Have you all read this article yet? I bet you have. It’s had me in a snit all morning. I feed a family of eight (and that is not two adults and six kids – that is five over 18 and three under) for 100 – 150$ per person per month. I don’t do it by buying blue ice pops and orange soda either.
Let’s get this party started!
Alex’s mom, Connie Williamson, says she tries to give her son healthy food but doesn’t always succeed.
“When he gets up on his own, he’ll go find what he wants,” she says. “He’ll get a hot dog bun, or get a piece of bread. He’ll get an ice pop or something.”
And that’s exactly what he did early one morning, before his family headed out to the local food pantry. Alex ate a blue ice pop for breakfast.
How about starting by not purchasing ice pops? Then teach your kid how to make a more nutritious breakfast. Eggs are less than 2$ per dozen, and I pay around 5$ for 2.5 dozen. My nine year old can make scrambled eggs. On the stove. This is a new development. Before he was allowed to use the stove he microwaved them. Even subsidized housing tends to come with a microwave.
Connie Williamson says it’s not easy on a tight budget. She spends hours driving around each month looking for deals. She has to stretch $600 in food stamps for herself, her husband, Alex and two teenage girls.
Did you notice above I said I feed five adults and three kids on about what she spends on two adults and two teenagers? I mean per person, not total. And I don’t qualify for food stamps to help me do it. I also don’t schlepp all over doing it. Two of the circulars I use are delivered, free of charge, to my mailbox every Wednesday. I get circulars for three other stores I don’t even go to. Have internet? Every food store posts their weekly sales online now.
“You can get leaner cuts of meat, but then they’re more expensive,” she says. “You can get fresh fruit every couple of days and blow half of your budget on fresh fruits and vegetables in a week’s time, easy.”
I buy tubes 72/28 ground beef. The fat cooks off anyway, and it’s cheaper than its 90/10 counterpart. When I make hamburgers with it, the fat helps it stay together so I am not adding even more filler, like egg. Same with meatloaf. I buy tougher cuts like london broil and use a crock pot to slow cook them all day long until they are all but falling apart. I buy whole tenderloins and cut my own filet mignon, usually at 4$ a pound no less!I stock up on chicken breast when it’s down to 1.25$ a pound. I’ve bought chicken and meat by the case before in order to save a buck or twenty. Just repackage it and freeze it.
I am lucky that I am able to get organic, local produce every week. I spend 75$ and get around 50 pounds of food. Not a bad price and always delicious. Half your food budget should be on fresh produce, IMO.
But when Alex was thirsty after a walk, his mother gave him a plastic water bottle filled with orange soda.
Elaine Livas, who runs Project SHARE, the local food pantry, says she sees it all time.
“A gallon of milk is $3-something. A bottle of orange soda is 89 cents,” she says. “Do the math.”
Livas says low-income families might know milk is better for their kids, but when it comes to filling a hungry stomach, a cheaper high-calorie option can look pretty good.
I think milk is actually less per ounce than most soda. I could be wrong. I know for sure water is less. Your kids don’t like water? Neither do it. Buy some lemons, squeeze em up! Make some lemon-water (not sugar laden lemonade, just flavour your H2O with a spritz or two) and serve it up!
I only buy 100% not from concentrate juices for my kids. And I water them down. And I stock the fuck up when they are buy one get one.
via Eating Nutritiously A Struggle When Money Is Scarce : NPR.
There is more. More about cooking, and buying high-calorie processed foods and some other stuff. And yes, people are going to be fat and not eat well if they buy high calorie processed foods. Which are cheap. But it is still cheaper to buy fresh (or flash frozen) fruits and veggies and make your own than buying premade crap in a box.
The bottom line here is, we need to teach people how to shop and how to cook, not throw money at them and expect them to know what to do with it. What’s the old adage, give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime. Same idea. I took a 5$ london broil tonight (a tough piece of meat, and usually pretty cheap), two cans of potatoes, a bag of carrots and a box of beef broth and tossed it in a crock pot for six hours. It was delicious. It cost me, at most, 12$ and there was enough there for all eight of us, so call it $1.50 per serving. If we were a family of four there would be leftovers for lunch, dinner or to turn into stew. As it is there is broth left and I think I might make a stew with it as I have another london broil in the freezer.
