. The total travel time from my home to Whole Foods and back would be almost 12 hours. There will be no Whole Foods shopping this week.

Instead, I chose to shop only at places within 3 miles of home or those places that I work nearby. I shopped at Trader Joe's and Cargo Largo when I was within 3 miles of them due to work, no special trips to shop. I also used lots of coupons and asked for a bit of guidance from fellow KC Blogger Kelly of Kansas City Mamas. I combed the grocery store ads, took advantage of Hy-Vee's One Day Sale, planned for an entire week in a way I never have before,knowing last minute trips to the grocery store could compromise the budget.

It was stressful, I worried a lot about having enough food, being able to afford food that would nourish us and provide enough energy for our physically demanding lifestyles. I spent time being angry, a waste of energy, because I could have bought cheap boxed mac & cheese for a quarter at the one-day sale if I were able to eat gluten. If I would just budge on my no-HFCS rule, we could save $1.50 on jelly, $1 on spaghetti sauce. Just in planning the meals and shopping, I was learning so much, experiencing so many emotions related to both a limited budget and food restrictions. The overriding feeling is that I'm pissed that anyone goes hungry in America, I'm angry that buying healthy food is so expensive. I had no idea this would be so emotional.

I've already made mistakes in shopping. I bought one too many bags of rice, $0.62 gone from the budget. It was such a great deal, I thought I should buy two. If this were my reality, I could save it for the next week, but it could run the budget short. I made a large error related to a coupon. I had a terrific coupon for one free Amy's item. I chose a gluten-free, dairy-free pizza that was $9.35. At the cash register, the coupon only scanned for $5. I neglected to read the fine print on the coupon and spent $4.35, a whole day's food budget for one of us, on a frozen pizza. Instead of telling the cashier I needed to put it back, which is what I should have done, I paid for the pizza and now we have to deal with my expensive mistake.

In buying produce, I've struggled with knowing who offers the best price. Trader Joe's sells by unit and there is no scale to weigh the items to know how the price compares to stores that sell by the pound. On a limited budget, I couldn't drive back and forth across town several times to research who has the best price. I've stressed about buying something and then discovering it was cheaper elsewhere. I stressed about the clerk at one store not giving me my nickel in return for me bringing my own shopping bag.

Tomorrow we start eating the meals I've planned for the week. While technically our week on the Hunger Challenge hasn't started, I've already learned a lot. What I've already experienced has inspired next year's blog project at 52 Sweets (more on that at the end of the week) and showed me how lucky I am to eat the way I do. Feeling extremely blessed...

Photos of this week's meals will be shared in this Facebook album.

Every Little Thing Blog's HC Plan

2011-09-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday folks! Now that my Hunger Challenge is almost here, I'll be posting updates on here and on my own blog, Every Little Thing. I encourage you to pay a visit over there as well!

Some thoughts first. A friend of mine has been criticized recently for the way she chose to go about the Hunger Challenge. I’ll save you the details but her plan for the Challenge leaves me with this thought:

What exactly is the point of this Challenge?
Is the point to live as much like the stereotypical person on food stamps for a week? Or is the goal to step outside your comfort zone and into another’s shoes for seven days?

For a while, I thought it was the former but now? I believe it’s the latter. There is no stereotypical person on food stamps and to pretend I can mimic their lifestyle seems like a silly goal. In fact, it can make this whole Challenge seem somewhat offensive! That said, if the goal of this challenge is:

to experience the struggle that those on stamps feel every time they grocery shop
to note the true challenge in trying to feed yourself a nutritious, healthy meal when processed, chemical-filled food is so cheap and convenient
to experience another’s hardship, if only for one week

…then I’m in. I can’t pretend to be a person on food stamps, but I can empathize and challenge myself to live differently.

***

Now, let’s talk about a menu! Here’s my dinner plan:

Sunday: Chili
Monday: Eggs, potatoes, toast
Tuesday: Baked pasta
Wednesday: Black bean soup & quinoa-stuffed peppers
Thursday: Eggs, potatoes, toast
Friday: Tuna cakes
Saturday: Grilled cheese & tomato soup

Lunches will consist of leftovers and PB&J sammies, and breakfasts will include cereal and hard-boiled eggs.

I created a shopping list based on the very high end price of each item and came to $72 – $12 over where I need to be. I’m hoping that by cutting a few corners and finding items on sale (even clearance), I’ll keep it to $60.

I’m going to the farmer’s market tomorrow morning (more and more markets are now accepting food stamps!), then piecing together the rest of the menu with trips to Shop ‘N Save, Schnucks, and Dierbergs (all within 3 miles of my home).

A few things I thought were important:

Shopping within close distance to my house (many on food stamps rely on public transportation or stores close to home)
Limiting coupon use (basic store coupons/sales are fine, but most people don’t use more than a couple coupons per transaction, whether on stamps or not!)
Eating nutritiously, yet realistically (I want us to be full and satisfied while keeping within my food beliefs)

I’ll update after I shop on Sunday! Wish me luck :) Please visit the to follow my (and other bloggers!) journey through the challenge!

Virtual Can Drive

2011-09-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

We are getting canned goods shipped to our door every couple days from generous supporters just like you! We'd like to raise 3,000 cans this month and one of the ways we can meet that goal is through our "virtual drive" set up through an Amazon wish list. The best part? Orders over $25 ship free! Click here to send us cans!

Make sure to include a gift note with your order so we know who you are!

Rhubarb and Honey's Hunger Challenge Continues

2011-09-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

After a rough start to the Food Outreach Hunger Challenge, I am happy to report that days 2 and 3 of the challenge have been a bit brighter for The Chef and I (to learn more about our participation in the hunger challenge, read my introductory post for all of the details).

Our planned menus for these two days pretty much accomplished what I had hoped to achieve when starting this challenge: to eat nutritious meals made from good, clean food and to also be satisfied at the end of the day. I say "pretty much" though because I had also hoped to have a variety of meals and foods throughout the challenge, but I quickly learned that shopping with a limited budget automatically leaves you with limited meal choices, which means we're eating the same things over and over ... and since we didn't have any money to buy spices, we're only flavoring our food with salt and pepper.

Please, please, please don't mistake this is as whining; I know that any food, seasoned or not, is better than no food when you're hungry. It just never crossed my mind until we went shopping for the challenge how little flexibilty in meal preparation we would have; what we purchased is what we have to eat. Have a craving for something different? Too bad because there isn't any money left to buy something else.

One of the things I love about food is the pleasure eating brings; trying new foods, new flavors, and new recipes is something I enjoy and look forward to each week. These last few days, I've found myself more appreciative of food, but (with the exception of dinner last night) not necessarily enjoying each meal as I usually do. This made me wonder ... do people living on food stamps derive pleasure from their meals or is eating just a means to an end, ie, is it just fuel to make it through the day? I truly hope these questions don't come off as condescending; I am honestly interested in understanding more about their experience.

So, what have we been eating? Here's the rundown:

Breakfast Day 2: Cooked oatmeal made with 2% milk and topped with organic trail mix

Lunch Day 2: Leftover brown rice and edamame (from Day 1) with a baked chicken drumstick

Dinner Day 3: Spicy "Southwestern" soup made with Whole Foods dried soup base, organic pinto beans, ground turkey, and tomatillo salsa

Breakfast Day 3: Breakfast burritos made with organic tortillas, "refried" beans (made from the organic pinto beans leftover from last night's dinner), scrambled eggs, and tomatillo salsa

Lunch Day 3: Leftover "Southwestern" bean soup

Dinner Day 3: Baked chicken drumsticks, rice pilaf, and roasted organic green beans and sweet potatoes

Of all the meals we ate, the spicy "Southwestern" soup made with Whole Foods dried "Southwest" soup base, organic pinto beans, and ground turkey was by far my favorite. It was hearty, flavorful, nutritious ... and inexpensive. The recipe we created (posted here) made 10 cups and cost $6.72, which means each generous 2 cup serving is only $1.34. This soup will definitely be making an appearance in our house again.

Spicy Southwestern Bean Soup

Ingredients:

1/4 pound dried pinto beans
1/2 pound dried "Southwest" soup mix (from Whole Foods bulk section; approximately 1 cup)
1 small onion, diced
1 small jalapeno, diced
1/2 pound ground turkey
1/2 cup tomatillo salsa

Directions:

1. Cover pinto beans with water and soak overnight.

2. When ready to make soup, combine 5 cups water with soup mix in a large pot. Saute onion and jalapeno in a small saucepan; when tender, add to soup.

3 Simmer soup mixture for 1 hour. At the same time, simmer the pinto beans in their soaking liquid (in a separate pot) for 1 hour.

4. Drain pinto beans; reserving 2 cups liquid. Add beans and reserved liquid to soup; continue to simmer for 20 minutes.

5. Brown ground turkey in small saucepan; when browned, add salsa.

6. When soup mixture is done simmering, add turkey and salsa mixture. Turn off burner; let stand 30 minutes.

7. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper if necessary; serve.

Notes: The recipe requires some advanced planning since the beans must be soaked overnight; if you forget to soak your beans though, you can easily substitute 2 cans of pinto beans (rinsed) and two extra cups of water.

While most of our meals weren't the most creative or flavorful, I have to say that I wasn't that hungry either day, which was a great improvement over day one. Here's to the rest of the challenge and the lessons still to be learned.

~Kimberly
Rhubarb and Honey

Hunger Challenge Day Two – A Less than Exciting Dinner on Monday

2011-09-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

Last evening’s dinner was vegetable rice casserole, based on a recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook. It was healthy, inexpensive, filling, kind of dry, very bland, and really boring. I will likely make it again and use the white wine and the amounts of cheeses and sour cream the recipe specifies, which my budget did not allow this time. For instance, I used no cheddar. And with spices other than just salt and pepper, perhaps nutmeg and a little cayenne. Any way, we know we must eat it for lunch one of the next few days. Craig debated having it for lunch today so it’s gone, but the aroma of the spicy chili I made early this morning lingered in the kitchen and won him over hands down. Chili recipe forthcoming. At least we have a few choices.

I made an observation while we were eating last evening: we were politely quiet. Actually, I don’t think we said a word. We just ate to be done so we could clean up and get on with the rest of our evening. Eating is – and should be – profoundly social. Meals are where people gather and food is shared. Delicious foods add joy to life and bring great pleasure – the tastes, aromas, texture, and appearance for food all enhance the experience of eating.

PONDER: are those living on food stamps forced to give up this pleasure? Do they feel an isolation associated with eating, like dinner felt last evening? If you are a Food Outreach client, do you get the same pleasure from eating as most of us – or – do you view eating as a chore to get enough food to simply fill your belly and fuel your body for a day?

PONDER: Do folks on SNAP recipients ever have an opportunity to snack? I did an early evening work out and came home “ravished” (not really, but I sure would have appreciated a bit of protein). Unfortunately, we had nothing in our budget to allow for noshing.

Click here for a version of the vegetable rice casserole that may be really good.

Denise and Craig Evans

Day one down, and a new one for us - a completely meatless day. And it was okay.

2011-09-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

Our bellies were full, and we ate healthy.

Breakfast was similar to what Craig eats every day, but with one big exception. While grocery shopping, we had to cut whole wheat English muffins from our list. One package of six muffins costs twice what a loaf of 100% whole wheat bread (16 slices of bread, enough for eight servings of toast) costs. Spread two tablespoons of peanut butter on the toast, a serving size that is actually quite generous, a banana, and coffee, and you’re off to a great start to the day. I can live without wine, but I couldn’t work with a caffeine headache, so we agreed we HAD to budget coffee into our total – about $1.20 a day for a full pot (seriously, who thinks of java as being 15% of your daily allotment of food dollars?!?!). We didn’t finish the pot in the morning, and it was SUCH a treat – and pick me up – iced in the afternoon.

LESSON: if you prefer one food over another, too bad. You eat what's cheapest.

LESSON: “Real” plates, glassware, and flatware make food taste better as I experienced drinking my iced coffee in a glass (versus the old, plastic Kreiger cup I had been drinking water from up until then today). This is one of the reasons Food Outreach’s Monday Hot Lunch program is so vital. It allows clients to experience a three-course, restaurant-style meal. The kind of thing most of us take for granted, but not folks living on SNAP.

Lunch was really tasty and very filling, but frankly repetitious, due to a few errors I mentioned yesterday. While I was reheating the soup, Craig mused that most days he snacks while we’re getting lunch ready, and we almost always have cheese and crackers with a glass of wine while we make dinner. Not today because we have nothing easy to snack on (we did get real popcorn but that takes too much time to pop for quick snacking). I missed my after lunch, fun size Peppermint Patty, something I consider a not-too-bad-indulgence – dark chocolate and low fat/calories, right?

LESSON: eating cheap requires planning and time, things someone battling HIV/AIDS or cancer has in short supply. And snacking and simple indulgences are never considerations. Typically I would not think of spices (such as a good curry powder that is excellent in the soup) as a luxury, but they are on a budget.

If you want to see the recipe for the Lentil-Sweet Potato Soup, click here and you’ll be redirected to my blog.

I failed to mention that our total for our four days of the challenge came to $31.49.

Denise and Craig Evans

My Food Challenge for the week of Sept. 11-17th

2011-09-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

My name is Mary Banach and I am a part-time Dietitian at Food Outreach. I enroll new clients with cancer into the Food Outreach program and do nutrition counseling with clients as needed. I thought I should do the Food Challenge to get a better idea how difficult it is to eat healthy on a limited budget, as many of our clients live of very limited income. I am doing the Food Challenge this week from September 11-17^th.

I spent a lot of time trying to plan healthy meals that I could afford and would also enjoy eating. I knew I could afford enough healthy food, but I wanted to make sure I would not be miserable eating beans & rice all week. I also knew I could afford a lot of junk food, but I wanted the foods to be similar in nutrition to what I am used to eating. It was difficult to plan meals ahead of time, not knowing exactly what all the ingredients would cost. I had to make a lot of price estimates and use a calculator at the store to make sure I would not go over. I decided to go to Aldi, because I thought I would get more value for the money I had to spend.

I was surprised how limited my food choices were at Aldi. Aldi does not carry brown rice or cornmeal. I had to stop at Shop-N-Save to get these ingredients. I could have bought white rice as a substitute for the brown rice, but they had no substitute for cornmeal. I planned to eat cheese grits with fresh fruit/veggies for lunch on most days, so I really needed this item. It seemed like there were many options of less healthy foods like chips and sugary cereals and less options of healthier foods.

Many times, the healthier options are more expensive. You can get a whole gallon of “citrus punch” for the same price as ½ gallon of 100% orange juice. I could have bought a whole pound of hot dogs for 99 cents, but opted for ½ dozen of eggs for 99 cents and they are nitrite/nitrate free, which is something I try to limit.

I drove 9.5 miles round trip to shop at the 2 grocery stores and spent at least 1 ½ hours shopping with all the price comparing I did. If I was really on food stamps, I probably would not have had a car and would have needed to walk or take the bus. The closest grocery store to my house is about 1 mile each way and does not have very good selections, but is probably where I would need to go. I spent a lot of time price comparing, which would have been difficult if I had children with me or I was not feeling well. I also did not have any kids begging me for candy/chips/ice cream, which if I purchased, I would have had to put healthier options back.

I also tried to avoid convenience foods like frozen prepared meals and Rice-a-Roni because they are more processed and have less value for the money. I really had to be careful to choose recipes without a lot of ingredients (each item adds up) and plan on cooking only 2 dinner entrees for the week and eating leftovers the other nights.

I was so relieved my crock-pot recipe came out good last night, because I need to eat it for dinner for 4 nights. I winged it using ingredients I could afford and it came out great. One bowl filled me up and it made a lot. It will be plenty for 4 nights and maybe even a lunch or 2. I felt full and that was nice because I felt kind of hungry all day even though I did not skip any meals. Not sure how I will feel after I finish my 4^th meal of it, but at least it tasted good and was made with healthy ingredients.

I spent a lot of money to be able to have a cup of coffee similar to what I am used to. $6.16, but I just could not bear to skip my coffee everyday and I don’t like using artificial creamers or drinking it black. I was a little disappointed with the after taste of the coffee I was able to afford, but at least I had my coffee.

The bit I splurged on chocolate was really worth it. I savor those bites of my meager portion of chocolate after dinner.

Here is what I bought for my 7 days and $29.00.

My Purchases

Fruit/Veg.:

1 bunch celery $1.19
2# carrots $1.39
1 grapefruit $ .45
4 necterines $1.40

1 kiwi $ .44
16 oz. frozen Asian veggies $1.65 (after coupon

Proteins:

whole chicken (~4 lbs.) $3.70
6 eggs $ .99

Grains:

16 oz. brown rice $ .68 (after coupon)
24 oz. cornmeal $1.58

20 oz. raisin bran $1.89

Dairy:

½ gallon milk $1.97
8 oz. sharp cheddar $1.99

Coffee:

11 oz. coffee $2.49

32 oz. ½ & ½ $1.79

4 lbs. Sugar $1.88 smallest size available

Sweets: 7 oz. chocolate bar $1.99 (dessert for the week)
Total cost $27.46 plus tax 1.44 = $28.90

I did not know I could exclude tax from the total. I might go back and spend the additional $1.54!

Chicken, Rice, Veggie Slow-Cooker Recipe

4# whole chicken, separated into 4-8 pieces
2 cups brown rice

4 cups water
3 large carrots, quartered length-wise and cut into 1” pieces

6 celery stalks, sliced into ½” pieces

~1 tsp salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients in 6 quart slow-cooker and set on High for 4 hours. Mine turns to warm after the cycle completes, so it was ready when I got home from work.

Rhubarb and Honey's Hunger Challenge: Day 1

2011-09-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned previously, The Chef and I are participating in Food Outreach's $29 Hunger Challenge, in which we'll attempt to eat nutritiously over a period of 7 days on only $29 each (the average weekly food stamp allowance here in Missouri). We chose today as day 1 of our challenge ... and to say it was a challenge is putting it mildly.

Let's dispense with the nitty gritty first. Based on things we have going on next weekend, The Chef and I decided to shorten our challenge schedule from seven days to five days (today through Friday). We completely realize that people living on food stamps do not have this luxury, and it was not an easy decision for us to make. It was also the first of many reminders of just how lucky we are to be able to make the carefree food choices we do.

Since we didn't have time to shop this weekend, we set out to Whole Foods (our usual grocery store) this morning with our new food allowance of $20 each (based on $4 worth of food stamps per day over 5 days). This gave us a grand total of only $40 for five days worth of groceries for the two of us. I think fear immediatly began to set in as to whether we could actually eat nutritiously on such a short amount of money ... and not go hungry.

Before we departed for the grocery store, we felt we should eat something for breakfast. Since we hadn't shopped ahead of time, we decided to each eat one fried egg with a touch of salsa and then "deduct" this from our morning purchases. With fried eggs in our bellies and $40 in our hands, we were off.

Our typical shopping trips to Whole Foods usually involve The Chef and I cruising the aisles, deciding on things to make for dinner each night based on what looks good and what's in season (ie, not based on how much something costs though we try to keep costs to no more than $80 to $100 per week ... and usually much less if we're getting a CSA pick-up that week). We choose foods that are local, organic, minimally-processed, and artisinally- and sustainably-produced. We also sometimes just grab things we may not need for the week, but that are either intriquing or are on sale (because of this, it's a good possibility we could eat just from our pantry and freezer for a week and still come up with unique and interesting dinner ideas, but that's another challenge in and of itself). As I mentioned before, we are extremely lucky to be able to shop this way.

Today's shopping trip was an eye-opening experience. We spent over two hours at the store, carefully checking food prices to see what things cost and figuring out what would give us the most bang for our buck. It also raised a lot of questions. Should we skip organic foods to maximize our money? Because I believe that good, clean, healthy food should be available to all, we decided that we must purchase as much organic food as possible. I guess this is what the challenge really means to us. Can you eat good, clean, healthy food on a limited budget ... and not go hungry?

We also questioned the use of coupons to save money. In the end, we chose not to use coupons because couponing requires both time and access to a computer and printer, both of which we assume people living on food stamps may not have. I'm certain this doesn't apply to all people living on food stamps, but because it applies to some, we choose not to use coupons at all.

So, what did our $40 get us at Whole Foods? Here's the rundown of exactly what we purchased:

1 lb organic rolled oats $1.35
1/2 lb organic trail mix $3.17
1 lb organic brown rice $1.62
1/2 lb organic pinto beans (dried) $0.80
1/2 lb organic green split peas (dried) $1.00
1/2 lb rice pilaf mix $1.48
1/2 lb "Southwest" soup mix (dried) $2.88
2 organic jalapenos $0.64
2 organic yellow onions $0.52
1 bulb organic garlic $0.45
1/2 lb organic green beans (fresh) $1.23
4 bananas $1.11
2 limes $0.80
6 chicken drumsticks $2.81
1 lb ground turkey $3.46
1 dozen cage-free eggs $2.99
1 lb organic edamame (frozen) $2.39
1 10-ounce package butternut squash (frozen) $1.99
1 16-ounce package vegetable medley (frozen) $1.69
1 package organic tortillas $2.99
1 16 ounce jar tomatillo salsa $2.99

Add in tax, and we spent exactly $39.94.

Leaving the store, we felt pretty good about our purchases and our plans for our upcoming meals. However once we got home, laid out what we bought on the kitchen table, and started writing out our menu for the week ... we suddenly didn't feel too good anymore. It became apparently fairly quickly that we were going to be hungry this week (in all honesty, we were already hungry having only eaten one egg each that morning). It also became apparent that we had forgotten to include any dairy. We chose to set aside the jalapeno, onion, garlic, and limes we bought (since we had also bought salsa to flavor our meals) and made a quick trip to another local grocery store to purchase a 1/2 gallon of 2% milk. I realize (again) that people living on food stamps wouldn't have the ability to do this (but I'm fairly certain they would have made the smarter purchase in the first place).

We forgaged ahead with our plans for lunch ... steamed brown rice and edamame topped with a fried egg (don't worry ... that was the last fried egg in our hunger challenge). As The Chef cooked our eggs, I portioned out our alloted 1/2 cup brown rice and 1/2 cup edamame for each of us ... and it was then that I knew we were going to be hungry, perhaps really hungry, this week. At 4:00, we each ate a banana as a snack, though it didn't seem to do much to curb our hunger.

By the time dinner rolled around, we both felt truly hungry ... and the thought of our planned meal of 1 chicken drumstick, 1/2 cup brown rice, and (yes, you guessed it) 1/2 cup edamame, was neither appealing nor satisfying. Perhaps it was that thought, compounded by the realization of just how hard this challenge was on only the first day, but both The Chef and I broke down ... and ordered a pizza.

I am extremely embarrassed to admit that we didn't last one full day on the hunger challenge. Should we have left our food philosophy at the door? Should we have chosen cheaper, more processed foods so that we'd have more to eat and therefore be less hungry? Perhaps. Or perhaps this is was one of the lessons we were meant to learn.

The Chef and I plan to continue the hunger challenge as planned for the rest of this week. I've reviewed our menu and I'm more confident about the next four days. I guess only time will tell whether we can truly complete the hunger challenge, but I already know that I understand a bit more about the struggles people living on food stamps face ... and I'll never take our food lifestyle for granted.

~Kimberly
Rhubarb and Honey

Today's our first day doing the hunger challenge

2011-09-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

As we were enjoying amazing sushi, cocktails, and wine with friends on Friday evening, the tone of the conversation turned serious as we talked about Hunger Action Month. Craig and I are taking the hunger challenge because we need to understand what it’s like to walk in the shoes of the hungry and to raise awareness how widespread food insecurity is in our own community.

I am confident we’ll have enough to eat, and our meals will be healthy. But we’re fortunate because I know how to cook. I am well-versed in meal planning and cooking nutritiously and inexpensively – rice, beans, lentils – with planned leftovers for lunches. We also have access to many resources that most Food Outreach clients do not have. We can drive to a farmers’ market to get seasonal (and cheaper) produce. I have hundreds of cookbooks and can easily go online and retrieve millions of recipes. Our kitchen (in our nice home in a safe neighborhood) is well-stocked with appliances and enough pots, pans, baking dishes, bowls, blah, blah, blah to easily prepare dinner for 25. And we’re really, really healthy! We’re not undergoing chemo or taking antiretroviral drugs that leave us too exhausted or nauseated to cook, and we’re not battling hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol. Hunger is only one of the many hardships experienced by those living with a terminal illness – and – living in poverty.

It took us an hour and a half on Saturday to plan our meals for the four days we are doing the challenge. It never takes me that long to plan meals for an entire week. I usually ask Craig what he’s hungry for and go from there. Not this week. Even buying frozen, (cheaper) tilapia from Whole Foods, the only place we buy fish, is not feasible ($2.99 for six ounces). Typically if we have lentil, sweet potato, and spinach soup, I’d pick up a whole-grain baguette from Trader Joe’s. Not this week. Since I’m making brown rice for a vegetarian broccoli casserole, we’ll have the soup over rice. Nutritious and filling. We usually have at least three or four things for dinner (salad/soup, protein, starch, vegetable). Nope. A small, simple salad – OR – homemade applesauce will be the only other thing we can afford with our soup, chili, pizza, and casserole. Choices on a food budget are extremely limited. And if I didn’t cook, our eating would be likely be peanut butter sandwiches, cereal, and canned and boxed foods (soup, stew, chili, tuna helper), all of which are so much more expensive and nutritionally inferior to home-cooking. And how do you fill half your plate with fruits and veggies as the USDA recommends?

We shopped yesterday, which was very different than normal. We had to eliminate some things from our list to stay within our budget and no organics and no spices. Our fresh produce is limited and basic, and we opted for generic brands, frozen broccoli and canned tomatoes instead of fresh. I don't think we've ever compared unit prices as closely as we did yesterday. When another shopper looked at us like we were freaks as she heard us arguing which peanut butter we could “afford” (I think that was the word that got her attention), we told her about the hunger challenge. She thought it was pretty cool, but she did walk away shaking her head and wished us luck. That’s the thing. Come the weekend, we will go back to our typical eating, unlike Food Outreach’s clients who have no choice but to eat like this, day in and day out.

What we purchased is what we’ll be forced to eat. We have no flexibility to change our minds if we’re in the mood for something else. Since we’re eating dinner leftovers for lunches, I was planning to make both lentil sweet potato soup and black bean chili yesterday so we'd have lunch for today, and we wouldn’t need to eat the same thing for dinner and then lunch the next day. However, I forgot to soak the black beans, so I just made the lentil sweet potato soup for today’s lunch. The issue is that I had made this last week too, and we finished the leftovers on Saturday; so, we’ll have eaten the same thing four times over a five day period. And I just realized I also forgot to make rice, which cooks for 30 to 40 minutes, so all we’ll have for lunch is soup. It hits you what little variety – and – how much planning you have to do to eat on $4 a day.

Denise and Craig Evans

2011 SNAP Challenge: Final Thoughts

2011-09-12T07:48:00.001-07:00

Today is the last day of the SNAP challenge for me and I want to take a few minutes to record my thoughts. As I mentioned in previous posts, this year was about gaining perspective on a plant-based diet so I could make a more informed decision about implementing it or at least more of it, on the Food Outreach menu. Sure a plant-based diet is healthy but our clients depend on us for the bulk of their food and I don't want them to feel like one more thing is being taken from them. If we're going to move more plant-based items onto the menu, they need to be delicious, satisfying, and something I would be happy to eat myself.

What I learned

-A plant-based diet can be satisfying, "satisfying" being the keyword, even for the most diehard meateaters. I'm not going to pretend that my lentil soup had my mouth watering the way a thick slice of prime rib does but I'll no longer judge meatless dishes for the sins of my wife's "chicken casserole"(think one can of chicken in a mountain of pasta).

-An added benefit of the plant-based diet seemed to be weight control. I've been recovering from strep throat for the bulk of the challenge so I have done zero training and I'm down almost 4# in 7 days. I didn't have a fever and last I checked strep didn't make you hypermetabolic. More importantly, I felt full, really full, almost bloated the whole challenge, yet I lost weight. The majority of plant-based foods naturally have a low caloric density because they are almost fat free and full of fiber. To clarify: heart healthy or no, fat has almost twice the cals of protein or carb per gram so when you practically eliminate that from your diet, you free up a lot of caloric budget.

-Eating healthy on a budget is not impossible but it is time consuming because it requires so much planning and meal preparation. I'm an R.D so take this with a grain of salt but I think eating on a budget is the real challenge and not necessarily the healthy part. For example, maybe you can't buy your organic apples or $5-a-box, 100% whole grain, antioxidant infused, fiberlicious cereal but you can buy bag apples or generic oatmeal and still come in on budget. They may not taste as good and/or be what you prefer but that's a budget issue, not a nutrition issue. That being said, I'm a healthy, nutrition professional with my own transportation so I'm not playing on the same field as someone with a chronic illness and dependent upon public transportation.

In closing, it was another valuable experience and I hope to see even more people particpate next year.

Thanks for reading!

Josh

Every Little Thing's Thoughts on Challenge Prep

2011-09-09T04:43:00.000-07:00

9 days! Nine days until my Hunger Challenge week begins. I’m Stacy again, from Every Little Thing, and I’ve started the meal-planning process with some apprehension. Am I ready for this? Thankfully, I have the choice to participate in this challenge, but many do not. $30 per person isn’t much so I’m hoping to spend our $60 budget wisely while keeping our bellies full and bodies fed with nutritious, local food.

> Thoughts on protein: Though I’ve recently been trying to eat less meat (strictly for health reasons), I do enjoy the occasional burger and chicken breast. While meal-planning for the Challenge though, I’ve certainly found the cost of meat to be quite a hurdle in getting the most out of my $60. I’m also picky about my meat, so I’ve decided not to use this meager food budget as a reason to buy a 30-pack of hot dogs or canned chicken. Not to say I don’t understand why people do – a hot dog is better than a hungry belly. That said, my goal is to use this $60 budget to create nutritionally-minded meals, as all natural and fresh as I can, and I think I can do it without processed meat.

The proteins I’ll look for include: beans, quinoa, lentils, eggs, tuna, and any cheap, quality meat I can find. “Cheap, quality meat” is a tall order, but I’m sticking with my goal and not compromising my money if I don’t have to. I’m considering a pound of ground beef from the market for about $5. You can do a lot with a pound of ground beef and I think I can stretch it between several servings of chili and a couple burgers or addition to stuffed peppers.

> Thoughts on snacks: I’m a snacker. I love to eat my lunch in parts – yogurt at 10 a.m; sandwich at 11:30; chips at 1:oo; and so on. $30 per person doesn’t save room for a lot of snack food, so I’ll need to be more mindful of my meals, eating one large portion instead of many small ones. I will also have to eat leftovers, which I’ve had a hard time with in the past. Three words for that: get.over.it.

> Thoughts on the farmer’s market: Many, many people have told me that their farmer’s markets are much more expensive than their regular grocery store. My market can go both ways but I firmly believe that the extra money spent goes towards a greater good and better quality food. I would like to buy much of my food at the market for the Hunger Challenge – this won’t be entirely possible but I’ll do what I can. I already know I’ll purchase peppers, squash, onion, potatoes, and eggs from the market. I’m going to search for cheaper bread options (Companion Early Bird Outlet?) and will carefully price out meat.

> Thoughts on convenience: One thing I can’t deny – convenience goes out the window when you have a limited budget. No canned beans – you can make twice as many with a bag of dry. No individual packages of anything – bulk is cheaper (and less waste!). I’ll be putting more work into all our meals, but lunches specifically. Any individually-sized foods I buy are almost solely for our lunchboxes, so I’ll have to make better use of my glass Pyrex bowls!

My next post will have my budget and hopefully, meal plans. As you’re preparing for your hunger challenge, here's a question to think about:

Do you consider spices, olive oil, and salt and pepper pantry staples, and therefore don’t need to be included in the challenge?

(There’s no way to generalize for all people on food stamps but I feel as though nothing can truly be considered a pantry staple. I have had clients that literally have nothing left in their pantry at the end of each week, and spices are of little concern when you just need food. Salt and pepper may be the one exception.)

Day 3

2011-09-08T06:46:00.000-07:00

Well I'm starting day 3 of the challenge and I'm looking forward to trying a new recipe for lunch. Last night I made a modified version of a quinoa and black bean dish and we'll see how it performs in T-minus 3:22. As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to focus on a plant-based diet this time around so I could gain some perspective for integrating this into the Food Outreach menu.

The Modifications

The first thing I noticed while shopping was this was going to be a quinoa-less, quinoa recipe. It was around $4.00 a box and it wasn't a big box. Dropping 14% of the budget on a box the size of my hand just wasn't going to happen. I settled on the couscous as it was closer to $2.00, although it too seemed to suffer from boxatrophy. Upon examining the nutrition label, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it had 8 grams of protein per serving. I also noticed that one serving was 225 calories which is approaching 3x the calories for 1 diabetes exchange for starches. I'm no food scientist but I'm guessing it's due to the small, dense nature of the product. By comparison, the brown rice in our grocery center has 3 grams for a 150 calorie serving. So you get 28 calories for every gram of protein in couscous and 50 calories for every gram of protein in brown rice.

The other major change I made was swapping out the corn for frozen broccoli. Corn is what I like to call a paper vegetable akin to a paper champion in boxing. It's only a vegetable on paper; as far as the physiological effects on your body, think of it as a starch. Since I'm not a Navy SEAL or training for a marathon, I didn't see any reason to add more starch to a dish that was already giving me 45 grams of carbs per serving. I'm not anti-carb but high carb dishes tend to be calorically dense. For example, about 1/3 a cup of cooked pasta is around 80 calories vs. 1/2 cup of cooked vegetables is around 25 calories. To clarify, for roughly the same volume of food, starches give you almost 3 times the calories!

When it was all said and done I basically had a pot full of couscous, broccoli, 4 cans of black beans, the other half of my chopped onion, and low sodium chicken broth. If I had to do it over, I would cook off the couscous first and then add the broccoli, beans, and onions. I boiled my broth and then added it all which made cooking it more challenging to say the least. I did burn some of it before I realized I'd need to be there to stir it continuously. I tasted the burned couscous and it formed an interesting crispy layer, something between the texture of the crust of corn casserole and a Twinkie. I liked, so I left it in and it adds more of my favorite color; black!

On a closing note, one pleasant benefit for me has been that I've already dropped two pounds. I'm trying to be a certain weight for the Missouri State Arm Wrestling Championships later in the month. Although this will help me, the trend is disturbing, especially if I had a chronic illness, and it's definitely been the food as I've been too sick to train.

Meet James Farmer on Saturday

2011-09-06T09:16:00.000-07:00

Meet James Farmer, author of A Time to Plant, on Saturday, September 10 at Left Bank Books in the Central West End. (399 N. Euclid) This Hunger Action Month event goes from 2-4 PM and James will donate a portion of proceeds from the sale of books to Food Outreach!

2011 Hunger Challenge Day 1

2011-09-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

The Plan

Well this is my third year doing the hunger challenge and each year my goal is to add something to my dietitian toolbox that will make me a more effective resource for our clients. One of the things the program team and I have been discussing at Food Outreach is incorporating a more plant-based diet. The major driver for this discussion has been cost or more specifically how much we could cut food costs by moving in this direction. I could write an entire series of blog posts on this topic so before I jump into a tangent, one objective this year is to gain some perspective on a plant-based diet. Other than the tuna and the neckbones I bought for seasoning, my purchases this year are all plant-based. I'm a HUGE meateater, I generally walk away from meals that don't involve meat, my lower mandible is actually significantly larger than it should be, giving me an underbite and destroying my modeling career and as co-worker likes to tease "you really are a carnivore!". I figure, if I can do this and be satisfied, then it's a good marker for how our clients will embrace it.

Ready, Set, Shop!

Since we were off work yesterday I decided it would be a good day to do my shopping. This somewhat turned out. It turned out that I had strep throat which did not leave me in the mood to navigate Wal-Mart but it created a somewhat more realistic experience relative to what our clients face. In other words, they probably don't feel like bargain shopping with the masses when they're suffering the effects of chemotherapy. So with that in mind, I dismissed the wambulance and headed over to Supercenter.

As I mentioned, I was striving for a more plant based diet but I wasn't really up to doing the math in my head so I played it loose and figured we'd just see what happened at the register. I chose a lane that was empty and told the cashier what I was trying to do. She appeared nervous and new or both as evidenced by her telling me the total around $6.82. As the experience rolled on, people began to gather behind me in line and eventually the cashier stated we were at ~$34.65. I didn't even have all my items up there and I told her to start taking items off. Almost immediately she got flustered and had to call a CSM; this didn't shock me or bother me. The CSM came over and I told her what I was doing and it was as if I was in Jr. High again, back in the principal's office, "explaining my actions". I could tell she didn't believe me as she kept telling me two or three times that I could watch the total in the future on the credit card machine. It would no doubt be embarrassing to have to put items back but I found myself getting a little angry over the condescending tone of the CSM. The lack of professionalism with which I was treated was an eye-opening experience for me.

Let's Make Some Magic!

I arrived home, unloaded, and jumped right into cooking my lentil soup. The experience is as follows:

The Good
-Very tasty and lentils, carrots, butter, and onions are dirt cheap

The Bad
-The neck bones were a bit pricy but the garlic, thyme, nutmeg were just not priorites on my budget. Guess salt and pepper will have to do.

The Ugly
-The labor for this meal was atrocious! Puree lentils? Shred a pound of carrots? Saute the meat and onions separately? I'm supposed to do all of this while sick as a dog? Even cooking it for 1.5-2 hours is a bit unrealistic if you don't have a crockpot. If you couldn't tell I made a few modifications.

Once everything had been chilled and the dishes cleaned, I felt a sense of relief but what if I didn't have this fluff day?

Reflecting on the Challenge

2011-09-02T15:33:00.001-07:00

In talking to my friend Steve Maritz about the Hunger Challenge that my wife Susan and I recently completed, he brought up a quote by Senator Claire McCaskill who once said, “We give people just enough to eat poorly,” and Steve wondered if we end up paying the price down the road in the form of higher health care costs. It is something to ponder, but as Susan and I went through the week eating only the groceries we were been able to buy with our allotted money, it was clear that we were not eating as healthily as we’d been accustomed to. What’s more, the discipline involved in sticking to the challenge had an emotional toll as well. We even argued over food. Susan said at one point that she thought I had eaten more than my fair share of the rations. We decided to spend some of the $6 we kept from our budget to get more bread, tuna helper and another can of spinach, which is just about the only vegetable we could include. Looking back on it, we probably missed fruit most of all.

There’s an episode of I Love Lucy in which Lucy and Ricky and Fred and Ethel are trapped without food in an Alpine cabin by an avalanche and they begin to argue over the only food available to them – a single cheese sandwich. It’s a very funny episode, but it reflects the not-so-funny reality that having limited food can wear on your attitude, emotions and health. We certainly found that to be the case during our Hunger Challenge Experience. More to the point, that’s a big part of the challenge that many people in our community deal with, and that Food Outreach helps to address every day.

in reflecting specifically on the Hunger Challenge, I’d have to say that two things hit me hardest of all: one, it is nearly impossible for an individual to have a balanced, nutritious meal on $29. And two, while this experience involved a little inconvenience, and was very eye-opening, we only had to live it for a week. For many people this is a reality for months, years, even lifetimes.

It is in our power to do something real and tangible to help people face and overcome their challenges by supporting Food Outreach and other vital health and human services agencies with a generous donation to the United Way.

Rhubarb and Honey Takes The Hunger Challenge

2011-09-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

Let's face it. We all get hungry. In today's fast-paced world, we often rush through life, moving from here to there at break neck speed in order to meet the multiple demands placed on us by our families and our jobs. When a hunger pang hits, we often grab something quick and easy in order to satisfy what our body is asking for. Other times, we just endure until we can sit down and eat a proper meal. But while we may sometimes feel like we're starving at these moments, we're not experiencing true hunger ... the hunger that stems from not knowing when we might be able to eat again.

For 1 in 6 Americans, food insecurity and true hunger are a daily reality. Here in Missouri, the US Department of Agriculture estimates that almost 16% of our nearly six million residents face ongoing uncertainty in acquiring sufficient food for their household; of these, almost 6% experience "very low food security," meaning that "the food intake of one or more household members is reduced and their eating patterns are disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food." In other words, they are cutting back on how much food they eat—or skipping meals entirely—because the food just isn't there.

I can't imagine experiencing true hunger, and I especially can't imagine experiencing it while living with a life-threatening illness, such as HIV/AIDS or cancer. But, for the clients of Food Outreach, this is their reality.

Hello. My name is Kimberly, and I'm the author of a local food blog called Rhubarb and Honey. In addition to food blogging, I serve as one of three co-leaders for Slow Food St. Louis and am a former development committee member (and current long-time supporter) of Food Outreach.

Both my husband (an Executive Chef at a private golf club) and I have agreed to participate in Food Outreach's Hunger Challenge, and while it sounds daunting, I know we're up for the challenge. Our personal food philosophy is that healthy, delicious food, preferably produced locally and in a sustainable manner, should be available to everyone. To that end, we strive to use as much locally-produced and/or organic food as possible when we cook, and we're looking forward to seeing how we can each stretch our $29 food allotment ($58 for the both of us for one week) to include foods that fit our food philosphy.

We'll be taking the Hunger Challenge the week of September 11th - 17th, and I'll be blogging about our experiences daily, both on my blog Rhubarb and Honey and here on the Food Outreach blog. Again, we're looking forward to taking the challenge ... and I suspect, we'll all learn something new!

It's a Coupon Phenomenon!

2011-09-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

Coupon Phenomenon's Rebecca Routson joined Food Outreach Dietitian Josh Dale today to teach our clients some of the thrifty tricks Rebecca uses to buy all of her food & toiletries for $50/month. Rebecca's coupon clipping and super saving techniques landed her a spot on TLC's Extreme Couponing. Rebecca is also taking the Hunger Challenge, but she's doing it EVERY week in September-not just one! Thank you for lending your expertise to our clients, Rebecca!

Hunger Challenge Introduction

2011-09-01T04:31:00.000-07:00

People in America are hungry. Children in America are hungry.

An astonishing number of kids come home from school everyday and rifle through the cupboards, hoping that today will be the day they find a rogue pop-tart or or box of mac-and-cheese. An astonishing number of parents go without so that their children can eat a sandwich for dinner.

An astonishing number of people go without because they simply have no other choice.

So what do we do? We donate our time, money, and canned goods. We lament and empathize. We educate those that don’t know or understand. We do what we can.

But do we experience? Put our feet in another person’s shoes? Buy our groceries with another person’s budget?

This September, you have the chance to do just that.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Stacy and I’m taking the Hunger Challenge! I’ll be spending the week of September 18 – 24 eating on a budget that mimics Missouri’s food stamp benefits - $4 a day ($29 a week). However, I actually live in Illinois, where the food stamp benefits are actually $5 a day ($35 a week). Because I’m working alongside Feeding Illinois as well as Food Outreach, I’m setting my budget at $30 a week per person, as a compromise.

There are a few reasons why this challenge is especially meaningful for me. As a social worker, I’ve worked with kids who own one pair of shoes, who have only a bag of chips for lunch, who go home to take care of siblings with a box of rice and the aforementioned mac-and-cheese. I’ve seen how hard their parent struggle to just…survive.

Another reason this challenge holds a special place in my heart is because of my involvement with Slow Food St. Louis. I moved to St. Louis just one year ago and knew exactly one person. Slow Food really helped me find a positive use for my time and meet some of the most caring and friendly people I have ever sat next at the dinner table. The Slow Food mission (“promoting fresh, local, and sustainably-produced food, biodiversity, and the preservation of food traditions”) is true to my heart and something I try to support in every aspect of my life.

So there you have it! Thanks to Food Outreach, I’ll be blogging on this blog as well as my own, Every Little Thing. Feel free to follow along here or on my blog (or both!). I’ll be blogging once a week until I start the challenge on September 18th, when I will blog daily updates.

(As mentioned above, you might also see me blogging over at Feeding Illinois! I’m supporting them in the Hunger Challenge as well)

My challenge motto? Educate. Participate. Challenge yourself.

Hunger Challenge Shapes Our Thinking and Behavior

2011-08-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

The challenges associated with the Hunger Challenge include more than acquiring food with a limited amount of money. They also include adjusting one’s behavior and thought processes. That lesson was brought home to me when I was on my way to work and suddenly realized that I had forgotten my lunch. My first reaction was to forget it and just buy something, but there wasn’t money available for that so I turned around and went home to get it. Ironically, that almost made me late for a meeting related to the United Way – the very organization that helps to support agencies that address hunger and nutrition issues.

Gary Dollar, the president and CEO of the United Way of Greater St. Louis is also taking part in the Hunger Challenge. He observed this morning how we usually “have the privilege of not having to think about food.” But that changes when your resources are limited. Now it feels like food is all we think about. My wife Susan and I have also become much more conscious of the need to ration our food to make sure that the groceries we bought will last us through the week. That means skipping snacks and being very thoughtful about how much we use for meals. In my first entry, I mentioned that we still had $6 left from the money available to us at the beginning of the challenge. Looking ahead, we’re thinking about buying another loaf of bread and maybe some Tuna helper.

For me and many others, meals have become an integral part of our work. We hold meetings over lunch and dinner. But when food isn’t as available, you come to realize that you are perhaps taking it for granted, particularly when others eat their meals while you sit and watch.

I’ve heard that desperate people will sometimes eat things with absolutely no nutritional value – even mud – just to take away for a little while the pain that comes with extreme hunger. While we’re not facing anything nearly as extreme, we have found ourselves this week finishing food that we really don’t like, and drinking a lot of water just to stay as full as we can and keep the hunger pangs away.

Our experiences so far underscore for us the important role that Food Outreach and other agencies play by helping so many people and families understand the importance of nutrition and making it possible for them not just to avoid hunger, but to eat in a way that preserves and protects their health.

Hunger Challenge: Shopping on Day 1

2011-08-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how hunger and a limited budget can focus one’s mind. On our first full day of the Hunger Challenge, my wife Susan and I went to Schnuck’s to begin our shopping. Before heading out, we spent time reviewing the weekly circular and coupons to see what special deals were available to help us stretch the $58 available between us for the week’s groceries.

Choices became our watchword. Generics always won out over brand names. We opted for whole chicken and hot dogs over boneless chicken breasts or beef. We focused on staples that would make meals, but bought smaller containers of things like rice, bread, milk, peanut butter, honey and coffee.

Susan noticed how so many others in the store were checking their coupons and considering their budgets. By contrast – maybe because I violated the old rule never to go shopping on an empty stomach – I noticed how so many others, including families with children, were loading up their carts with such a wide variety of things without apparent regard to the cost. In the end, Susan and I were aware that we had moved from the latter group to the former, making hard choices to see us through the week. After putting back some ground beef we had selected in order to keep a cash cushion for any necessities that might come up in the week, we spent $52, leaving us with $6 -- just in case. We went home and had two hot dogs each for dinner.

The next morning, we had oatmeal for breakfast -- plain, not the flavored kind we usually have -- and then, for the first time in many, many years, I prepared the lunch to take with me to the office that day – a peanut butter and honey sandwich on wheat bread.

A few observations: First, Susan and I really wanted to buy more when we went shopping but we couldn’t with the money available to us. Second the sense of frugality I sometimes feel when we cook and eat at home rather than just picking something up on the way home, is really just a reflection — a shadow -- of the tough choices that so many are compelled to make because they have no alternative. And third, after eating my lunch on Monday, it occurred to me that having limited food makes you follow your mother’s advice to chew each bite 15 times so you can savor every bit. And yet, when I was done, I was still hungry, and it didn’t feel good. But there are a lot of people who can tell you that based on far more experience with daily hunger than I have and you don’t have to look in some far off continent to find them. They’re right here in our community.

Take the Hunger Challenge

2011-08-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

September is Hunger Action Month, and we'd like you to get you involved! As you know, Food Outreach provides critical nutrition services to people living with HIV/AIDS or Cancer, and we are using this Hunger Challenge to help raise awareness about hunger issues and, in particular, the unique nutrition needs of our clients. Food Outreach can provide the equivalent of up to two meals a day, each day, to our clients at no charge, but any additional food items must be purchased by the client themselves. Many rely on the SNAP/Food Stamp program to secure these items (SNAP stands for “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program”).

Hunger Challenge Goals:

· Raise awareness about general food insecurity

· Raise funds to support Food Outreach programs

· Educate people about the specific nutrition needs facing individuals battling a life-threatening illness

PARTICIPANT EXPECTATIONS:

As a participant we ask you to do the following:

· Take the hunger challenge

· Spread the word about Hunger Action Month and the Hunger Challenge by posting on FB, twitter, sending emails and blogging

· Raise funds or host a canned drive for Food Outreach. You will find a sample message in this packet you can share with potential supporters

What is the challenge?

We ask hunger challenge participants to limit their Challenge Week Food Intake to the items that can be purchased based on the guidelines provided below. You will not be issued Food Stamps, but will be asked to limit your food purchases based on the dollar equivalent of a 7-day weekly allotment of stamps (roughly $29). We base the Hunger Challenge on the guidelines provided by the USDA Food Stamp/SNAP program. This is how we determine what dollar total to use for the challenge week. Based on the most recent Missouri SNAP guidelines, we ask you to limit your food purchases to the equivalent of $29 for the seven day duration of the challenge. This is the Missouri statewide average per person. As a participant, you can buy any food item except alcohol, pet food, or heated foods. Additional prohibited items include soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, tobacco, or anything else that is not food.

I hope you'll help us spread the word about hunger this September!

Don't forget to visit the awesome new site created by Spoke Marketing pro bono: http://hungerchallengestl.org/

The Joy of Eating

2010-09-25T07:15:00.001-07:00

One reason I chose to become a dietitian was my passion for food. Some people enjoy learning about politics, marketing, or style...I want to learn everything I can about food.
I consider my place of "zen" when I have the opportunity to spend time in my kitchen creating nourishing dishes. I find comfort in grocery stores. I spend hours researching where my husband and I should go for dinner.
I find "joy" in eating. It is one of the pleasures of life.
Although I ate "nutritiously" throughout this hunger challenge and proved to myself that I could eat healthy on an extremely low budget, I can't say I found the "joy" of eating that I am accustomed to. I take for granted that every single day, I can walk into a food store and "splurge." I take for granted that I can savor a food and not feel guilt. This week, I had a very strict plan that I could not afford to stray away from and it felt constraining. I turned down going out to eat with friends. I turned down easily accessible food when I was hungry. I turned down going in for coffee with my running group because I didn't think I could handle smell of fresh brewed coffee.
Living on this budget separated me socially from friends, reduced my ability to immediately nourish myself when I was hungry, and in the end, stole some of the "joy" out of eating. Participating in this challenge for the second year did not make thing necessarily easier. $28 is $28 and it's restricting, it's challenging, and it's scary to feel hunger. I am blessed that it ends tomorrow. I think that this challenge goes beyond calling us to take action by helping to provide resources for the food insecure, but just as importantly, to give them moments of "joy" in eating.

Late...and Eating Snobby

2010-09-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

Last Monday as I was almost about to savor the last bite of my cake batter flavored frozen yogurt from "Chill," my spoon stopped short and I realized...Oh no! this was the week I had decided to participate in the FO challenge! And there I was so proud of myself that my frozen yogurt treat weighed in at just under $4, when in reality, if I was living off of food stamps, this $4 ice cream treat would have had to last me all day. I decided to start next Monday the 20th.

From participating in this event last year, I knew how much planning it would take to eat "well" feel "full" on $28/week. So, for 1 1/2 hours I slaved over an excel spread sheet calculating what I could and could not afford. At one point, not knowing what I was working on, my husband passed by my computer and commented that I seemed to be tackling, "quite the project."

After using Schnuck's on-line grocery store for price checks, and searching for new recipes, I had finally calculated out all meals and snacks for seven days. I headed off to the store with my detailed list and small budget.

In my original FO blog, I mentioned I had grown tired of lentils from the first challenge. Well, they are back, but they've had a makeover. They have lost that drab brown color and have re-appeared in red. This inspiration came from a cooking demo that my student's performed last year. In this demo, they demonstrated how to make a vegetarian version of sloppy joe's called "Snobby Joes." It was fantastic, and I knew it would be affordable. Protein tends to be one of the most expensive items on one's grocery list, and legumes such as lentils are a satiating and healthy way to fill up on cents.

Snobby Joe Ingredients:

And here is a picture of the finished product, along with my other two items I could afford.

It's day 2 of eating this meal, and I am hoping it not only lasts 5 days more, but that I don't get tired of my new and improved legumes. I look forward to the awareness of hunger this week might bring.

1 in 7

2010-09-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

Recent news reports have announced that 1 out of every 7 Americans live in poverty-the highest proportion of the population since 1994. At Food Outreach, we are increasingly enrolling individuals who never dreamed they would have to go to a food agency. Many of these clients used to donate to food pantries, but now find themselves in need. Year to date, we have provided 21% more meals than in the same time period in 2009.

Lessons Learned

2010-09-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a few days to look back on my Hunger Challenge experience and wow, what an experience it was! Being on such a tight food budget is hard. Really hard. It takes an enormous amount of planning and food knowledge to create balanced meals. Satisfaction and variety are hard to achieve and when you can only spend $28 a week, sometimes you go to bed hungry. I want to thank Food Outreach for this enlightening opportunity. The Hunger Challenge made me appreciate my own blessings and raised my awareness of the reality of food insecurity. This was a valuable experience that I will carry with me into my future as a dietitian.

2010 Food Stamp Challenge Day 1

2010-09-13T14:41:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of my 2010 Food Stamp Challenge and although it will no doubt be easier this year since I know what to expect, it's not an experience I'm looking forward to. The objectives for me are the same as last year: increase my firsthand knowledge of eating on a budget so I can better serve our clients and raise awareness about the food insecurity our clients face. Food Insecurity is a very real issue, right here in St. Louis, MO although you won't see any 3 am TV programs on it and there isn't a gaggle of celebrities doing PR for it.

As for me: Breakfast is always the easiest meal of the day for me because I usually eat oatmeal and today was no different. Lunch is the hardest. Today was the weekly Monday lunch at Food Outreach. This program is designed to provide a restaurant experience for our clients so at least once a week they can still feel as though they still get to go out to eat. Instead of stuffed sole, hushpuppies, and a decadent dessert, I had tuna salad sandwich, a yogurt, and an apple. Dinner will likley be more of the same for me as I have a meeting and won't feel like preparing anything by the time I get home. To be clear, I certainly don't feel sorry for myself as I'm only doing this a week; our clients have no end in sight, I have cast iron stomach; our clients battle numerous GI issues associated with the treatments/meds, and I'm not battling a life-threatening disease and unfortunately, ALL of our clients are.

Variety is the Spice of Life

2010-09-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

When I did my grocery shopping for the Hunger Challenge, I was surprised by the amount of healthy food I could get for $28. I filled my cart with yogurt, whole wheat tortillas, veggies, frozen fruit, oats, beans, and lentils. I proudly brought my healthy bounty home and prepared for my cheap week of eating. Flash forward to Day 7. Yogurt is great, but eating it every. single. day. is getting a little old. And I don’t even want to look at another bean or lentil again. Although 28 bucks can buy you healthy food (one of the things I hoped to prove while completing this challenge), it doesn’t buy you variety. I ate oatmeal every morning with the same frozen blueberry topping. I had to rotate the leftovers from three dishes for my lunches and dinners. I’ve actually started to dread mealtime. I would shovel down the monotonous food and feel full, but never satisfied. I’m craving variety- spices, sauces, new side dishes! When you are on limited funds, variety is a difficult thing to pull off. I’m starting to regret allowing my windowsill herb plants to wither away. Variety really is the spice of life.

As the my last day of the challenge winds down, I am beginning to reflect on all the valuable lessons I’ve learned this week. Tomorrow morning I will be sipping my Kaldi’s coffee with ample gratitude.

No Frills

2010-09-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

After 2 $4 days, I'm really missing my little extras. $28 covers the basics, but it leaves no room for the frills. Yesterday I noticed how many frilly food choices I make on auto-pilot: brewing my morning coffee, adding vanilla almond milk to my oatmeal, buying a slice of banana bread at the cafe on campus, grabbing a small handful of chocolate chips after dinner. As I enviously watched my fellow classmates tote their daily dose of Starbucks and freshly baked banana bread, I realized how oblivious I was to those that can't afford to make these mindless decisions. Food choices that are part of my daily routine are extravagant splurges for others. Eliminating the frills made me realize that they are just that: frills. Extras. Not necessities. However, even though I am getting plenty of calories, forgoing all of my between-meal indulgences has left me feeling a little underfed.

I had to laugh when I read Jen's post because I made a brown lentil soup for dinner last night and as I portioned out the mounds of leftovers into Tupperware, my appetite for lentils quickly began to fade...

A True Temporary Challenge

2010-09-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

I vividly remember my meals during Food Outreach’s 2009 Hunger Challenge, and I haven’t eaten brown lentils since. One my frugal recipe ideas included a lentil dish that oddly combined mint, brown lentils, and tomatoes… long story short, it wasn’t good, and I ate a lot of it. A couple of weeks ago, when I saw an email from Food Outreach in my inbox, it sat there unopened for a couple of days. I admit that I was avoiding it. This hunger “challenge” is just that, truly challenging, and I felt guilty for not wanting to address the email. Many individuals and families in St. Louis and in our country don’t have the option to say no to this email invitation. They live it each day.
I decided to start my challenge on Monday the 13th. This year, Food Outreach gave us the option to choose the week in which we would live off of our $28/week, $4/day food allotment. I chose next week because I am not traveling anywhere, don’t have any visiting guests, and my husband will be on the road with work, so I only have to worry about feeding myself. This timing makes it easier for me to live off of a food stamp budget, but those that are food insecure don’t get to pick and choose.
Before Monday, I will be forced to plan out a week’s worth of meals, re-think any dinner plans with girlfriends, and peruse the newspapers for grocery sales. I already know from last year’s experience, that I can’t afford my morning caffeine jolt, enjoy an after lunch dark chocolate fix, or visit my neighborly restaurant Winslow’s Home. Doing this for the second year lessened the initial shock that I couldn’t afford these indulgences, but my hunger challenge only lasts one week. The following week I am back to mindlessly enjoying foods that others would think hard about before throwing them into their grocery cart or ordering off a menu.
Like last year, I plan on posting any recipes I try, but you can be rest assured one ingredient you won’t see on my grocery list are those brown lentils…

Counting My Blessings

2010-09-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

I begin my Hunger Challenge tomorrow, and I unintentionally had my “last supper” all day today. At every meal I couldn’t help but think about whether or not what I was eating would be feasible on food stamps. Most of the time, the answer was no. No Kaldi’s coffee. No Lara bars. No Local Harvest brunch. No frozen yogurt at Chill. Today I realized that I live a very luxurious food life compared to many people in my community. But that’s why I volunteered to participate in this challenge- to give myself and whoever is reading this a wake-up call.

I am a college student at SLU- you’re probably thinking “that’s not fair, college students already know how to eat cheap.” But I’m not just any college student, I am a Nutrition and Dietetics student. Translation: I love food, I love healthy food, I love specialty grocery stores, I love cooking with all my cookbooks and kitchen gadgets, and I love trying new restaurants. I cut costs in other areas of my life to allow myself a rather hefty (for a college student) food budget. This week will definitely be a challenge.

I grocery shopped for the week today. I decided on two stops, Trader Joe’s and Schnucks, and I did some heavy meal planning before leaving the house. I realize that I already have an incredible advantage because I have the time, desire, and nutrition knowledge to sit down and plan my meals for the week- fully utilizing every item. I also have a car and I’m not dealing with the symptoms of HIV/AIDS or cancer. The process of calculating prices and hunting for the cheapest items was exhausting. My grand total for the week is $27.48.

It’s not even day one and I’m already counting my blessings.

Food Insecurity Worsened In Missouri

2010-08-31T08:26:00.000-07:00

The 2010 Missouri Hunger Atlas shows food insecurity has worsened. "Missouri is one of 17 states with a rising rate of food insecurity. The increase over the past ten years is among the highest five in the country, Rikoon said." Check out this enlightening article about Missouri's hungry.

September 2010: Hunger Action Month

2010-08-30T08:30:00.001-07:00

You might be surprised to know that 36 million Americans go hungry every day. 12 million of these hungry are children. For the past 2 years, friends of Food Outreach have joined Food Outreach staff in the Food Stamp Challenge during Hunger Action Month. This September, we will once again raise awareness of food insecurity by asking individuals to participate in the Hunger Challenge because we believe everyone should have enough to eat.

At Food Outreach, our clients come to us not only hungry, but sick-battling either HIV/AIDS or cancer. As you remember, the average amount our clients would receive in SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) is about $28 a week. Imagine how difficult it is to eat on such a small amount, let alone to eat nutritiously. It is imperative to have proper nutrition every day, but particularly when battling a life-threatening illness.

We would like to invite you to participate this year and hope that you will share your experience on this Hunger Blog. Participants may select any 7 days during the month of September they would like, however Food Outreach's Executive Director, Greg Lukeman, will begin his Hunger Challenge on Monday, September 13th.

Getting set up on the blog is easy. Please e-mail justin@foodoutreach.org if you’d like to participate this year, and feel free to ask friends to join you! It is truly a humbling experience that brings awareness to those dealing with food insecurity.

Check back here often for updates from the individuals who have already signed up to participate in this year’s Hunger Challenge.

2009-09-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

WOW! What an experience this has been. I am so glad that I participated in this hunger challenge (and I have to admit I am equally glad that I have completed it!) The shopping alone was an experience. Price winning out over taste with each purchase. I was happy that I had the skills to put together a healthy variety for the week and still stay in budget I couldn't help but think how difficult it would be for some to put together a healthy menu within this limited budget. When I got to the checkout, I did go over by a few dollars so I had to put some items back. I let the checkout girl know what I was doing and she was great. I couldn't help but think how embarrassed I might be if I REALLY couldn't afford it all and had to put items back.

During the week, I really didn't feel hungry, I felt more bored. My husband Derek, who also did the challenge, and I were eating out of a few grocery bags while our four kids ate out of the entire pantry and refrigerator. I never thought of what a luxury that was. The sad thing was, our kids wanted what we had (plain pasta with sauce, cheap canned juice, etc) and we wanted all the foods they were eating. I'm embarrassed to say that by the end of the week I was actually bargaining and trading foods with my five year old. We were both thrilled!

Other realities that hit home this week was that food was just a small piece of the puzzle for most people. As I did my laundry, washed my hair, used paper napkins, and cleaned my house, I realized that these are items that I take for granted and I would probably have to choose between these and food, utilities, rent, etc. I also watched my kids this week and felt so thankful that we don't have to worry about feeding them or taking care of their basic needs. I was also amazed at how many places I actually got food for free this week: neighborhood block party, culinary class I am enrolled in, a church group I volunteer. My friend even sent a thank you gift card to Cold Stone--it was like gold!

As far as the pregnancy goes, I think I picked the best week possible to complete this challenge. I am at the end of the first trimester so the "green" feeling is subsiding but I am not feeling any more hungry than usual. I did do a cracker trade with my kids midweek since the ones I picked out weren't tasting good to me. I can't imagine what women do at the very beginning of their pregnancies, especially if they don't know what to expect. Being my fifth pregnancy, I pretty much know how to handle/prevent morning sickness. If this were my first pregnancy and I tried to do this challenge--I would have been vomitting all week.

The extra foods from WIC left me with mixed emotions. I worked for WIC in Florida several years ago and I really thought we were significantly helping them out. I will say that milk and juice were pretty much covered which I really appreicated. However, the 3 extra eggs, 4 slices of bread, 4 ozs of beans, and $2.00 for fruits and vegetables were somewhat disappointing. The nine extra ounces of cereal helped me towards the end of the week too. I do still really support WIC since it only allows a well balanced blend of healthy foods. I was just expecting it to be more helpful than it was.

Thank you for including me in this hunger challenge. I think it's been a great experience and I'm sure it will continue in years to come. Good luck to all of you who have yet to complete your week.

The Big Picture

2009-09-14T15:10:00.000-07:00

On the final days of the hunger challenge... I learned at the beginning of the week that with some effort, planning and sacrifice, finding food to sustain myself for the week was not as difficult as I expected. It was the little changes in lifestyle and habit that made it difficult: no coffee, no snacking, bland foods, etc.. As the week went on however, I had the advantage of attending a couple events with "free food." I have to admit that I took advantage of the opportunities, but it prompted a discussion with my (also doing the hunger challenge this week) that people on food stamps probably don't have as many opportunities for such events. Additionally, she brought up the point that if paying for food (the most basic necessity of life) is a challenge, then money for lower priorities (housing, heat/cooling, clothes, transportation, etc.) is also scarce. I began to recognize all of the other things that would also require added effort, planning and sacrifice just to sustain life, never mind contribute to society.
So, what is the "big picture?"... The hunger challenge while difficult at times was only a small piece of the larger reality that a person on food stamps must live within. I did not have the following stressors that a person on food stamps does: sense of permanancy (psychologically I knew the hunger challenge was temporary...I could see the light at the end of the tunnel); isolation (I am part of a social network where sharing of resources is common - i.e. party invites, etc.); instability (I didn't have to worry about money for clothes/laundry, gas, rent, etc.); social embarrassment; etc..
In the end, I gained a new appreciation for the hard work it takes to sustain this lifestyle and the factors that must be overcome to break free from its bonds and become a thriving, contributing member of society.

Social Worker Talks About What Food Outreach Means To Her Clients

2009-09-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

The Little Things

2009-09-09T19:31:00.000-07:00

Day one of the hunger challenge for me. So far the cutting back on quantity hasn't been too bad, but it's the little things that were the most difficult today...no coffee, only water, generic style foods with no spices, not snacking on items while cooking for the kids and the most anoying of all...watching my kids eat whatever they wanted and still leaving food on their plate!

Enjoying beans and tortilla's

2009-09-09T06:40:00.000-07:00

I started my first day of the Hunger challenge yesterday. I was fortunate to pick the 7 days I wanted to do this project, something every day people who go hungry don't have the luxury of doing. This is my first wake up call! I normally shop at Trader Joe's or Schnucks but knew that my 29 dollars wouldn't go very far at these stores. I shopped around prior to starting this and realized Aldi's was my best choice. I am also looking for coupons, something I normally throw away. This shouldn't be a convenience but a necessity. I am taking Josh's advice to purchase oatmeal, peanut butter, beans, pink canned tuna, pasta and then will also use vegetables from my garden. I personally love spicy food and know that it kicks my metabolism up a notch so I will be throwing jalapenos in everything I eat..well maybe not spicy oatmeal! Hmmm..you never know. I feel great empathy towards those who have to eat this way regularly. I already have co-workers asking me if I'm going to be grumpy or less productive. I don't have an answer for them yet but I'm hoping to maintain my positive and energetic attitude....the next 6 days will tell!

Volunteering: One of the many ways you can help.

2009-09-08T13:13:00.001-07:00

Impact

2009-09-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

I am glad I don't have to "think" so much about my food choices today. I am thankful I can eat when I am hungry and not be concerned with choosing a food that fills me up the most, yet costs the least. I am really happy I can eat out with friends and not envy the fact that I can't participate in the same social food-centered outings.

I know this challenge was only 1 week, but it was a challenge. The experience is still very fresh in my heart and mind, but I hope I don't forget when working with future clients some of the lessons I learned.

This challenged affected not only those who participated and blogged, but it touched everyone that we came into contact with. Many eye opening conversations occurred this week between myself and my family and friends. There were many "wows" when people learned about how little those who use food stamps are allocated.

Thank you to Food Outreach for this great hunger challenge event, and thank you for making me a more resourceful, creative, and sensitive Dietitian.

Morning Gratitude

2009-09-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning with much gratitude for the Hunger Challenge and for what I am fortunate to have. I actually have pretty much food left (3 or 4 chicken breasts, LOTS of oatmeal, 2 cans of veggies, pasta, rice, peanut butter, etc.). I was glad I bought the pasta sauce for both the chicken and spaghetti, and cheese and crackers were my dinner or snack on occasion. I sometimes looked at the food and was hungry, but didn't want any of it which is what I am sure what many people feel who know this life too well. I ate half a loaf of white bread which I haven't had since I was probably 10.

I thought a lot about feeding families when you have so little. My son asked several times why I wasn't eating with him when we stopped for lunch or I packed a picnic for him and I didn't have anything (mainly since I can't eat peanut butter in front of him). He was constantly trying to share his food with me and I gently turned him down. How hard that must be for a mother to worry about providing for her own children. So, to help him understand I told him to gather stuffed animals, clothing, games for us to donate to people who didn't have as much and we are going to drop it off at Good Will. We talked a lot about people who don't have things and how lucky we are and to never take it for granted.

Great experience and thankful for all of it.

End of the Road

2009-09-08T08:37:00.001-07:00

Well the Hunger Challenge has come to an end and while I'm glad things are "back to normal", it's hardly cause for celebration when what I experienced for a week, is "normal" for most of our clients. My major goal was to try and experience some and the key word is "some", of what our clients go through in order to increase my ability to troubleshoot these challenges when providing nutrition counseling for them. It's definitely given me some things to think about: lentils: nutrition powerhouse AND convenient..who knew?, affordable sources of dairy, better knowledge base of generic products...WOW they have generic everything now!, and the bulk-buying/inability to carry it home paradox. Thank you everyone that participated and I hope you all learned as much as I did.

-Josh

Oatmeal, let us agree to disagree...

2009-09-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

I did this challenge backwards. I spent the last day (yesterday) driving around to four different stores, comparing prices and bargain hunting. The trade-off is: what you save in food cost you burn in time, frustration and a bit of gasoline. But, once I started seeing the food savings adding up, I felt like I had finally achieved something. Small victories count.
This was a challenge geared toward raising general awareness in the community about the very serious hunger issues facing MILLIONS of people, but I also treated this as a way to self-educate. There are lessons I absolutely needed to learn, but the education is not over yet, and there is a lot of work still to be done.
But, what is over is the seven day hunger challenge itself, at least on paper. I can put down that hated cannister of oatmeal (I see you, quaker man, smug and smiling, WHATEVER), and expand my food horizons. I will start with a tasty pile of tator tots, that's high on my crave list.
Althought it is nice to forget about food limitations and go back to treating food as a "given", there is no forgetting or denying that millions of people are struggling to find a simple meal. Now is the time to do all we can to ease their burdens and help them thrive.

2009-09-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

Week over, at last. Appropriately, I spent a good part of the hunger challenge hungry. Here are a few highlights tendered by my 29 bucks:

Dinner on Monday: “Do people give cookies to homeless people? You bet they do.” My quotable housemate assuaged qualms about raiding a plate of homemade (aka fair-game) fudge cookies. Their sweetened condensed milk gave my mounting hunger pangs a pow-pow.

Lunch on Wednesday: While two of my Sauce colleagues were at Local Harvest Cafe picking up vegan chocolate chip cookies and Morganford Mediterranean salads, I ran across the street to Local Harvest Grocery in search of something filling. Apparently, my face screamed deprivation. Without asking, the dear clerk gave me a bag of Companion rolls. “Free, really?” The answer was yes.

Breakfast on Thursday: Who knew Campbell’s vegetable soup ($1.06) could taste so good – and in the morning, no less?

Feast on Friday: Bless Wes Johnson and Brendan Noonan at Eclipse Restaurant, who hosted a free meal in honor of the full moon and who politely let me pile my plate.

Without receiving handouts here and there, I would never have made it through the week. And truth be told, I gave up on Saturday. My money was spent and I was hungry!

It's Not Greek to Me

2009-09-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

I knew this would happen. The challenge hits smack dab during the Greek Fest which is a foodie's dream and is always a much anticipated tradition. I got a group text to meet at the fest, but had to decline since I didn't want to be tempted. I am again reminded how social food can be. Ever group gathering seems to always have some kind of food component. I feel like an outsider in an eating world. Food can be an expression of compassion and friendship. That is one of the reasons why Food Outreach has a lunch every Monday when clients sit a tables laden with tablecloths and are served restaurant style. It is also about the emotional support that clients can give to one another.

Have to say that the first couple of days were brutal. I was constantly thinking about food, what I wish I could eat, and how long I could stand having at least two bowls of oatmeal every day. I compare the 'sick' feeling in my stomach as what it feels like when you have butterflies. By the 4th day, the pangs lessened, maybe because my stomach was shrinking. Only a few more days. This is a true test in will power.

Day 5

2009-09-05T20:42:00.000-07:00

Confession time!

My birthday was last Saturday. One of the presents I got was a big jar of chocolate-covered raisins. I received other snacky presents because everyone knows I'm a snacky person. But these raisins have been sitting out in our dining room the whole week because my wife believed me when I said on Tuesday that I would be fine if she leaves them out.

So this afternoon, when I decided that I was too tired and cranky to take my daughter to one more place (Hey, she's the one who woke me up at 4:15am and then 6:30am on a Saturday), I ate a handful of choclate-covered raisins to bring me back up. I figured, "If I was poor, people would still buy me things for my birthday." Right?

Otherwise, I've stuck to the Challenge. The chicken/shredded carrot/Ramen noodle concoction was eaten for lunch on Friday. It was okay except 1) I didn't heat it long enough, and 2) the carrot flavor was surprisingly strong. Today I made another batch with just the chicken and noodles. I'll eat that one of these nights for dinner. My other lunches have been the same yummy PB&J on a bagel with a piece of fruit. I have one more banana and one more apple. Dinner each night has been chicken with a carrot and either a potato or noodles. I have one potato and one Ramen package left, not counting the noodles I have cooked with the chicken. I have two chicken breasts remaining. Well, I think they're chicken. The "breast" I ate last night was so large and so flat that I had to wonder what kind of chicked it was. If someone were to come in and test the DNA of that meat, I would not be surprised in the least if the result came back as "turtle" or somesuch.

Saturday is traditionally known in our household as "Donut Day". That is the day when daddy goes to the store in the morning and gets pastries for everyone. For some time now I am the only one who ever gets a donut(s), but my daughter insists on calling it Donut Day, regardless. I spent $0.65 of my money on a maple fritter. That leaves me with $0.20. You could say that I spent that much on the raisins, but I have no idea how much such things cost on a per ounce basis.

Sometime around Thursday, I started anticipating what I would eat when this challenge was over - Where would I go out to eat? What will I order? How many shakes from Steak 'n' Shake could one person safely consume in a single day? Then I wondered how poor people handle it. When there is nothing to anticipate, do you just accept your fate or do you become increasingly frustrated? It's probably different for each person. But I'm guessing that the knowledge that I can and will buy whatever I want in the near future makes it easier to get through this week.

I had a weird observation, too. One of the days I was running around and picking up food drives, I had a sense of burning "clean" energy in my system. Does that make sense to anyone? I eat fruits ocassionally, but not every day. And I certainly do not eat Total every day. I would normally eat high-fat or high-calorie snacks. Could I feel different that quickly? On another note, one day our warehouse staff told me the weight I had picked up from one site where the donations had been collected loose in grocery carts causing me to handle every little bag or single can as I loaded our van: over 1,300 pounds! Sounds incredible, but there were at least seven overflowing grocery carts and I know it completely filled a 5' high tote (one of those giant cardboard boxes that sits squarely on a pallet) in our warehouse. Yeah, I got a bit of a workout this past week.

Tantalizing Aromas....ahhhh

2009-09-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I didn't have lunch since I was out and about and couldn't pop in somewhere to get a salad, sandwich, smoothie, morsel of food that is not in my limited stockpile for the week. I can honestly tell you that I was at a stoplight and the smell of fried chicken was so intoxicating that I stared at a KFC until the light turned green. I thought I remembered a commercial where they had a mashed potato, chicken nugget, cheese bowl thingy and I would of paid big money for one bite. Then I was in The Loop and the smell of garlic was coming out of Miss Saigon....I had never noticed any food smells driving around before. Even today at the Science Center I was watching the families eat pizza -- was so envious.

I miss having the food I want when I want. I think the hardest part is breaking habits of going out to eat and having variety -- I really want chips and salsa or something different from what I am eating. I came home today and made spaghetti noodles with tuna and peas hoping it might resemble a tuna casserole or something other than chicken. I ate a huge bowl of it and my son kept asking if I was going to eat the whole thing and I gave a resounding "yes!". I am glad other people mentioned they overlooked the bruises on food since I cut around the bruises in my banana this morning -- didn't want to waste it! I usually just throw them away and buy new ones...not any more.

I had $1.50 left and thought about getting the box of oatmeal creme sandwiches again -- I think there were eight of them in a box for $1 at Aldi's. But, my taste buds took over. I was running into Walgreen's to pick up detergent and walked by the candy aisle...everything was much more expensive, but I found a Twix bar and small bag of M&M's and bought them. Still saving the M&M's.

I think currently reading Julia Child's, "My Life in France" doesn't help with my food thoughts since it is all about cooking and her love affair with French food. C'est la vie.

Where Did My Husband Go?

2009-09-04T10:03:00.001-07:00

3 days down, 3 much harder, tempting, difficult weekend days ahead of me.

I would like to reflect on a couple of things I have become more sensitive to since this challenge has begun.

Observation 1. My husband has disappeared. Somehow he has come up with some really good excuses not to be around for the $1.50 tues, wed or thursday night dinner. Well tonight, Friday night, he is stuck with me. To be honest, I will probably grill some lovely piece of fish or pork tenderloin for him, while I pick through my 4th serving of my lentil dish I prepared earlier in the week. While it is good, that recipe just really made enough for a family of 10 and I am the only one participating. I can't blame the hubby though, this was my challenge, not his. We can at least share my air popped popcorn watching a movie tonight.

Observation 2. I have become increasingly resourceful with my cooking. Instead of throwing away typical "un-edible" parts of my veggies, I use all of it. Beets from my garden? I throw in the beet greens. Wart-like brown spots on my broccoli stalks? I use it all anyway and saute instead of steam the broccoli so it masks its imperfections. I cut up an onion yesterday and realized half of it was bad. In the past, I would have thrown the whole thing away because it would have taken too much work to save the good parts, not yesterday. I carefully cut away every potential part of the onion I could save.

Obeservation 3. You can lose weight on this diet. I don't really think I am eating less at mealtime, but I do think the reason I have come down a pound or so is because I am not "snacking" Typically after dinner, in addition to my popcorn, I might have some small pieces of chocolate or eat a piece of fruit. Here at the office, I will supplement my afternoon snacks with some goodies down in our cafeteria. Due to the lack of funds to support these extracurrilular eating habits, I believe the discipline has resulted in an overall lower calorie intake than usual. I might be sharing these findings with my private practice weight management clients.

I don't really know how this weekend will go. I love to eat out, and I realize this is not possible even with trying to cut back on my weekday costs. We are going to a bbq at my in-laws house on Sunday. Wouldn't it would be rude not to eat their food? Isn't it legal anyway to eat their food since I am not paying for it? Sunday dinner can be the special moment of the weekend I "celebrate" labor day with good food. Somehow I wouldn't be suprised if Monday's weight doesn't pop right back up to normal. (:

A CARTOON HAND DIPS INTO MY COOKIE JAR

2009-09-04T08:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, one of our lovely donors, who beekeeps with her husband, gave me some honey harvested from their hive. I love honey and can’t wait to try it, but for now, during the challenge, it’s in its jar making a nice paperweight on my desk.

Last night, I made polenta for the first time. Lamely, I heated it in the microwave, topped with marinara sauce and the unmeltable soy mozzarella. It wasn’t so bad. I think I like polenta, especially when it’s prepared by a really good restaurant. Eating at a really good restaurant is always a treat for me, but I’m thinking how some of the people we assist hardly ever or even never get that experience – a good restaurant meal.

Another thought – I feel lame for taking the easy route – the microwave – what about those who don’t have a stove top to cook on, or a microwave? This is making me sad.

Everyone on the challenge at Operation Food Search is talking food. What did you eat today? Are you hungry? Did you cheat? I wonder if someone who doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from thinks about food all the time, or if they’ve trained themselves to ignore the hunger pangs?

Last night, I dreamed the hand that holds the red tomato on our logo was taking the lid off my cookie jar at home. A cartoon hand no less. Weird! I wish I could remember more of my dream. Did I eat a cookie in my sleep? No telltale crumbs in my bed this morning. Nonetheless, I truly am dreaming about food.

This morning, went to prepare a repeat of my breakfast for the week, only I had made a bigger batch of the whole grain hot cereal the other day so I would have to “cook” every morning, just pop it in the microwave. I spooned some if it in my bowl, added the black raspberries, Trek mix and dollop of sour cream. Took a bite, and then realized I forgot to put it in the microwave. What to do? The yogurt was already on top. Do I scrape it off to heat the cereal? Oh heck. Who cares? So hungry I ate it cold.

The holiday weekend is upon us – this is really going to be tough!

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Things I should be better at:

2009-09-04T08:00:00.001-07:00

Hangry. I didn't coin it, but I am living it. It is the perfect word to describe how I feel... hungry, angry, frustrated, disappointed. I should have done MUCH better when I picked out my groceries, I should be a MUCH better cook than I am, and I should pay MUCH closer attention to the volume of food I buy and what things go to waste. I have yet to use my remaining money, partly because I don't trust myself to get the right stuff. Josh says to buy peanut butter, which I LOVE, so that's probably the route I'll go.
It is frustrating to know that decisions are already made for me. On a fixed income, I don't even have the chance to weigh in on whether or not I am craving a steak for dinner. Which, by the way, I am always game for a steak dinner. Makes no difference, I can't afford it. Or, what about making a birthday cake for a friend? Not in the budget. Even contemplating buying a bag of chips and salsa requires calculators and calendars. And it doesn't help that the "Fried Butter" story is all over the media. Fried butter, that's just wrong. But, not as wrong as oatmeal.
With the holiday weekend staring me in the face, I gotta get out of my food funk and focus on the good stuff around me.... and hope that Justin will buy me another fountain soda.

Jiminy Cricket!

2009-09-04T07:24:00.001-07:00

From Shane Cohn via e-mail:

Only three days into this challenge, and the experience is very humbling, awkward, and motivating. I found myself, for the first two days, not being able to make it to the market to purchase my groceries. Of course, being on a very restrictive budget, I didn't want to go to a supermarket that I knew would be expensive... and all the "low budget" stores seem to close earlier than my work schedule allowed for me to shop. (This really made me think about the working poor, especially working parents who may have two jobs to make things meet, but still rely upon assistance to feed their children. Especially those who rely on public transit, which can take hours to get from 'point A' to 'point B'.)

Wednesday evening ended up turning into Thursday morning, as I was working at City Hall until 12:30 a.m., and I still hadn't eaten all day; despite having several meetings where others were eating. When I got home, around 1 a.m., I caved. I had to eat. So, reluctantly, I went to the pantry. Feeling guilty, like I was digging through a dumpster, I reached for the one thing that would lighten my guilt complex: a 2 year old open box of Oatmeal. Now, I'm not sure if Oatmeal ever really goes bad or if it just becomes stale, but what I can tell you is that it wasn't pleasant. It did the trick though, and calmed my cravings and jittery tummy!

That being said, I wasn't going to let this scenario happen for another day. Today I went SHOPPING! I went to the Save-a-Lot on S. Jefferson, and went to town spending a whopping $13.94. (Receipt attached.) Looks like I'll be eating Raisin bran breakfasts, Egg Salad/Tuna Lunches, and Spaghetti Dinners with some Bananas for snacking! I guess the nice thing about starving for two days was that I now have a larger budget for the rest of the week, but that was really uncomfortable. When I'm hungry, as my friends + family know, I'm irritable. I also become very easily distracted.

All week long, I've had offers of food - especially the first two days I hadn't been to the grocery. I even thought to myself, if I wore a sign that read "Will Work for Food" while eating would it be okay to accept their offers? No. Others who rely upon assistance likely don't have colleagues, friends, or others offering to take them out for dinner or drinks. Instead, by me declining the offers it offers a teachable moment for all of us.

Another teachable moment for me was when someone asked (after I declined their invitation to purchase me a meal) if it is an appropriate time to Hunger Strike due to my schedule. My response? "There's never a good time to be hungry."

SWEET POTATOES ROCK! OR, SWEET POTATOES AREN’T JUST FOR THANKSGIVING ANY MORE!

2009-09-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare should have written about sweet potatoes: Thou art the sweetest of all potatoes…. Wait, Shakespeare did! Don’t you just love Google? “Let the skye raine Potatoes….hail kissing comfits, and snow Eringoes.” – Merry Wives of Windsor. This boisterous joke, which was boisterously received by the audiences Shakespeare knew well, referred to sweet potatoes – an aphrodisiac in Shakespeare’s day. And prior to Shakespeare it was written, sweet potatoes “comfort, nourish, and strengthen the body, vehemently procuring bodily lust.” Well I love sweet potatoes and that’s no joke! I did, however, hate them growing up – that’s because they were overly drenched in butter, brown sugar, and topped with marshmallows – eeewww goo!

My dinner last night consisted of ½ of a diced sweet potato, mixed with ¾ cup quinoa, 3 T. black beans, and sprinkled with curry powder. It tasted pretty darn good. After eating half of it, I added some pineapple tidbits, trying to make it more “Caribbean-style”. I have to admit, it tasted better before the pineapple. The sweet potato was naturally moist, with the right amount of sweetness, not too much.

One of the most nutritional vegetables, sweet potatoes are available year-round, are anti-oxidant rich, and are an excellent source of Vitamin A.

I YAM CRAZY FOR SWEET POTATOES!

Through the hunger challenge, I am realizing how much I depend on prepared and takeout food - how I don’t have as much time to cook any more or even have the energy to cook when I get home from work. I have for the most part always eaten healthily, but can easily see how someone who might not be as informed about nutrition (and also is busy and lacking energy to cook) would make less healthy choices.

Breakfast today was a repeat of Tuesday and Wednesday’s – multigrain hot cereal, black raspberries, Trek mix and French vanilla yogurt – very satisfying and filling. The thought of kids going to school hungry saddens me deeply. It is the most important meal of the day. Good nutrition is needed to fuel growing minds and bodies. I love that our nutritionist is out in the community helping children learn to make better nutrition intake choices so that they will grow to become informed, healthy and productive adults.

That is why all our work is so important - to ensure that everyone in our region receives a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Blah.

2009-09-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

Here's my quick and easy recipe for bland chicken, potato, and green beans:

Put butter in a pan. Put chicken breast in the pan, too. Add salt and pepper. Fry.
Put potato in the microwave for 7 minutes. Take it out, put small amount of butter on it.
Open can of green beans, drain, rinse, put in microwave safe bowl and cook.

Put all items on a plate, eat them. Stare angrily at oatmeal cannister.

This was my dinner last night. I broke open the cherry tomatoes and had four, conserving what I have left to last me through the next couple of days. I still have around $3 to spend (taking into account that no sales tax is included in the SNAP program, and I under spent initially.) I want to make sure I pick the right item. I am going to have to pester Josh to give me some ideas, something healthful and affordable.

Day 2

2009-09-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

Rough day.

Several people are having e-mail trouble and looking to me for a fix, the phone was ringing off the hook, I'm unprepared to help close our books for the past month, and, since we've been short-staffed the past few days, I had to go do multiple food drive pick-ups that required lots of lifting. I was worried that I would run out of energy. But I haven't. Yet. I am feeling a little frazzled. I don't feel terribly hungry, but who the heck knows.

Let's see - Hunger Challenge. Well, last night I had a grilled chicken breast, a raw carrot and a giant red potato. Almost had a meal just with the potato. We often have a little snack in the evening (dessert, if you will), and last night my wife says she does not want to eat any good snacks in front of me. I play the stalwart and tell her to eat what she will - I have Schnucks Duplex Cookies to enjoy. She said the same thing tonight. Again, I tell her to eat what she will. She's been eating warm pretzels dipped in cheese. I can deal with that, for now. But I think that one of these days, if she starts eating ice cream with that Magic Shell in front of me, I'm going to have to bump the spoon out of her hand.

This morning I did the Cinnamon Crunch Total again. That's going to get dull real quick. I had to sneak in one of my bananas around 10:00am before doing my first round of food drive pick-ups. For lunch it was a bagel with PB&J again. Then a couple of cookies. Those cookies are currently what are keeping me sane. Needs me some sweets.

A funny thing - someone came into my office yesterday and asked for one of the company gas cards. I opened the drawer and low and behold - there was an open bag of Peanut M&M's I had forgotten about. Now I will have to forget about it some more. Don't worry folks, I didn't stray.

For dinner tonight I had another chicken breast with a steamed carrot and some Ramen noodles. Ramen noodles are a much maligned treat. I drank the broth, folks, and I ain't gonna apologize. Then I cut up another cooked breast and put it in a pot with a shredded carrot. Brought that to a boil and added chicken- flavored Ramen. Cooked the noodles and let the whole thing cool. Put the concoction in a tupperware bowl and plan to eat that soup for lunch one day.

You want to know what I miss the most so far? Beverages. On a day like today when I was out doing labor, I would have stopped and gotten something to drink. But all I had was water.

Tomorrow is a different story. There is work that needs to be done before the warehouse can open for food distribution. Since I left some of that work, I feel the need to go in early and do it. I would normally stay late but it was already close to 6:00pm when I left and my tummy was growling. But I know I won't be able to do it ealry in the morning on just a bowl of cereal. So I think I'm going to spend part of my remaining cash and buy something cheap but satisfying in the morning. Like a donut.

Yes, $0.65 for a donut. That would leave me with about $0.85 for the next four days.

New Recipe

2009-09-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I wanted a break from the tuna so I decided to tackle my on-the-fly pasta recipe and I have to say this was tasty! It could be delicious with more ingredients but this meal(s) was the one I was least looking forward to and it turned out great! Pretty easy too, just follow the steps below:

1. Boil 1 package of whole wheat, angel hair pasta (I think it was the 13.25oz package) until done and then drain

2. Boil 1# of lentils until done and then drain

3. Combine the lentils and the pasta

4. Open two cans of black beans (15.25 oz cans) and dump into the pasta and lentils, DO NOT drain as the juice adds to the flavor.

5. Salt to taste.

This made a HUGE amount of food! I had 1.5 plates or probably 3.5 cups by the eyeball method and I had all I wanted! To be completely accurate, I swept about 1/2 cup back into the pot because my eyes were bigger than my stomach. Interestingly enough, I can usually eat two heaping plates of spaghetti and meatballs but this dish filled me up quick. I still have 3 qts. or 1/2 of my 6 qt pot left. Typically, I just refuse to eat pasta unless it has a ton of meat in it because it just makes me really tired, really quick and about the time I pep back up, I'm hungry again. This was different, I ate ~2 hours ago, no food coma, and I'm still just right as far satiety. I'm having this for lunch tomorrow and probably for at least two meals on the weekend. An easy-to-prepare dish on the cheap, that's loaded with fiber, protein, and quality carbs; I need to cook more often!

Bad Apple

2009-09-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had to go to Schnuck's to purchase food for my family - my son has food allergies and I wonder what someone on foodstamps would do. The rice bread I buy him is $5.00! I guess he would go with out rice bread...and goat's milk...he basically lives on fresh fruit, veggies and meat - the most expensive things since he can't have beans, eggs, nuts and the list goes on. Of course I bought my family chicken since that is what I was going to be having.

The frozen chicken from Aldi's was my best buy, $5.99 for 6 breasts. I actually ate half of the breast last night since they were huge (much bigger than the fresh ones from Schnuck's) -- ok, no jokes here;-). I labeled my leftovers and have already told my husband twice not to eat it...mine! With the chicken I had lovely white rice and peas -- ate the whole can of peas.

This morning I had two bananas -- they are turning bruised and brown quickly. Now I know why they were on sale. My bag of apples are a strange beige when I slice them and if I don't eat them immediately they turn brown before my eyes. I've never seen that happen -- I now feel like they are testing me. If I am yelling at apples by the end of this challenge you'll know why. Lunch was what the crowd seems to be having - PB&J. For a snack I had saltines with PB and lots of water. I definitely miss my snacks.

I didn't like it.

2009-09-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

My lunch was exactly what I thought it would be. Paste. Going to try to get creative with oatmeal, if that is possible, when I get home tonight. Any suggestions?

Fruits of My Bounty

2009-09-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

Day 1 complete...only 6 more to go. And while I believe that you can do almost anything for 7 days, this is harder than I thought. Have to say that I was a bit cocky since I did the challenge last year on less money. But I tried to be healthier with my food choices--wheat bread, not white, more beans... It took me 15 minutes to pick out my peanut butter. Have you ever read some of those labels? Rule of thumb--Never eat anything with an ingredient you don't know how to pronounce. At least the label says 'zero' trans fats, but then there's a note saying that it may have less than 2%. When is a trans fat not a trans fat. At least, I didn't blindly go for cost and get the peanut 'spread' . No telling what 'things' make it a spread.

Having such a limited budget (I still have $5 to splurge somewhere), I never agonized so much over what items to buy. The canned 'cut' green beans are 5 cents more than whole canned green beans. I had to put back the grape jelly because it was close to $1.50 and wanted to stock up my pennies for as much oatmeal as I can stomach for the week.

For the cooking-challenged out there, you will be interested to know that I bought a whole chicken to roast since it was $1.28 per pound and not $1.87 per pound for bagged frozen chicken breasts. Though you are paying for the bones, the breasts would have been all meat. I wonder if the bagged variety was the better way to go. It was one of my biggest purchases at $5.10 whereas a chicken already roasted (and seasoned) costs $5.70. But with food stamps, you can't buy hot prepared meals. My plan of attack (in a virgin kitchen) may be for naught if I end up overcooking it and it coming out like shoe leather. But my budget won't be able to take that big of a hit so I will make it work 'hook or COOK'

While it makes sense, I almost shouted out with glee when I realized that stores don't charge sales tax on 'food stamp' purchases. I know that I am not technically on food stamps, but I figure that the $29 value of food stamps should all go to food purchases. That is my new rule. So I have another couple bucks to maybe get some coffee somewhere.

My lunch on Day 1 reminded me of grade school when Friday lunches were PB & J sandwiches. Mine was sans jelly, but had a banana to 'wash it down.' I am drinking a lot of water to fill me up. Wouldn't you know that of all days, Tony Almond of Almond's Restaurant (one of my favs) dropped off some extra pasta and salads he wasn't using for a catering job. Though our clients may be offered/given 'free' food, I thought that was a slippery slope I didn't want to be on. A big thank you and shout out to Tony and Kelli from the staff--at least they didn't go hungry.

By the time I got home, I was famished to say the least. So it was 6 and I NEEDED dinner. So I guess I am officially a 'blue-haired.' I tore into the tuna fish, but had enough will power to eat only 1 of the 4 cans. Two slices of bread, glass of water. I will try to ration out the remaining items today. All evening last night, I was obsessed counting down the hours/minutes until bedtime so at least I would have a respite from the challenge and my hunger pangs for a few hours. I may have to break into the pasta soon to fill my belly.

I can only imagine what Food Outreach clients may feel when they have to think about taking their medications on time...when they undoubtedly are always thinking what and when their next meal will be. At least, they can order as many as two meals each day, but they have to portion out the food to have it last two weeks. I do wish we could give clients as much food as they probably need, but it is a numbers game. When 1,500 clients are depending on Food Outreach as the principal provider of food, you have to have limits.

Dreaming About Food

2009-09-02T11:04:00.001-07:00

I don't usually like talking about my dreams, because personally, I don't think people typically care that much to hear about them. So I will be brief, in my first dream (I have many because my sleep is usually interrupted by a night-time bathroom break or my cat Myra deciding that my head would be a good pillow) was about my husband and I going out to a nice restaurant for dinner. After perusing the amazing menu of tantalizing options, he stated he wasn't hungry and was just going to get a salad, ugh, no fun. In my second dream, which also took place in a restaurant, I received my plate of food, only for it to be taken away time and time again by the waiter before I could take my first bite. First night, and I am already dreaming about food or the lack there of, not a good sign.

After perusing the other bloggers emails, I was quite calmed to see that they too were having some trouble feeling "full." I am not for sure if it is "hunger" that I am feeling or if I just have an appetite for something "else." Else being anything in my refridge like cheese, chocolate, or a veggie burger that I hadn't budgeted.

As for today's meals, I am most likely going to stick to everything I ate yesterday. The parsnip soup was really good, so I will be sharing that recipe with you all tomorrow. Yesterday my meal total came to $3.36. My goal is to keep around this amount so I have a little extra for the weekend. I still don't think this amount would ever come close to covering those menu items in my dreams, but parsnip soup tastes good only so many days in a row.

HUNGER HEADACHE OR IS THE BOTOX WEARING OFF?

2009-09-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

Before I left work yesterday, I made a pact with my co-workers – that we can’t get angry with each other – which is what I predict might happen if people (especially me) get grumpy from being hungry or just not eating like they normally would. Everyone taking the challenge wound up being a bit hungry yesterday. I know I missed my little snacks throughout the day. Even popping a few anti-oxidant rich chocolate chips in the afternoon would have done me wonders, triggering my endorphins and giving me a much-needed energy lift.

I actually had a bit of a headache on the drive home from work – was it due to hunger? – my Botox wearing off? – or, to thinking about all of the ways I could prepare eggs?...poached, scrambled, a frittata, egg salad (using those little packs of mayo and relish in the fridge at work), or omlet-ed?

As soon as I got home, my handful of Trek mix (almonds and dried blueberries, cranberries and golden raisins) tasted as good as the Popsicle that was the first thing given to me to eat after my daughter was born! – My water had broke at midnight and when I got to the hospital, I was thirsty but didn’t stop at the drinking fountain. Big mistake – Huge! Nothing but ice chips here and there until the next morning when they let me have a Popsicle for breakfast.

For dinner, I made quinoa and topped it with marinara sauce and tried to melt the soy mozzarella over the top. It was kind of bland, although the quinoa at the bottom of the pot was overcooked and kind of crunchy, which I liked. Wished I had some freshly grated parmesan. I also had a deep, deep craving for lemonade.

Cooked a sweet potato, which I’ll use later today when I mix it with some black beans and pineapple tidbits. I do plan to add a bit of curry powder from the kitchen cabinet.

Had a thnack. A PBJ without the J - the $5 dollar a jar of red rathpberry/pomegranate jelly from Franthe that I’m accuthtomed too, and altho without the bread or even crackerth – not on my grothery litht for the week. Very DRY!

For a late night snack, I had French vanilla low-fat yogurt with pineapple tidbits and Trek mix. It was very good, but I began to wonder if my yogurt would last me through the end of the challenge.

Breakfast this morning was the multigrain cereal, black raspberries, Trek mix, a sprinkling of flax seeds and a dollop of the yogurt. I can see that this is going to be my best, heartiest, most fulfilling meal of the day throughout the challenge.

It’s almost noon and I’m hanging in there….

Whether you like it or not.

2009-09-02T09:01:00.001-07:00

You know what? I don't like oatmeal. I can't make it (that's right, I can't make oatmeal... of all things), and it tastes like paste. I am sure if you add a bunch of other tasty foods to it, it rallies and becomes edible. But, when you have a limited budget, you can't afford multiple food items to put in oatmeal, so it remains a paste.
Oatmeal is a stalpe item and is one of the anchor dishes I had as part of my meals for the hunger challenge. It, along with tuna, canned green beans, chicken breasts and russet potatoes make up my food choices for seven days. As someone who doesn't care to cook, I am fairly used to eating bland foods from my own kitchen. But oatmeal takes the prize. I actually talked to the bowl last night, told it how much I didn't like it.
I have never been a breakfast eater, but I do understand how important that meal is. With oatmeal as my only morning meal choice, I skipped it yet again. But I know that, come lunch time, I am going to have oatmeal whether I like it or not. This is a situation that so many people face each day: "whether you like it or not." They don't have many choices, they make food purchase decisions based on what they know is less expensive, or the deal of the day. As Frank Finnegan put it, nutrition takes a back seat to bargains. Although not bad for you, oatmeal is an affordable but BORING food to buy. But, regardless of my personal opinion of oatmeal, it is going to be my lunchtime meal today. Whether I like it or not.

Purchasing power, weight, and other fun stuff...

2009-09-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

Purchasing Power and Real Budgeting

An interesting dynamic to this challenge is that it's only a week. To clarify: you would have a lot more purchasing power if you had the full month's amount. For example, the Goobers PB&J (PB and jelly in the same jar) was significantly less money than buying the cheapest PB and jelly separately. I want to say it was around $2.47 with the cheapest PB being the SF, at 2.00 even and the cheapest jelly being 1.50ish. Don't get me wrong, the separate versions kill it in unit pricing, but it doesn't matter if you can't work it in to your budget. This was a real eye-opener for budgeting for me. It's one thing to plan a budget but to actually execute it, is a totally different thing (talking personal life). For example, if you budget for 100 bucks/week at the grocery store and you spend $101, many of us, myself included, would think we were successful. In reality, we failed. Shopping with an inflexible amount of money really drives this point home.

Here's something else to think about: let's say you have the full month's worth of "stamps", you've planned it down the last item, your coupons are clipped, your gameface is on, and you're ready to get the absolute most amount of nutrition for your money....but....how are you going to carry it all? We'll cut you some slack and say you're having a good day and aren't fatigued from meds or chemo but you do still have to ride a bus because who can afford a car or afford repairs on a car or maybe even the fuel, or maybe even the insurance, when you can't work or can only work PT? Imagine you have 3 transfers, it's freezing or sweltering outside, and you're trying to lug a MONTH's worth of groceries home!!!!!! The "wasteful" spending at the local convenience store is starting to make more sense.

Weight

Yesterday I had 1/2 cup of oatmeal and 1 liter of water for breakfast, 2 PB&J sandwiches (4 T of pb and ~2 T of jelly: total for both sandwiches) and 1 light yogurt for lunch, with more water, a an apple for my pre-workout snack, 2 cups of tuna salad, 1 can of mustard greens, and an apple and 2 more liters of water for dinner. I was a little hungry but not bad, however the interesting thing is that I weighed in at 198# today on my office scale. I was 200# on the same scale on Monday. The only exercise I've done since Monday, at least planned exercise, is last night's grip workout. It consisted of 200 reps on the speedbag for warm-up and some light rotator cuff prehab work with bands, 5-6 max attempts on hand grippers, 3-4 sets of powersetting handgrippers, 2 hand pinch deadlift for 8 sets of 1-5 reps, 2 sets of sledge levers, 2 sets to failure on Rolling Thunder deadlift, and one set to failure on flat finger chins. It was hardly a calorie burner and I don't think there is a METs level out there to figure it but I took about 2 hours to do it so I'd be shocked if my heart rate ever got much over 70-80 bpm. I need to be 198# for the AW Tournament on Saturday and I consistently hear/read about food insecurity leading to/being a risk factor for obesity. I will be monitoring myself closely but I can tell that I'm already inclined to eat bigger portion sizes due to the uncertainty of how the week will pan out.

ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT IS FOOD!

2009-09-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

THE GROCERY STORE - shopped at Trader Joes last night. Before I got there, I almost did a crazy u-turn into Walgreen’s when I saw their sign advertising a dozen eggs for only 99 cents. Turns out Trader’s had some for the same price, although they weren’t the organic, jumbo ones I usually buy.

Food shopping during the Hunger Challenge was much more challenging than imagined – I asked the lady at check out to please be patient with me as she rang up items, called the manager over to remove items, added other items, removed more items – repeat – repeat – repeat – so I could fit together the pieces of the puzzle – to get a healthy variety of food to put together meals to live on for one week on just $29.

THE BOUNTY - As I left with a 32 oz. container of French vanilla yogurt, peanut butter, quinoa, marina sauce, organic polenta, black beans, 2 bananas, a small bag of sweet potatoes, a dozen eggs, an apple, frozen black raspberries, frozen pineapple tidbits, trek mix (the cheapest way to get the nuts I wanted, which also included dried blueberries and cranberries), soy mozzarella , I noticed a couple in the next checkout lane stocking up on salmon, salmon stuffed with crab cake, more salmon, etc. and for the first time felt that this is what it must feel like (if I ate meat) for someone living on food stamps to look at another person’s grocery basket filled with steak. The food purchase came to $28.54. Woo hoo – now I have 46 cents left over to go somewhere else that has spinach by the pound – gotta have those greens! Actually deduct 18 cents – that’s what I paid for bulk flax seed at another stop on the way home.

THE LAST SUPPER – OR – THE FEAST BEFORE THE FAMINE: Stopped at Provisions for their Bourbon Salmon Caesar salad – I watched as the lady at the salad counter put fresh romaine in the container and loaded it – and I mean loaded it – with salmon, walnuts, sundried tomatoes, parmesan and Caesar dressing. I asked for an extra plate and put about one quarter of the salad on it, sat at the counter and savored every bite! It’s so rich and yummy that about a quarter of it is all I can eat at one time. Then I took the rest and gave it to my daughter to enjoy. Later, at home, I devoured ¼ cup of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia fro yo. It was heaven!

DAY ONE – BREAKFAST: Went to bed thinking about food, woke up thinking about food. Food, food food. I’m the type of person who while eating is thinking about my next meal. I cut out a zillion recipes that I will never make a dent in making and love putting together menus for meals, especially holiday, special occasion and seasonal meals. Breakfast is my favorite and I feel fortunate that I probably won’t suffer taste fatigue eating basically the same thing every morning during the challenge.

…Thinking about my grandma who grew up in an orphanage and ate the same thing for lunch every day – cornbread and molasses – at least both have a lot of healthy properties. She wound up living a long and healthy life, but the food back then wasn’t overly processed – very different from a lot of the food today. Funny, she never developed a taste for chocolate, because she never had it growing up, and always ate everything on her plate, including the parsley. “Lots of vitamins and minerals in it,” she would say. “And good roughage.”

My breakfast consisted of a multi-whole grain hot cereal, similar to oatmeal, but with other whole grains – rye, barley, etc. I wasn’t able to buy the soy milk I wanted so I made it with water and added some of the frozen black raspberries (not nearly as tasty as fresh!), the trek mix (almonds, dried blueberries & dried cranberries) and a whopping dollop of French vanilla yogurt. It was yummy and satisfying, but I had to wait until I got to work for my “free” cup of coffee.

MEET THE PRESS: At today’s press conference for the challenge at Food Outreach, Greg Lukeman from F.O., Frank Finnegan from the St. Louis Food Bank and my boss, Sunny Schaefer from Operation Food Search all gave meaningful, eye opening speeches about the hunger crisis right here in our own community.

At the conference, there were piles of groceries lined up that had been purchased by different participants in the challenge and it was interesting to what each person bought for the week and who got the best values. The dietitian at Food Outreach had it going on – several cans of tuna, lentils (which I wish I had purchased), whole grain pasta, mustard greens (although they were canned – I would prefer fresh) a whole bag of apples compared to my one and I began to wonder – could I barter? Exchange some of my eggs for someone’s spinach?

DAY ONE LUNCH: I had a lunch meeting today at Bobo’s Noodle House. Before I left the office, I ate a banana. In the parking lot, I saw this girl sitting on the curb, looking a bit weathered, weary and forlorn with her beggar’s sign. I asked her if she was homeless and she said she had been, but had just started a job in telemarketing and was trying to get back on her feet – she also told me she was pregnant. Usually, I don’t give money to people at street corners, however, I asked her if she was hungry and she said she was so I offered to buy her lunch. We went into Kayak’s and I told her she could order whatever she wanted off the menu. She ordered a sandwich, minus the mushrooms. I asked if she wanted something to drink and she got a soda from the case and politely said thank you. Then I met up with my lunch appointment at Bobo’s, who ordered the salmon with spicy noodles. I’d had this before and it is so good! However, I was fortunate that I didn’t feel hungry while at the restaurant, even with all its good food smells - but the moment I got back in my car, I drove as fast as the speed limit would allow for my hardboiled egg. About 3 hours later, I had another hardboiled egg and am drinking a lot of water. I already drink a lot of water, but now I’m drinking more of it to help subside my feelings of hunger. I think the challenge will really bring to light how hard it is on limited resources to eat fulfilling, well-rounded meals with lots of variety and color. And how hard it is to eat the healthier versions of foods due to costs – whole grain bread vs. white, brown rice vs. white rice, organic foods vs. non-organic foods, etc.

WHAT’S FOR DINNER? I’ll let you know tomorrow. I’m sure tonight I’ll be dreaming about food!

He we go!

2009-09-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

Some Qualifiers

I'm attempting this challenge for two reasons. One, because Becky Reichart, our Development Director here at Food Outreach is smarter than me and essentially got me to paint myself into a corner by convincing me to invite Registered Dietitians I know to participate. To clarify: there is no way I couldn't participate after that. Second, I learn best by doing and this experience is going to make me a much better educator/RD, relative to the population I have the privilege to serve.

I am competitive to a fault, so I hear "challenge" and the internal flames ignite and the gears start turning and I'm looking for any advantage I can to secure victory. However, what I'm going to have to remind myself of during this "challenge" is there are no winners. This is not a game and even if I was able to complete the challenge with minimal discomfort and 100% of my RDAs , this is not something to brag about. Big deal if I can do it for a whopping, whole week. I'm a professional when it comes to nutrition, I have my own, reliable, transportation, and access to online sources that make the process much easier. I don't have any chronic diseases which leave me exhausted. I'm not trying to budget and plan after enduring chemotherapy or taking HAART that gives me chronic diarrhea. Most importantly, it's only a week. There IS an end in sight for me. I am by no means under any illusions that I'm "living the life" for a week.

Shopping Experience

I chose to do my shopping at Wal-Mart Supercenter. I live very close to one and that's where I usually shop. It took me an hour and seven minutes from the time I left the car to the time I got back in. This was sad, considering I'm a pro and had a pretty good idea of what I wanted going in. During my shopping I had a few surprises, some pleasant and some not so much..

The Good
Mustard greens are chee-eep and with 52.5% of your calcium per can, they are a nice alternative to those expensive dairy selections that remain oh-so-elusive in many of our clients' carts.

Canned beans, while not as affordable as bagged beans are still a steal and a great stop-gap for those unable to afford meat. I was willing to spend the extra on canned vs. bagged because of the huge difference in prep-time.

While I knew lentils were a nutritional powerhouse and I have liked the lentil soup I've tried in the past, I didn't know they were so easy to prepare. I lumped them in with the same category as beans but was rather giddy when I read the back and found I could make them in 15-20 min!

Light yogurt was probably the biggest shocker of the night for me. It was only 40 cents/container. It was only 1 cent higher/oz than the bulk yogurt and the bulk was not available in light. I might just hit my calcium goals yet!

Eggs: I found 12 for 96 cents and was all over that!

The Bad

I lived off of tuna and rice in undergrad during the times when my mealplan was off (Christmas and summer break). I was very disappointed to see that tuna in water had jumped up to 83 cents/can! And to be clear: that is for the cheapest one! In college it was 47-50 cents/can most weeks! Becky found some for 53 cents/can in oil but the 83 cents was the cheapest of any kind at Wal-Mart and I'd have to say I felt a little let down.

I've read a couple of people's entries on here and after talking to some folks, the bags of chicken where I shopped were clearly not the best price in town. I was actually going to try and work in a bag but 6.98 or roughly 25% of my budget, just wasn't feasible.

I forgot my calculator and my phone just irritates me in calculator-mode so I used the scanner on the pole. I made a couple of trips back and forth to the scanner and got some funny looks from folks, probably due to me scanning my entire cart.

The Ugly

Condiment prices are just freakin' reee-diculous! I was looking for hot sauce, mayo, and relish, and possibly some seasonings for the pasta and bean dish I'm going to make. I left with relish which I thought wasn't bad for a buck. I'm going to swipe the rest from a gas station hot dog bar. I drive 100 miles a day so they get plenty of business out of me, so I'm entitled..ooohhhh there's a charged word!

Canned chicken was almost as high as the bagged chicken once you did the math......what!!!!

I'm somewhat lactose intolerant and without getting into a semantics showdown with those clinical nutrition wizards out there; the bottom line is I can't drink milk. Soy milk was sky high, even with house brands and even if I could drink milk, the powdered skim milk, which is the canned answer many RD's spit out to address the high cost of dairy, only came in some bulk container, so large that it was something like 10 bucks or 30% of my budget.

Day One

Breakfast was easy because I always eat oatmeal so there was no change there. Lunch was a challenge, not from a hunger perspective but my 2 PB&J's and yogurt didn't really compare to some of my non-participating co-worker's dishes. Dinner will a bear because I'm going to have to actually make it and I can tell you after an hour's commute, cooking from scratch is not very high on my list of priorities. I AM Mr. Microwave! The plan is to make my pasta and bean dish tonight or the tuna salad. Either way, I'm going to knock out my meals for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow, all in one shot.

In closing, If you're not participating, you need to be!!!!!!!!!!!!

Josh

Hunger Action Month Kicks Off Today!

2009-09-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hunger Challenge Participants at today's Press Conference:

St. Louis County Councilwoman Barbara Fraser

St. Louis Alderman President Lewis Reed

Missouri State Representative Rachel Storch

Food Outreach Executive Director Greg Lukeman

St. Louis Alderman Shane Cohn

Frank Finnegan, Executive Director of St. Louis Area Food Bank

Sunny Schaefer, Executive Director of Operation Food Search

Greg Lukeman, Executive Director of Food Outreach

Sunday at Schuncks

2009-09-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

Although my husband and family encouraged me to visit Aldi's or Shop N Save for the $29 week challenge, I chose to go to Schnuck's because I wanted to see how I could manage my budget shopping at the store which I typically frequent because it is closest to my house. Like the other bloggers, I went to the store armed and ready with a well planned grocery list for the week(note, week, not weekend yet...too daunting).

As I shopped, I found myself being very grateful for the "price per ounce" assistance on the grocery shelves. I used this reference for almost every item comparison. I had no idea that a food like vegetable broth (which will go in my parsnip soup recipe) had such a wide range of prices when compared by the ounce. The soup recipe called for 64 ounces, so the highest broth price at 14 cents per ounce compared to the cheapest broth at 4 cents per ounce really made a difference .

Another shocker, or shall I say disappointment, was how small the apples are that came in the #3 pound bag. With 13 apples in the bag, each apple set me back 23 cents. I did feel better knowing the apples were grown in Missouri, but when eaten as a snack, the small portion left me wishing for more.

Once I got home from the store, I decided that preparing my dinner meals for the week would ensure I stuck to the meal plan. The first recipe (which I will share later) was a parsnip and carrot soup and the second meal was a lentil, pasta, and rice dish with a mint butter sauce. Both recipes turned out pretty tasty, and I was happy to be able to include my "mint on steroids" plant from backyard garden. Free herbs are coming in handy.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I am addicted to the 94% fat free Act II kettle corn. I am not for sure if it's the popcorn that I love or the relaxation of eating the popcorn while I watch "Chopped" on the Food Network. Either way, the microwave popcorn was too expensive so I grudgingly purchased the plain popcorn kernels. After two hours in the kitchen preparing my weekly dinners, I found myself hungry and decided to introduce the kernels to my air popper. For 5 cents, I popped ~6 cups of popcorn and after adding a touch of salt and sugar was pleasantly surprised with the tasty and nutritious, and most importantly -inexpensive, source of pleasure.

I do have a confession already for Day 1. After today's lunch, I received the gift of a diet coke. I didn't allocate any money to my afternoon soda habit, so I am very gracious to my caffeine angel.

Day 1

2009-09-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

I've had very little experience with this blogging thing, so please pardon me if I don't stick to the format. We'll try to keep the stream of consciousness typing to a minimum.

So, I've decided to participate in this Hunger Challenge thing. It may sound like a good thing, in the vein of "Are you hungry enough to eat this entire tray of super hot wings?!" That would be a good challenge. I would win that challenge. But as I understand it, there is no prize for winning this challenge. Well, okay - there's the whole greater awareness of others' suffering deal. But it's not like I'm getting a t-shirt out of this. Wait - do we get a t-shirt for doing this? No? What the heck, I'll do it anyway.

For details you can check out this website: http://www.foodoutreach.org/hungeractionmonth.html. Basically, I'm going to try to see what it feels like to live off of food stamps for a week. The purpose is two-fold: First, to promote awareness of the issue of hunger during the time that the Mayor of St. Louis has proclaimed Hunger Action Month; Second, to boost local sales revenue on Sep. 8th by causing me to make up for the drop in caloric intake I will have this week. Alert the Emperors Wok on Hampton - I will be seeking their buffet table next Tuesday. When I've exhausted the possibilities there, it's on to Ted Drewes. I am totally serious.

You know what's going to be the worst part of this Challenge for me? Missed opportunities. This is Labor Day weekend people! A three-day weekend where one usually barbeques. And the Greek Festival at St. Nicholas is this weekend. I can't pronounce half of their dishes, but everything tastes great. So, I can totally handle eating less for a week (says the man who is only half-way through Day 1). But missing opportunities for great food is going to hurt.

Okay, so what did I buy for this week?

I went to the Schnucks that is two blocks from my house (I could have gone somewhere chea... with different check-out arrangements, but I'm a big believer in supporting local merchants). With a goal of less than $29, I started figuring out what I needed. Wait, let me back track. My wife had just gone grocery shopping, so we already had bagels, peanut butter, jelly and milk. She swears she got the bagels for $2.50, but everything else I priced in the store. $1.35 for jelly, $1.66 for PB, $2.80 for a gallon of milk. That's $8.31 so far. Then I got some bananas (4), apples (3), carrots (1 lb), and red potatoes (4). I went in to the meat section and it must have rained chicken parts in the Midwest recently, because I got a bag of 8-ish boneless chicken breasts for $4.88. Ramen Noodles is a staple of a hungry person's diet and so I got five packages. Listen, before you go all sodium-conscious on me, I have to tell you that I took the time to look for the flavors that had less than 40% of your sodium. In the meantime, a package of Schnucks Duplex Cookies fell into my cart and they simply would not leave. I went into the cereal aisle and saw that Total cereals were marked down to $3.00 each. Did you know they have Cinnamon Crunch Total now? I did not know that. What I like about Total cereal is that it claims to give you 100% of a bunch of stuff. I don't really know how they can claim that holds true for everybody. 100% for a 100-pound woman, or 100% for a guy like me who is just a little north of 210? I'm really not that far above two hundred (I weighed in this morning at 216), but I did break a chair recently that had a weight limit of 200lbs. It was a camping chair - you'd think they would allow for some rough usage there. But noooooooo. It had to wimp out on me and make me feel all self-conscious and stuff.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, Total cereal tells me it can give me 100% of what I need. I choose to believe it. My grocery bill comes to $19.09. When you add in the $8.31 from prior purchases, we are now up to $27.40. There's a buck-fifty left on my imaginary EBT card (they don't actually have food stamps anymore, y'know). I will spend it before the week is out.

With one bowl of cereal down, an apple and one PB bagel recently finished off, I feel confident. I can do this. Probably. I'll let you know.

SHOP, PLAN, PREPARE....

2009-08-31T14:28:00.000-07:00

The Hunger Challenge begins tomorrow, and I did all of my shopping and planning on Sunday. I am a picky eater, and I try to shop frugally most days, but I did not do a good job of shopping multiple stores/farmer's markets to find good deals when finding my hunger challenge items. That is something that I should be doing EVERY time I shop, and I will do that from now on.

Sunday afternoon, list in hand, I headed out to my local grocery store. I looked for good staple items, and piled those into the cart first (oatmeal, canned vegetables, potatoes). I found a pretty good deal on "healthy" bread and boneless, skinless chicken breasts... so I added those to the mix. Canned tuna was next, but the most affordable choice was "packed in oil". I added them anyway, but was disappointed that I couldn't find a healthier option. I am not a fan of fresh veggies, but I do love fruit, so I looked for a good deal on fresh produce but couldn't find much that would fit into the budget. I walked away with a pack of cherry tomatoes, which will have to cut it for both a fruit and veggie. By the time I was ready to check out I realized I had NO condiments or spices, NO coffee, NO snacks or treats. I didn't have the budget to cover those items, so I was truly left with staples, pretty bland and basic. But, I did come in under the budget limit, so I might head back out and pick up some coffee after all.

It is very difficult to stick this very limited budget, find healthful selections, and add flavorful variety to meal choices. But millions of people have to do this every week. They prepare their limited lists, do their homework about which stores have the best deals that week, and head out to shop. They face hunger challenges each and every day. but do their best to make the most of the opportunities out there. The challenge begins tomorrow, and I will do all I can to make the most of my opportunities.

Planning and Shopping

2009-08-31T10:37:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that the thought of "planning" for the Hunger Challenge overwhelmed me more than living on $29 of food for a week. So many thoughts and questions were swirling in my head. I had never really stopped to think about the food stamp system, how they work, that they are not stamps anymore, but a swipe card. I didn't know the new name since 2008 is SNAP - Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The acronym "SNAP" is a little ironic since living on this small amount is not a SNAP for many people. Then a sense of guilt surfaces for not taking time to seriously contemplate a way of life that so many people struggle with daily. I have always been involved in charities that help the less fortunate, but I never tried to walk in their shoes - not that a week of living on $29 comes near to what some have to shoulder every day.

I need to outline things before I embark on them and the nutritionist at Food Outreach, Josh, was nice enough to share an overview of how to approach this Challenge. He had food options, how to work nutrition into the menu, etc. I then grabbed my notepad, calculator and pencil and found an Aldi's in Maplewood. I have never been to Aldi's and I have to say it was a great resource. I first walked down the aisles just taking everything in and then started loading my cart with oatmeal, peanut butter, jelly, canned veggies, a bag of apples, bananas (50% off) white rice (brown rice wasn't offered...hmmm), canned tuna, crackers, frozen chicken breast, pasta and spaghetti sauce. I wanted to buy more fruit, but it looked like it would of gone bad in another day or so. I also had to put back the oatmeal cream cookies twice -- soo tempting. My total was just over $28 and I used empty boxes for the food since I forgot to bring my own bags and Aldi's charges for bags.

My five year old son wants to know why he can't have any of the food I bought. When I explained what I was doing and it was a "special project" he told me I wasn't sharing and that wasn't nice. I will keep trying to turn this in to a meaningful lesson for him too.

Gearing up for the Hunger Challenge!

2009-08-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

This morning, I woke up with a hungry tummy growling and contemplated my grocery list for the week on a budget of $29. As I gear up for the Hunger Challenge, I wonder – will this amount be enough to cover my list? Will my food intake for the week be too redundant?

I also thought of all the things I’m running low on that are not covered by food stamps – floss, antiperspirant, moisturizer, dog treats… - yes, my dog is an important part of my family, and looks forward to his daily treats when he comes in from his walk.

As I make my week’s list: oatmeal, soy milk, spinach, 2 sweet potatoes, broccoli, fresh berries (reminiscing, when at their summer’s peak, blackberries were just $1 per 6 oz. container) and other fresh fruit (shoot – just one peach can weigh a pound!), lentils, black beans, eggs, tuna, walnuts and cheese, I’m wondering if this will cost more than $29. I also wonder if I can come up with enough different dishes to make using these items. Oh, I left out yogurt – but I’m pretty particular – no yogurt with high fructose corn syrup for me – only organic, and preferably the super yummy, creamy Greek kind.

On the other side of the paper, I put my dream list: Edy’s frozen fruit bars, soy bacon, soy coffee creamer, lox, cream cheese, whole grain bagels, heirloom tomato, pineapple, strawberries…

I perused the ads of three different grocery stores today and found certain foods on sale at each, and thought I’d look up more online at work. Then I realized, it will cost me more in gas to run all over town to different stores, and made me feel empathy for those who rely on public transportation – how it’s not easy to lug bags groceries and kids around on the bus.

Actually, my brother’s family relies on public transportation, and I know how difficult it must be for them to brave the elements every time they go somewhere – I mean, not every day is as glorious as it was yesterday. I tell my nephews all the time how ecologically cool they are and how much better what they are doing is for the environment – to mentally soften some of the hardship they sometimes endure….I digress….

Thinking about my free cup of coffee at work tomorrow morning, and wondering if I can use those squeeze packets of mayo in the fridge– it wouldn’t be as if I were scamming someone else’s lunch or anything – those packets are up for grabs, aren’t they? Psyching up for tomorrow……

In the Planning Stages of the Hunger Challenge

2009-08-28T11:53:00.001-07:00

With the changes in our economy over the year, as a registered dietitian, I have had several requests by reporters or writers for budget-friendly meal ideas for their segments like “How to feed a family of 4 for $20 per day.” These requests required me to price out ONE meals’ ingredients, but that was the extent of my efforts. As I begin to think about applying this to ME, and what I will eat for the week of Sept 1-Sept 7, the task begins to seem much more challenging, and to be honest, I think, why didn’t I assign this to the students in one of my nutrition classes?

When grocery shopping, I pay attention to the price per ounce when comparing items, and I frequently purchase sale items and store brand items. Our household money is spent on nutritious inexpensive foods like beans, frozen vegetables, rice, etc. I bring my lunch to work, I eat at home most nights of the week. But, I also “splurge.” I do spring for certain foods like the nicer cuts of fish, or the higher fiber grain products, and I purchase these items not only because I like the way they taste, but could spending extra money now potentially save me money later on smaller health care bills? Others however, do not have such the luxury, yet they deserve the ability to eat healthy just like I do. So as a dietitian, I feel it is my responsibility to help others see that they can feed their family nutritious foods that can be purchased in an affordable way. The Hunger Challenge presents me with some practice to do so.

Yet, I begin to think about those favorite foods I take for granted.

Coffee, even though I brew my own coffee at home, when I think about the creamer, splenda, and sometimes a dollop of whipped cream…it almost takes too much effort just to calculate the costs! Either way, I think I can get by without it for a week, and save those precious pennies for something else.

Diet coke, another caffeine source bites the dust. I will miss the afternoon jolt, but once again, I could use the pennies for food.

Eating out. I can’t even imagine how that could possibly fit. That makes me sad. I am going to find some great happy hour deals somewhere.

I am still in the planning phase, but here are some of things I know I can change:

Breakfast: I have to eat the same quantity, you don’t want a hangry (hungry + angry) teacher for my early morning students, I will just switch to store brand cereal and store brand English muffins. For a snack, I plan on buying bagged on-sale apples instead of my favorite pink lady apples, which are never on sale.

Sometimes for dinner I make omelets, eggs are a cheap source of protein, but instead of the omega-3 fatty acid fed eggs, I will buy the store brand. I eat a vegetables with both lunch and dinner, therefore I will have to figure out which veggies give me the best bang for my buck, and I will more than likely visit the farmer’s market. The pressure cooker will be busted out of the cabinet and be put to good use making a bean soup.

But what about my microwave Kettle Corn? I hope I can make it fit, but if not, the air popper will finally get used as well.

No doubt, this is not going to be easy. It will take planning, and possibly more time in the kitchen. My goal is to stick to the budget as close as possible, and also maybe come up with some recipes that I can continue to use in the future.

I have to remind myself, it is only for a week, and how blessed am I that this is just an “experiment?”