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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.)