On the first morning of the Food Stamp Challenge, I did a lot of
thinking.
Here are my rambling thoughts that I dictated as I was cooking my
oatmeal Sunday morning:
As I was cooking my oatmeal and making my coffee, I thought about how my
aunt had made us oatmeal in Australia. While we were there, we also ate a lot
of fresh fruits and vegetables (mostly fruit) that they had grown from trees in
their yard. Bonus: their neighbor has an avocado tree. Fresh guacamole every
day sounds good to me!
 |
| This little guy tried to eat all of my strawberries |
While making my oatmeal, I also began heating the pot of black beans
that had been soaking overnight. The bean experiment was also to help assuage
my fear of cooking with dry beans. I’d had a disaster attempting baked beans at
Mark’s birthday party last year. Nobody likes crunchy beans.
While cooking my oatmeal and heating the cold beans, it made me start thinking
about other countries (the beans made me think of our trip to Mexico) and how
they eat. It also made me consider the obesity epidemic in America. Why do we
have such a problem and why are we so fat?
Taking the food stamp challenge has made me rethink a lot of food
choices just for affordability. I think part of the problem that we have in
America is that there is so much variety of food. You can get nearly anything
anytime you want it, and we don’t tend to eat seasonally like a lot of other
places. Germany has Spargelzeit - a season (and festivals!) devoted to asparagus.
If you travel in Mexico or other countries in the Caribbean, they eat a
lot of rice and beans. They’re cheap and are a good source of nutrients. They also
eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, and often grow them themselves.
It seems that their fresh vegetables for some reason are less expensive than
ours. At least if you shop in their regular stores: you know - the ones that
tourists don't go in. Or the cheap roadside stands selling produce for next to
nothing.
I was also
thinking that this challenge would be easier during the summer when I can grow
some of my own vegetables. However that is also a luxury that most people on
food stamps probably don't have. I would imagine that most of them don't have
access to grow their own fruits and vegetables.
Other thoughts
on this challenge at the start:
Eating healthy
on SNAP requires a lot of cooking.
I'm not sure
how anyone who is working a full-time job with kid(s) or especially a single parent
would have time to do this. This also brings back some memories from my own
childhood. I didn’t realize it at the time, but we were pretty poor when I was
growing up. My dad also wasn't the greatest cook. I always joke that I grew up
eating nothing but popcorn and sardines. It is the honest truth, at least at
home. Our staples were sardines, popcorn (air popped, of course), bread (made
with dad’s yard sale bread machine), Ramen (Dad never bought it unless we could
get 6 packets for $1- that’s what he thought was a good deal), and of course
fruit on the bottom yogurt which we mixed with dad’s special Life Extension MixPowder (oh the irony –
my dad died at 58). Geez, this stuff is $60, no wonder we were poor!
Apart from
that, we ate out twice a week. Monday night was two-for-one pasta night and
usually Thursday nights we would go to McConnell’s for a 3 piece dark fried
chicken meal, which we would split.
Dry Beans take
a LONG time to cook.
They were
finally done around 8 p.m. after an overnight soak and about 12 hours of low
heat. I think next time I’ll do them in the crockpot.
I
am incredibly fortunate.
I don’t feel like I need to explain this one. My husband and
I both have good jobs and can easily afford not only life’s basic necessities,
but can also afford to eat out regularly.
Jackie is Awesome.
Currently, there is no program in place to provide diapers
to low income families. I can’t imagine trying to keep Markface fed, let alone
having a dry bottom while struggling to make ends meet.
And finally:
I already screwed up on the challenge. I blame Jay. He
invited his cousin & wife over. When I heard they were coming over, I said,
“Oh okay… are they coming over for brunch? I can make eggs benedict!” Jay
replied: “No, they just want to hang out. They won’t be here long.”
Which of course resulted in our eating pizza that night
because they visited for six hours. I started out okay – I already had my pound
of cheddar cheese to put out for snacking, and a sleeve of crackers that cost
about .50 if I needed to figure those into my budget.
If I had known, I would have planned accordingly. I was
hoping that they were coming over for eggs benedict, because I knew that I
could make it work in our budget, along with having ham for sandwiches in the
week. Although some may consider it fancy, you can make eggs benedict for about
$8.50 for 4 people. That comes to $2.12 instead of the usual $1.57 per person
for meal, but it’s an incredibly rich dish and would be considered more of a
dinner type meal.
Also, my dog ate half of my mozzarella when I walked out of
the room after shredding, so I’ll be eating cheddar for my snacks instead.
Jerk!
Here is what we would have had for our meals yesterday that
I had planned:
Breakfast:
Banana, Oatmeal prepared with milk and topped with about ½ cup
of fresh strawberries
Lunch:
Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, orange
Dinner:
Baked chicken, rice, broccoli
Snacks: oranges, cheese, crackers
Breakfast was Markface approved
Monday is a new day. I have fridge oatmeal prepared and
ready for breakfast. I just need to cut up some strawberries for the top. I’ll
toast an English muffin and eat a banana. For lunch, I will have soup. Dinner will
be my version of a burrito bowl: rice, black beans, tomato salsa, ground
turkey, cheese, lettuce & sour cream. Hopefully there will be enough
leftover for lunch on Tuesday. Dinner Tuesday will probably be the roast
chicken that I planned to make on Sunday.
