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.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Meet James Farmer on Saturday
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
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?
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?
Friday, September 2, 2011
Reflecting on the Challenge
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.
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.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Rhubarb and Honey Takes The Hunger Challenge
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!
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
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.
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