My roommate's girlfriend and her two young kids came over for dinner last night. Her very bright and funny 10 year-old son, Ian, and I got to talking about the food stamp project. He anticipated my food wouldn't hold out and began offering up ideas to keep me from "starving," as he put it. Luckily, I'm sure I'll more than survive because his ideas included eating roommate Robin's cat (an awful cat that nobody likes, so not really a loss if it came to that). After they finished their dinner he came up to my room, hit me up for some paper, and sat down to write. He essentially wrote an op-ed against hunger; a slightly cracked op-ed written in chicken scratch with a Sharpie on scrap paper, but enjoyable none the less. It ended with this:
"I propose we ask people, 'Aren't you hungry, Dana? Wouldn't you like to eat, Dana?' This will lead to a fatter and happier world. By the way, Dana is a made-up name I invented."
I'm extremely tempted to show it to my professor.
He also left a half eaten bag of Cheetos on our kitchen counter with a note attached:
"Eat this Dana or you'll starve!"
I declined the offer.
Salaam.
06 March, 2009
05 March, 2009
$21 down, 7 days to go
The funny thing about only having $21 to spend on groceries for the weak is that even though you can only buy a few things with it, you'll have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to spend it. I think I was in HEB for two hours. I can't be sure; colorful packaging, florescent lights and my endless recalculating made the time blur. It was darker outside when I left, though.
I thought I would breeze through this. I've lived in developing countries, in villages where the only market set up shop once a week. I don't eat out anyway and don't eat packaged stuff.
Great in theory, but meaningless here. I do suspect I would have been able to haul home more fresh produce is I was back in the ME, though.
I walked in the store and, as is my habit, I started with fruits and vegetables. However, once I started weighing things and figuring prices I thought I should go for my main meal items first. That's a huge difference right there: fruits and vegetables essentially became "garnish" for this weeks diet. And, I never really realized how much that stuff weighs.
At first I thought I could nail this by shopping from the bulk foods, but they're still not the norm in stores. I did get some green lentils and some oatmeal. I knew there could be no compromise on a filling breakfast, lest I kill somebody by noon.
Within about ten minutes my head began to hurt. This is not shopping , I thought, this is chess. Pick up a gallon of milk and think you're so smart because this will last you over two weeks and then realize that the $4 it costs means you can't buy rice, so you replace the gallon with a half gallon. You pick up the cheap wheat bread and wonder what the hell to buy to put on the bread that will last the week. Peanut butter is certainly out - my cousin recently had a homeless man turn down the peanut butter crackers she'd offered him: "That stuff'll kill you!" So, I wandered around pondering that for a while before I decided that a $0.99 bag of garbanzo beans would go far if I made another batch of my hummus (sans tahini, sadly). I wavered quite a bit on whether to spend the $4.50 on chicken, but really couldn't quite make it fit with everything. Luckily, I'm not a big meat eater anyway. I kept stopping, using my mobile phone to keep track of my tab, and stealing glances at the baskets of other shoppers and trying to extrapolate meaning from their purchases. One young family with three small, round girls went by with what looked like a side of beef in their cart. Another woman with a toddler in her cart had just eight loaves of cheap, white bread. At this point I was hungry and more than a little annoyed.
Here's what I got for $21:
1/2 gal 1% Milk
32 oz. Plain Yogurt (I blame the Turks for my addiction, but it does wonders mixed with lentils or beans)
1 5oz. block of cheese
1 32oz. bag of brown rice
1 can black beans
1 1lb. bag of garbanzo beans
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1.4 lbs. of organic steel-cut oats
0.81 lbs of green lentils
1 bag frozen, chopped spinach
1 bag frozen chopped broccoli
I loaf whole wheat bread
3 bananas
1 box black tea
I'm trying to be quite literal with this, only eating what I buy...or find or steal. I think I did pretty well, actually. Let's see how I feel next Thursday. Saturday morning I plan to hit the downtown farmer's market, which advertises as accepting food stamps, to see what somebody could actually purchase there. Based on what I've seen, I suspect not much.
Salaam.
I thought I would breeze through this. I've lived in developing countries, in villages where the only market set up shop once a week. I don't eat out anyway and don't eat packaged stuff.
Great in theory, but meaningless here. I do suspect I would have been able to haul home more fresh produce is I was back in the ME, though.
I walked in the store and, as is my habit, I started with fruits and vegetables. However, once I started weighing things and figuring prices I thought I should go for my main meal items first. That's a huge difference right there: fruits and vegetables essentially became "garnish" for this weeks diet. And, I never really realized how much that stuff weighs.
At first I thought I could nail this by shopping from the bulk foods, but they're still not the norm in stores. I did get some green lentils and some oatmeal. I knew there could be no compromise on a filling breakfast, lest I kill somebody by noon.
Within about ten minutes my head began to hurt. This is not shopping , I thought, this is chess. Pick up a gallon of milk and think you're so smart because this will last you over two weeks and then realize that the $4 it costs means you can't buy rice, so you replace the gallon with a half gallon. You pick up the cheap wheat bread and wonder what the hell to buy to put on the bread that will last the week. Peanut butter is certainly out - my cousin recently had a homeless man turn down the peanut butter crackers she'd offered him: "That stuff'll kill you!" So, I wandered around pondering that for a while before I decided that a $0.99 bag of garbanzo beans would go far if I made another batch of my hummus (sans tahini, sadly). I wavered quite a bit on whether to spend the $4.50 on chicken, but really couldn't quite make it fit with everything. Luckily, I'm not a big meat eater anyway. I kept stopping, using my mobile phone to keep track of my tab, and stealing glances at the baskets of other shoppers and trying to extrapolate meaning from their purchases. One young family with three small, round girls went by with what looked like a side of beef in their cart. Another woman with a toddler in her cart had just eight loaves of cheap, white bread. At this point I was hungry and more than a little annoyed.
Here's what I got for $21:
1/2 gal 1% Milk
32 oz. Plain Yogurt (I blame the Turks for my addiction, but it does wonders mixed with lentils or beans)
1 5oz. block of cheese
1 32oz. bag of brown rice
1 can black beans
1 1lb. bag of garbanzo beans
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1.4 lbs. of organic steel-cut oats
0.81 lbs of green lentils
1 bag frozen, chopped spinach
1 bag frozen chopped broccoli
I loaf whole wheat bread
3 bananas
1 box black tea
I'm trying to be quite literal with this, only eating what I buy...or find or steal. I think I did pretty well, actually. Let's see how I feel next Thursday. Saturday morning I plan to hit the downtown farmer's market, which advertises as accepting food stamps, to see what somebody could actually purchase there. Based on what I've seen, I suspect not much.
Salaam.
Another Day, Another $3
I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow.
Normally, this would not rate as news or elicit a post.
However, tomorrow I'm going on food stamps. Sort of.
For the next two weeks I'll shop and eat on an average food stamp budget: $3 a day.
Even I can do the math on this one: $21 a week; $84 a month.
It's a project for my social policy course. We'll each be writing a paper on the experience.
My first observation: the easiest way to get initial information on the food stamp program is online. Which begs the question, how many food stamp households have Internet access?
The food stamp challenge has been getting a lot of press. Members of Congress, a few governors and members of the media have had a go at it. May you'll give it a try as well.
Salaam.
Normally, this would not rate as news or elicit a post.
However, tomorrow I'm going on food stamps. Sort of.
For the next two weeks I'll shop and eat on an average food stamp budget: $3 a day.
Even I can do the math on this one: $21 a week; $84 a month.
It's a project for my social policy course. We'll each be writing a paper on the experience.
My first observation: the easiest way to get initial information on the food stamp program is online. Which begs the question, how many food stamp households have Internet access?
The food stamp challenge has been getting a lot of press. Members of Congress, a few governors and members of the media have had a go at it. May you'll give it a try as well.
Salaam.
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