Could YOU Live on $1 a Meal? Four House Dems take the "Food Stamp Challenge" to Promote New Bill

[demobabe]

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

Four members of Congress are completing the weeklong "Food Stamp Challenge" Monday by eating on the average federal assistance provided to food stamp recipients: $21 per week, which works out to $3 a day or $1 a meal.

Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Jo Ann Emerson (D-Mo.), Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) - all members of the House Hunger Caucus - were trying to raise awareness after the introduction of the Feeding America's Families Act, which would add $4 billion to the annual food stamp budget. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, also a Democrat, took the challenge last month.

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is.

On their blogs, the participating members of Congress seemed genuinely humbled and moved by experiencing the plight faced by too many Americans, even if only for a week. About 26 million of us get food stamps, and the demographic breakdown from a 2005 government study may surprise you. Half of recipients are children and 8% are 60 or older. Many recipients have jobs: 40% of participating individuals worked or at least lived in a household with earnings.

The study also suggests that the food stamp program is helping people get off welfare and into the workforce: "In 1990, 42 percent of all food stamp households received cash welfare benefits and only 19 percent had earnings. In 2005, only 15 percent received cash welfare, while 29 percent had earnings."

Read full article: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/245

[Deja Q]

1. In America, nope. None of us could.

[Marrah_G]

30. family of 4, my food budget is 100.00 a week on a good week, sometimes it's much less.

One adult, 3 teenagers:

The kids eat lunch at school (a dollar a day for 2 kids and the 3rd gets free lunch)

28 breakfasts, 13 lunches, 28 dinners. That's 69 meals. That's .69 cents per meal. We make things stretch, but frankly we have to fall back on alot of things that aren't the best for us. Organic... I'd love to go organic, can't afford it. I would love to afford fresh everything, but I simply can't. I do alot of little things to try and stretch things, like buying canned tomatoes when they are on sale and making lots of spaghetti sauce. Snacks and the extras that teens want are very rare in this house.

Food prices keep rising, gas prices keep rising, household item prices are rising, and clothing prices are rising and it's the working poor like myself that are falling through cracks. Thank the gods I have good kids who don't complain because they don't have the things all their friends have.

My daughters first Prom is this Friday. I'm scrimping just to get her nails done as a special treat. For her friends it's no big deal. For us, every extra is a strain on the budget.

I'm trying not to sound whiny, but I think it's good these pollutions are at least attempting it. Maybe they will see how difficult it is.

I hope they know it is not just people on welfare living like this, it is also the working poor, the ones who make just a little to much to qualify for benefits.

Edit: Also location plays alot in prices. We are south of Boston. Everything is expensive here. Milk is 2.89 on sale but for some reason you can use coupons for milk in Massachusetts. I see alot of people quoting prices on these threads that are practically half the cost of things on sale here.

[salin]

33. I used to live on two boxes of mac & cheese (at the time .37 each) for

three meals. Have to add the cost of the added milk and butter (not much needed) and I would guess that those meals cost between 50 and 60 cents (this was in the mid eighties.) But that is for one person - at the time were I a mother I could never justify feeding my children so poorly (even if it met the "budget").

[Marrah_G]

40. sometimes things are tough

We've had weeks where I was scraping by and we pretty much lived on spagetti, ramen and macn cheese mixed with a can of veggies and a package of hot dogs. Thankfully most weeks are not that bad. But sometimes emergencies eat up most of the paycheck and you do what you have to to get by.

[Occulus]

53. I did that too

Mac & Cheese (the real real cheap Save-A-Lot kind) and Ramen noodles.

In college, I was a Ramen chef. I could make anything out of Ramen noodles.

This is not healthy, in any way. Now, if it were a small block of decent cheese, a couple slices of ham or turkey, and some flour and yeast (and an oven), well... that's a little different; that is a fairly balanced light meal.

And yes, I do bake my own breads, and once you learn how, it's easy. But you can't buy flour by the cup, so that's out, I guess...

[Deja Q]

65. That's not food. That's refined sugars and simple carbohydrates, and hardly a balanced diet.

We talk of proper nutrition for society.

Yet macaroni noodles and cheese concoction and candy bars costs less than all those things we're told we properly need to attain and maintain good health; those green and orange vegetable things children refuse to eat because they don't taste as good.

No doubt somebody will make vitamin pills cheaper to obtain in response to that. Made from a foreign country no less, where some illiterate or degenerate mixed up glycine for glycol and end up killing a number of people!

Family values? Hardly.

[Freddie Stubbs]

64. Then how do people on food stamps survive?

I've yet to hear of mass starvation deaths, so obviously people on food stamps are surviving.

[Deja Q]

66. But are they healthy? Since unused carbs are stored as fat,

people woukd need to burn it off.

Quality of life and long term consequences of a poor diet or lack of exercise.

I'm probably missing something, but for all the talk of a balanced diet, eating solely "mac and cheese" is anything but balanced.

[Freddie Stubbs]

68. How about starting the day with oatmeal?

It's healthy, and a canister of the generic variety only costs about a dollar. That will last you about two weeks.

[Marrah_G]

67. Mostly by eating really crappy, cheap foods.

Surviving yes, but the health of the people suffers and more importantly the health of children who are developing on crap food.

[Freddie Stubbs]

69. Healthy food is available for those who are smart enough to buy it

Oatmeal is a cheap and inexpensive way to start the day. Many staples, like rice and pasta, can be purchased in bulk.

[Shallah Kali]

70. Oatmeal is fine but what of the rest of the day? Filling up on refined rice & pasta isn't healthy

especially if you already have an illness like diabetes. white rice and plain past is cheap but make the blood sugar jump. Brown rice and whole wheat pasta is so much healthier and costs so much more over $1 per lb even in bulk in my area.

Plus how are those on the knife edge to afford to buy a 10# sack of rice and the like if they plan on buying anything else for that period?

[Cetacea]

90. So the poor are stupid ? nt

[Cetacea]

92. People on chemo are "surviving" too.

Yes, it's possible to remain alive on these ludicrous rations. Just alive enough to pad the wallets of the Health Industrial Complex with the medicaid card that comes with the food stamps.

[SmokingJacket]

103. Food stamps are used to supplement most people's budgets.

At least, the people I know who are on food stamps do have some other source of income -- just not quite enough of one. If people are totally destitute, they got to soup kitchens (there's not enough of them, though).

[BlooInBloo]

2. I assume you mean *with* electricity? Sure - easy.

Without electricity, I needed ~$3 per meal.

[Tektonik]

3. In my first couple of years in college...

I was able to squeak by on $25 a week (a few yrs ago) but I coincidentally lost a bit too much weight, so yeah I think $25 is a bit harsh, although doable.

[Reverend_Smitty]

4. Well if you want to live on Ramen every day for the rest of your life I guess you could...

but I imagine that's not very good for your health

[Forkboy]

5. I give these people credit

Sure,some may say it's just a stunt.But if so it's a stunt for the right reasons.The hunger and poverty in this country is simply beyond understanding.We can never claim to be the country we like to think we are with this happening right under our noses.

[SteelPenguin]

6. We do generally

Our budget for meals is to have it be less than a buck a person. A few meals a month we go over for special things, but in general we make it. For four our monthly budget is 300 for food (all generic store brands if the option is available, sales, coupons, etc). That works out to be about 10 bucks a day for four. 2.50 a day per person.

Granted it took work to get where we are. We eat vegetarian at home and finding good well balanced dishes was tough, and we use too much processed food for our likeing (it's making us fat) but we're eating. Before we were spending over 1000 a month on food and it was really wasteful.

Anyway eating on that budget is fine, but you need to cook everythign yourself, and not buy anything brand name unless you have a good coupon, and avoid higher priced foods. It takes smart shopping and some flair in the kitchen but it's not impossible.

[melody]

7. exactly

Frugality and careful bulk buying combined with coupons.

Our budget during bleak times is around $150 a month for four of us. It is do-able,
but only with lots of information and creativity (or conversely, ramen).

[cliss]

10. Wow. you managed to do

the "impossible". I believe the U.S. Department of Agriculture has some guidelines on how much it costs to eat.

I believe it's now at $145.00 per person, per month. That means that with your household, you would have needed $580.00/mo. Instead, you basically fed 4 people for the cost of 1. Amazing.:smoke:

[tammywammy]

11. $145 per person?

That's actually quite a bit (at least for me). I spend $30 max a week on groceries, including non-food items like toilet paper.

It's all about budgeting and coupons and sales. :)

[SteelPenguin]

13. It's funny

When we first went on a food budget it surprised us how much money we spent on food. What surprised me even more was how nobody we knew had a clue how much they spent on food. My parents chided us for how much we were spending, then a month later came back red faced to report that they were sending five times as much, or more, a month on food.

Other people we know who complain about how much money they have to spend on things, and also budget, don't really budget low. They don't get sales, they dont' buy generic items. They're sort of the whiney child who doesn't want to take the medicine. The way I see it, if you're wasting 500 bucks a month or even double that (or in some cases I know ten times that) on buying brand name foods, cases of diet soda and beer constantly, going out to eat every week, ordering in at least once or twice a week, and must have only the best ingredients and flavors you shouldn't complain about being tight on cash.

Then coupons. I've talked to people who just didn't do coupons. Just flat out wouldn't use them. Saw it as trashy to use coupons. Whatever honey.

My wife and I have actually been complimented by the checkout person on more than one occassion for how much we've saved. It's not unusual for us to go and spend $450 on groceries only to have $150 or more dollars cash back from coupons, store specials, etc.

[tammywammy]

15. Seasoning goes a long way too

I drive our of the way to hit Central Market, where I can buy seasoning in bulk. So I can just buy a little and it's waaay cheaper than the regular grocery store.

Also, so many people buy prepared food instead of making it themselves. I like to do this, noodles (usually bowtie), sautee some onion, bell pepper garlic and maybe canned tomatoes, oh and mushrooms too, with some salt and pepper, and grill some chicken (George Forman it). Cut up the chicken, mix it all together, maybe add some cheese if I got it. On regular box of pasta is at least 6 servings. I freeze it up, b/c I can't stand to eat the same thing everyday. And it's good too. I can vary the veggies and seasoning to it to change it up.

Trashy to use coupons? That I don't get. :eyes:

[Dammit Ann]

54. $450?

Whatever honey... coupons only work when you spend that kind of money.

[SteelPenguin]

60. Well they work if you spend 30 bucks as well

Just depends on what you're buying. Plus that's our single monthly grocery shop for four, which includes sundries and bulk items that we've run out of that will last months. Usually the cost is closer to $350 for the month, spending less than $300 after coupons, and store specials. You can use a coupon for just one thing, and some months we don't save much from coupons but we've saved upwards of $50-$75 bucks a shop with coupons alone.

I don't understand why you can't use coupons and in-store specials if you're spending less.

[bread_and_roses]

62. Congratulations. BUT there are good reasons everyone can't do this

Coupons. You have to have a source. Newspapers, magazines, printing off the computer. Many people cannot afford even a Sunday paper. Coupons are also tricky; one has to have a fairly high degree of skill to sort out the valuable from the one that is still going to leave you with a very high price per serving.

Sales: to really take advantage means having access to more than one grocery store, and that means transporation. This is obviously a problem for the poor.

Planning: requires a quite high skill level to to pack as much nutrition as possible into a very low food budget - which will still be low on fresh fruits and vegitables, they are simply too expensive.

Preparation: Time. If one takes a bus to get a child to Day Care, and then on to work, and then reverses that on the way home, that is four buses per day. That doesn't leave a lot of time for food preparation, and the likely result is a lot of boxed mac 'n cheese and canned ravioli.

And people getting food stamps are not spending $500 wk on groceries.

[SteelPenguin]

72. Obviously

Couple of responses though...

Coupons. It depends on where you live but generally most people should have access to a Sunday paper which will contain enough coupons to at least pay for the paper itself. Shopping once a month should allow you to gather up 3-5 weeks of coupons which adds up. Yes you have to pay attention to what's valuable and keep track of things, and it's an adjustment if you've never done it before, but it's not hard, especially if you take just a little bit of time to plan and pay attention to price per ounce and things like that which are legally required to be listed in many states.

Sales. We shop at one store. We don't plan on sales in advance, we see what is available based on what we buy. If their large bags of rice are on a big sale, we'll buy enough to last us many months. There are usually multiple things on sale of the items we buy, just different ones each time, and we stock up. I'm talking about the 2 for 1, 2 buck off, type listings that you get when using the store's 'members' card. Transportation can be a factor for people, but that's separate from sales.

Planning is tough, I'll give you that. We plan a month at a time, then derive our grocery list and what bulk items are low before we shop. Every meal for every day is planned out. This does take a bit of time at first, but now it's 15 minutes or so. If you're poor and taking a bus, you can probably do it on your trip.

Prep Time. You have to have time to prep and cook on this budget. There is no room for boxed mac n' cheese in the budget. If you want mac n' cheese you have to make it from scratch from bulk maccaroni bags and bulk generic cheddar, etc. It doesn't take long and you need to make enough to last for multiple meals and leftovers (lunch is generally leftovers from dinner the night before and occasionally a day is a 'leftovers' day to clear up the fridge). Fresh fruits and vegtables are a little low because of the one a month shop, but the first week will generally ahve some, and then after that it's frozen vegtables. Still there are plenty of recepes that take barely more time than making the food from scratch.

Obviously people spending 500 a week aren't on food stamps. I was saying that there are people who complain that they can't spend less than that, who just aren't trying, but feel like complaining anyway which irritates me.

We've been living as a family of four on a food budget of around $300 a month (ovo lacto vegetarian...it'd be cheaper if we ate meat). People have it harder than us as far as time and transporation and means, etc, but it's just very possible as we're spending at or under the amounts they talk about and it doesn't take a ton of time or brainpower. Just the willpower to buy generic, bulk when possible, use coupons, pay attention to costs and sales at the store, cook your own food, and skip the crap you don't need.

[bread_and_roses]

74. Serious underestimation of the resources necessary to the task you describe

It requires both a high level of skill AND a fair amount of time to both aquire and exercise that skill to do unit pricing.

Buying ahead - stocking up - is totally impossible on very low incomes.

We have no right to demand such stringency of people simply because they need help. Whatever we think of it, it is an ordinary "American" diet that people consider "normal" - that kids consider "normal." That doesn't mean steak every night, but it does mean meat nearly every night. It means some juice and soda for the kids, the occasional chip. It means buying a box of frozen vegs, not having to grow your own sprouts, however wonderful and healthy that might be.

Because I do a program on poverty issues, I asked my mother - the most frugal cook I know and one who managed to feed a "Waltons" sized household on next to nothing, to construct a month's menu for four based a months' FS allottment. She managed to get the requestite # of meals, but had to skimp on a number of citical elements necessary to a diet healthy to children, particularly. Her menus required ALL home-cooked meals, but based on the type of dishes that most people think of as "ordinary." Spaghetti, meat loaf, etc.

Now, a meat loaf, of course, takes over an hour to bake. You don't get home till near 6, say, what with the bus and all, it will be 7:30 before that meat-loaf is ready - what do you feed the kids in the meantime? Children are generally ravenous by the time they get home from school. Your food stamp diet has no $$ for any sort of snacks, much less healthy ones.

It "can be done" and more power to those who do it, I say, but it is not reasonable to make it an expectation. And I assure you, that without some very extra-ordinary measures, a family cannot eat healthy on Food Stamps. The program was not originally designed to cover the entire food costs of a household, but energy and housing costs have risen so much since its' original design that almost inevitably, very low income households will try to rely on FS to as great a degree as possible to meet their food needs.

[SteelPenguin]

80. What can I say

Maybe it does take skill and there are people who are just too thick to 'get it' and they shouldn't be punished for that. Fair enough.

We actually started our food budget when we were on a very low income, and we were able to slowly get what we needed. You don't start it by going in and 'stocking up'. We never did that. We slowly aquired the bulk items as they became available at sale prices. Our meals were limited at first but diversified to the point where we basically eat a different meal every night.

As far as 'normal' I have to disagree with you. It's part of the problem if people expect to essentially waste money on soda or chips or steak. It doesn't even mean meat every night (though meat is generally cheaper than veggie alternatives in many cases) but if so that's fine.

However with the meat loaf...First of all we dont' have any meals that require long prep or cookign times for just the reasons you described. You get the kids home around 6 and you need to feed them. That's where you have to do things like cook at night and then heat up the next day for particular meals, or just give the kids some sort of starter or actrivity for plenty of 10-15 minute meals.

i'm not saying that food stamps are adequate, but at the same time, It does irritate me a little bit that when we were struggling we learned how to budget ourselves and actually live within the budget that people are talking abotu as if it's going to end our lives by staying on it. We made it happen and we made compromises. I don't think we need to make people's lives more complicated and difficult who are struggling in poverty, but at the same time I dont' think that means that everyone has a right to drink pepsi and eat a steak every now and then.

Being poor means making sacrifices and learning to adapt. It sucks, and it's hard, and should be made easier (at least 50% more easier money wise, imho) but it can be done, and done well and healthy. It's not as impossible as some people seem to think it is.

[bread_and_roses]

76. Serious underestimation of the resources necessary to the task you describe

It requires both a high level of skill AND a fair amount of time to both aquire and exercise that skill to do unit pricing.

Buying ahead - stocking up - is totally impossible on very low incomes.

We have no right to demand such stringency of people simply because they need help. Whatever we think of it, it is an ordinary "American" diet that people consider "normal" - that kids consider "normal." That doesn't mean steak every night, but it does mean meat nearly every night. It means some juice and soda for the kids, the occasional chip. It means buying a box of frozen vegs, not having to grow your own sprouts, however wonderful and healthy that might be.

Because I do a program on poverty issues, I asked my mother - the most frugal cook I know and one who managed to feed a "Waltons" sized household on next to nothing, to construct a month's menu for four based a months' FS allottment. She managed to get the requestite # of meals, but had to skimp on a number of citical elements necessary to a diet healthy to children, particularly. Her menus required ALL home-cooked meals, but based on the type of dishes that most people think of as "ordinary." Spaghetti, meat loaf, etc.

Now, a meat loaf, of course, takes over an hour to bake. You don't get home till near 6, say, what with the bus and all, it will be 7:30 before that meat-loaf is ready - what do you feed the kids in the meantime? Children are generally ravenous by the time they get home from school. Your food stamp diet has no $$ for any sort of snacks, much less healthy ones.

It "can be done" and more power to those who do it, I say, but it is not reasonable to make it an expectation. And I assure you, that without some very extra-ordinary measures, a family cannot eat healthy on Food Stamps. The program was not originally designed to cover the entire food costs of a household, but energy and housing costs have risen so much since its' original design that almost inevitably, very low income households will try to rely on FS to as great a degree as possible to meet their food needs.

[Cetacea]

93. Inner city folks can't grow their own fruits and veggies?

Shame on them. They need to move to place that has some land, then wait a few months for the plants and trees to grow.
I swear, poor people are stupid.

~SARCASM~

[Dora]

75. We don't use coupons.

They're a lure to buy processed food products we can do without.

There aren't many coupons available for the foods we really need to eat. Coupons exist for factory-produced foods that need "added incentive" to buy in the first place.

Yeah, I turn up my nose at coupons. Usually the products they're marketing doesn't pass my sniff test.

[melody]

78. Well, if "free" smells badly to you lol

I get free or very, very cheap stuff with coupons all the time. I buy them in multiple
numbers. I've brought home a cart filled with free cereal before.

[Dora]

88. I guess it depends on the cereal.

I don't often see offers like that on the brands I buy.

[melody]

102. It's a matter of matching high value coupons to loss leader sales

If you live in double coupon territory, this is especially so. Just get coupons from a vendor (there are lots on the web) and match them to the 2-for-$4 sales. If you have a .70 off coupon...

I don't care what the cereal is, I can usually use it to barter/trade for something else.

[SteelPenguin]

81. I agree with you the majority of the time

Most coupons are a complete waste of time. Still for things like diapers and shampoo and non-food things it can be more usefull. It does take a bit of tiem to go through the drek for the processed foods to find things like a coupon for say a block of Kraft cheese which prices it lower than the generic. Then taking those coupons and comparing in the store, often not using many of them, but enough to save some money, particularly going to a double coupons store.

[Dora]

89. Costco

We stock up on things like cheese and diapers at Costco. I use all-natural shampoo/conditioner that's occasionally on sale at my grocer, but I've never seen any coupons for it.

Diapers - that's a budget killer. Costco has saved our hide in that regard.

[SteelPenguin]

95. It's funny

We did a cost comparison and we found that costco didn't save us money when you factor in the membership cost, gas prices to get there, and then the actual prices. Usually with double coupons we'd be able to get brand name diapers at the main grocery store cheaper per diaper than at costco, or even cheaper still is to get the diapers at either wal-mart or target.

We went around costco one saturday morning to try and figure out if it was worth the membership and it just wasn't for us. Too much of what they have is processed foods, etc, and things we just don't buy. I can see it being usefull for some people on budgets, but for what we eat it just didn't pay.

[Dora]

98. Oh, yeah. Some people will go broke at Costco. Not us.

Where's the savings on a $6 tub of brownie bites that I wouldn't buy at the grocery store? Some people go crazy for crap like that.

When we keep to our list - cheese, milk, butter, & other pantry staples - Costco does show us a legitimate savings.

We don't buy many processed foods. That's the point of my intial reply. I don't use coupons, because coupons are usually issued for manufactured/processed foods. The processed foods we do buy are organic/natural/etc, and those manufacturers don't usually offer coupons as the "incentive" to purchase is in its organic-ness.

[philosophie_en_rose]

85. Not many coupons for produce, that's for sure.

unless they're jolly green giant processed cauliflower with cheese-product sauce and fake bacon. ;)

It's a good season for the farmer's markets, but even they're getting pricey.

[Matariki]

28. I posted something similar on the last thread like this

and got a lot of flak for it. my weekly budget is about $30 too, out of choice not necessity. i don't buy processed or boxed food, just bulk and vegetables and small amounts of meat or fish. it's no big deal and i wasn't even trying to make an argument out of it, just state what is a simple fact for me. :shrug:

[melody]

79. It's amazing how quickly you get attacked for just stating facts, hm? n/t

[Matariki]

83. self delete

fergit it

[Cetacea]

94. Are you doing the food pyramid thingie?

I am curious how you can afford five fruits and veggies and so on on this type of budget.

[SteelPenguin]

96. Another poster mentioned below

(just jumping in here)

Plenty of fruits and veggies are inexpensive as long as they are in season, and of certain varieties. Things like bulk onions, carrots, sweet potatoes, etc are generally very inexpensive and quite healthy. Apples in season are fairly cheap, etc. Even Bananas can be pretty low cost depending on timing.

Otherwise frozen non-processed veggies are pretty inexpensive. Frozen broccoli stems are very cheap and nutritious. They're not as pretty as the high end name brand broccoli because they're just stems, but they're just as good for you and a whole lot cheaper, particularly when you buy the generic brand.

[tammywammy]

99. I buy a lot of frozen veggies

Store brand frozen veggies are pretty cheap. Strawberries were buy one get on free a few weeks ago. I stocked up and put some in the freezer.

[melody]

26. Frugal folk do it all the time

It's a matter of staying away from processed foods, growing vegetables and fruit (container gardening, in my case), using coupons and matching them with loss leader sales, making a lot of stuff from scratch, and buying fresh/local, but it is done all the time. I'm hardly unusual.

What's difficult is doing that without significant time invested in reading, research, etc, and then trying to do this while working and/or raising kids, et al. I'm in no way suggesting regular folk should HAVE to do this. I'm saying it can be done.

[Dammit Ann]

55. I have been there and you are right...

Although, even with skills food costs are out of control. I lived on a budget 5 years ago that I can no longer even come close to sustaining now, NOT EVEN CLOSE. Gardening, canning, coupons, "from scratch", et al, I have been doing it. I am a chef. And I have actually considered that at one point I could starve to death. (NEW ORLEANS), which actually turned out to be the cheapest place to buy groceries in the country. (Don't know about NOW) I just bought a new house, 150.00 a month more than my rent but I had to because I think I will have the space to grow the food I need. My story is not so strange I think these days... and it scares the shit out of me.

[melody]

59. Food costs are definitely out of control

But growing offsets that to some degree. Bean sprouts are very nutritious and easy to grow, for instance.

You might consider taking on a secondary gardener with your extra space -- my older sister did this at her
home ("renting" garden space to someone with an apartment). It might off-set the added mortgage expense.

[SteelPenguin]

12. Bulk generic ramen or rice

goes a long way...not that pre packaged ramen noodle stuff. That's too expensive. The bulk bags of the noodles, if you can find them, are about a quarter the cost. Add a cube of generic veggie boulion, crack an egg in after the 3 minutes, add a shake of generic mixed frozen vegtables (peas and carrots) and voila. A nice soup with protein, veggies, and all for under 20 cents a serving. Fill ya up too.

150 would be insane. I guess it's possible, but I would imagine very very boring food and not much variety. 300 is tight. I wouldn't mind a budget of 400-500. That way I could occasionaly get more than one jar of Jalapeno slices every few months. I likes me some pickled jalapeno.

[melody]

29. It's not really boring or non-varied

It's just a lot of work. It's cooking and shopping loss leader sales with coupons and a lot
of other tiring things. But if you have to do it, you do it.

Bulk ramen -- bulk everything -- is definitely best. Anyone who has ever purchased bulk yeast and individual yeast packets can compare the price and see that.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. One of the issues with trying it for one week is that there's no chance to build up supplies.

Living on a food stamp budget for a month would give you a chance to buy what's on sale and buy bigger quantities at a lower cost per serving. With just one week and nothing to start with it's impossible to have a balanced diet. The best you can hope for is a half way decent diet for the week and it'd be two meals, not three would be my guess.

It's also pretty near impossible to keep it healthful and cheap if you don't know how to cook and there seem to be a lot of people out there who haven't learned how.

[SteelPenguin]

14. You're absolutely right

The only reason we can do it on our budget is because we've bought the "big bags" of noodles and rice and whatnot. Doing it on a week is pointless and impossible.

doing it on a regular basis is very doable, but yes you must know how to, or be willing to learn how to, cook.

[demobabe]

16. That's pretty amazing

That has to be a lot of beans and rice and noodles... I imagine fresh veggies are pretty much out of the question.

[tammywammy]

17. Maybe, it depends on where you shop

And frozen veggies are good too and cheap.

[demobabe]

18. Depends on where you live, too

In Hawaii, a gallon of milk is $4.00 (on sale). A pint of strawberries, $7. Tomatoes? You can buy the Romas on sale for $2.50 lb.

It explains why Spam and rice are so popular in the islands!

[ellisonz]

61. Plate Lunches.

[Robbien]

34. People on food stamps don't really get a choice

They usually have to shop at the closest store, or the one reachable by public trans. Those stores are not known for their bargains.

[Rosemary2205]

43. Amen to that.

[me b zola]

48. That is an excellent point that most people do not take into consideration..n/t

[kath]

45. Some fresh veggies are cheap - carrots in the 2-lb, or better yet the 5-lb bag come out

to well under a dollar a pound. Sweet potatoes have a lot of nutrition, are filling, and during some times of the year are pretty cheap.

[smtpgirl]

8. Emerson is a Republican

FOOD STAMP CHALLENGE
Lawmakers Find $21 a Week Doesn't Buy a Lot of Groceries

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 16, 2007; Page A13

But sad to say she is the ONLY ONE to put her Republican MONEY where her MOUTH is.

I lived on Oodles of Noodles & peas for 3 months in college!!



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051501957.html


Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), co-chairmen of the House Hunger Caucus, called on lawmakers to take the "Food Stamp Challenge" to raise awareness of hunger and what they say are inadequate benefits for food stamp recipients. Only two others, Ryan and Janice Schakowsky (D-Ill.), took them up on it.

Ryan and three other members of Congress have pledged to live for one week on $21 worth of food, the amount the average food stamp recipient receives in federal assistance. That's $3 a day or $1 a meal. They started yesterday.

"All of us in Congress live pretty good lives," said McGovern, who ate a single banana for breakfast yesterday and was going through caffeine withdrawal by midday. "We don't have to wake up worrying about the next meal. But there are a lot of Americans who do. I think it's wrong. I think it's immoral that in the U.S., the richest country in the world, people are hungry."

[RamboLiberal]

44. Good for them - I'd like to see every lawmaker try this

Could you imagine Dennis Hastert doing this diet?

I hope this movement spreads. Perhaps it could be used for fundraising for foodbanks, donate some of the excess $$$s you would normally spend that week.

[Mind_your_head]

49. LOL - He'd deflate & die

Could you imagine Dennis Hastert doing this diet?

[Cobalt-60]

52. He should remember Ketchup is a vegetable

To me Ketchup as a vegetable sums up the whole Republicon attitude toward this subject.
I'll never allow them to forget that statement.
It totally defined the Reagan Administration's attitude.

[Matariki]

19. Last thread like this said food stamp assistance was $28

how come it keeps going down with each thread?

[Matariki]

20. This is a pointless argument.

I think the focus of the conversation needs to shift from whether a person can live on $21 worth of groceries a week to why we should have these programs in the first place.

People who are against programs like food stamps are not moved to support them simply because the amount is inadequate. The issue that needs to be addressed is not whether the amount is 'fair' or can actually provide enough nutrition for a person, but WHY or IF it benefits society as a whole to have a safety net like the food stamp program.

Ultimately, what's the point of these congress people proving they can (or can't) live on the equivalent of food stamp allowances? How will this benefit anyone? How will it benefit the program and how will it change the minds of opponents to social welfare programs?

[demobabe]

23. It brings awareness to the inadequacy of the program

The best way to show a problem is to illustrate it, get people personally involved with it, and this is a great way of doing so.

AWARENESS of the problem is the first step to solving any issue. In this case, shaming the government to do something about it.

[Matariki]

25. Okay, maybe - BUT....

since it's congress that holds the purse, then presumably if members in congress experience first hand just how (not) far $21-$28 dollars goes, then PERHAPS they will be motivated to make changes.

HOWEVER, I noticed that all four congress-critters were democrats. I have a strong feeling they already get it.

It still is looking at the problem from the wrong angle. You have a lot of people (in congress and otherwise) who are completely unsympathetic to whether the amount is adequate on not and who view the whole program as a 'hand out' in the first place. You have a lot of average tax payers who resent having money they worked hard for going to people who are not working. When a person is looking at it from that perspective then people complaining about the amount just seem ungrateful.

SO, I think proponents of social programs would do MUCH better to address how it benefits society as a WHOLE to not have hungry and/or malnourished citizens. THAT point is not well made by simply focusing on how inadequate the benefits are.

[demobabe]

27. we've had a rubber stamping republican congress until recently

and even now, the democratic majority is unlikely to have enough votes to override any veto the chimperor wishes to impose.

the only way to get republicans to give up any little thing is to SHAME THEM and sometimes even that doesn't work. so if the dems want to demonstrate exactly HOW SCREWED our sick and poor are, all the more power to them.

if you're in the boat to need foodstamps, you don't need people telling you that you're not getting proper nutrition if you're not getting enough food, period. of course starvation makes for malnutrition.

[Matariki]

31. i'm not sure we're understanding each other's posts

Yes, what those congress members are doing is admirable, and probably educational for them, i just doubt it will accomplish much.

i don't understand why you posted your last sentence, nor do I disagree. But if it was directed to anything in my post, I'm sure you misunderstood me.

[demobabe]

32. I don't believe the people who are not sympathtic to this would be sympathetic to any other reason

There is a general brainwashing going on in this culture borne out of a twisting of pop-psychology to support the interests of the corporations and the rich. I don't know how many times I've heard Republicans say, "well, if they had PLANNED and SAVED their MONEY or TAKEN RESPONSIBILITY, then THEY WOULDN'T BE IN THIS SITUATION."

I've heard that argument used on any number of social programs, and no what argument I return with, they're sure they know the answer how to solve everything and nobody is going to tell them any different.

Try telling a guy in a wheelchair who became crippled by a drunk driver and relies on public assistance, "you should have taken more responsibility financially and prepared to be crippled, and you wouldn't be in this position!" Yeah, right. He should have planned to be crippled, even if the best job he could ever get was minimum wage. I'm not kidding - I really hear this kind of screwed up logic!

Really, who knows what makes a difference? You may be completely right in saying what Congress is doing won't make much difference. But maybe it will. Maybe you can share your ideas with your Congresspeople as to what you want to see happen. All I'm saying is that MORE PROMOTION is better than LESS, and I'm glad they're doing SOMETHING. Awareness is a start. Now feel free to pick up the torch and run with it.

:)

[Matariki]

35. But explain WHY society should support the guy in the wheelchair

and HOW it benefits not just him, but society as a whole.

That's a different argument than how he 'should have planned better'.

[demobabe]

38. I could explain til I'm blue in the face

But the people you're talking about - if they don't believe from the basic perspective of humanity, they're not going to buy anything else.

They'd be just as likely to argue that if we didn't give them any money, they'd die and we'd be rid of the problem. You could argue this approach would benefit society as a whole.

[Telly Savalas]

47. Shame them by making Bush veto the bill.

Bush's first tax cuts were signed in June of 2001. If the GOP could get that bill through Congress that fast, then why is it taking so long to get the Feeding America's Families Act passed? (Or any other legislation for that matter?) It's great that these 4 Congresspeople are doing something, but aren't there more than 200 members of the Democratic House caucus?

[MrSlayer]

21. McDonald's has the dollar menu.

Though I wouldn't suggest that anyone eat there.

[Matariki]

22. and i doubt you could use food stamps there (?)

[demobabe]

24. no, definitely not

And we all learned the nutritional benefits from "Supersize Me"

[MrSlayer]

36. I don't know.

Probably not but with them you never know.

[Marrah_G]

46. Foodstamps can only be used at grocery stores

[Cobalt-60]

51. Mc Donalds uses Tumorous and Downer cattle

Ambulatory Cattle with child sized tumors and sick cattle on carts with yellow arches on them do not exactly inspire me to eat there.
Health and Cash considerations caused me to forsake the Golden arches many years ago, but it's the thought of those sick cattle going into the grinder that keeps me out.
I can't believe that as a boy I used to consider that greasy, diseased crap a treat....

[MrSlayer]

63. I know. I haven't eaten there or any fast food place of it's ilk in years.

It is foul.

[Maddy McCall]

101. Can you cite that?

Seriously, I'm not being a smart ass. Can you cite that? Because, if you can, I want to read it, let my son read it, and we'll never go through that drive-thru again.

[Cobalt-60]

106. I dont have solid proof - I saw it once while on a job.

I wish I had been carrying a camera.

[Skittles]

37. f*** these publicity stunts

do it for a year and I'll be impressed

[demobabe]

39. So tell me

...exactly what should the Congresspeople do? What's your solution?

[Skittles]

41. really look at the real problems people in poverty face

knowing that it's hard to eat well on food stamps is a f***ing no-brainer

[demobabe]

42. Yes, but tell me your specific ideas?

Yeah, it's impossible to eat well on food stamps, but here we see people can't even get basic nourishment. So if their actions increase the amount of money allocated per person for food stamps, I think that would help. Or they could shut up and not do anything. That's an option, too.

What is your big plan to fix poverty?

[Mind_your_head]

50. There IS no 'big plan'....sorry folks (me too)......

it's stil the "law of the jungle". Those who can adapt & learn will survive. Those who don't/will not learn/grow WON't survive.

[RandomKoolzip]

91. Um...a living wage?

Maybe?

[Hidden Stillness]

97. Direct Cash Payments and Jobs Programs

People are going to have to face the fact, again, that the only things that help poor people, reduce poverty, and improve the economy, are direct cash payments to the poor, (like Social Security, Welfare, etc.), and jobs programs, that get people good-paying employment immediately for some real cause, such as rebuilding infrastructure, planting trees and other plants, public works projects that needed to be done anyway, etc. Of course, that was alreay done and proved the answer once already--it was called the New Deal. Only these things immediately start pumping money back into the local economy, leading to actual hirings of workers at stores, etc., and further improvement. Tax cuts to rich people, who then make no immediate purchases but only invest, helps nothing, and further reduces the total amount of money available for Government programs that might have helped, so it actually only makes things worse.

The attitude has to change from the punitve/Republican "get these freeloaders off Government programs as soon as possible, whether their problems are solved or not" to what used to be the Democratic/American attitude, "we will help them until the problem is solved." This means running programs with a sufficent amount of money needed, and helping people where they need it--with health care coverage, including dental and for prescription eyeglasses, for example, and get rid of this horrific "Medicare" Part D and replace it with real prescription coverage. All these things kill a small budget, as the poor have. Get off the idea that subsidies should go to corporations which will then invent programs that will help depressed areas--it never works. A study by the Government Accountability Office, or the Congressional Budget Office--I can't remember which department it was, but one of the neutral statistics gatherers--after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, totalled up the cost and the results, about a year later, something like that, and actually determined, that if the Federal Government had just bought new houses for all homeowners who lost theirs, and gave them cash payments to use in their neighborhoods to revive the ecomony, it not only would have given better results, but it would have cost less than the endless "contractor/subcontractor/graft/no-bid-contract/corporate subsidy" that they have instead been doing. Less--and it would have solved the problem!

This also reminds me of when the first asshole Bush was "President" (or CEO, or something). After proposing a ridiculous scheme of TAX CUTS for unemployed people, a reporter asked, that tax cuts won't help them, "But President Bush--these people don't have incomes. They're unemployed..." This is my solution. You have to face the fact that poor people have NOTHING, and so "tax cuts" and "coupons for bulk purchases ten miles away" will not help, "retraining programs" for jobs that will then be outsourced will not help, etc., etc. They have no resources at all, and so only by giving them money to live on and pay their bills, and worrying about further things later, will anything be helped.

[Maddy McCall]

100. Yep.

:thumbsup:

[Dammit Ann]

56. CALLING ALL NEW ORLEANIANS!!!

DO YOU REMEMBER THE CIRCLE GROCERY? BEST BARGAIN IN FIVE STATES... I DREAM OF IT.

[rucky]

57. Awesome! Next, try the no-health-insurance challenge. n/t

[eridani]

58. No problem if they can use their accumulated middle class capital

Freezers and big refrigerators to store things on sale, any appliance you might want to have for scratch cooking. With a hotplate and no fridge--NO WAY!

[bread_and_roses]

77. Good points. And even with a stove and refrig....

you need half-way decent cooking equipment and food storage supplies.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

71. I could.

But then again, I live in Brazil. :silly:

[Hidden Stillness]

73. Nice Gesture, but They are Still Ignorant

From what I read, this "challenge" only went on for one week, not nearly long enough to get any sense of what it is like to live on a poverty budget. Wait until you have a toothache that there is no money to attend to, and you just learn to live with it, year after year. Some of the phony replies on this thread and others I have read on whether or not it was "easy" to live on this or that extremely small budget, all suffered from the same lack of comprehension, like those idiots who believe that if you raise the price of gas at the pumps to price-gouging level, that people will "drive less." This only works for rich people, who are using their vehicles when they don't have to. Poor people who already only use them for work, with longer and longer commutes nowadays as the trend of business-district-consolidation-away-from-neighborhoods continues, can't reduce their driving any more, unless they don't go to work. There is some of the same kind of lack of comprehension on this thread, as some people appear to be unaware of how much money is actually needed to live on.

I heard Representative Jim McGovern on the Floor of the House on C-SPAN, talking about how "cranky" they got from the lack of food for the week, and knew then that these rich people understood nothing. "Cranky" is so cute; about as cute as the stupid rich people who claim to live on a dollar a meal on threads like this. If you read some of these posts, the impression I get--besides the unending, insufferable rich people posture that they are such clever shoppers, so good with money and bargains, know where to shop, blah, blah, blah--is that they are actually taking their SUVs far beyind where poor people could walk to, buying hundreds of dollars of bulk purchases, far more than $1 a meal, then falsely averaging the total result downward to a mythical single-meal figure, cutting out reference to any purchases they don't want to bother remembering. They are really on budgets of hundreds of dollars, oblivious, yet always lecturing. When you can go to a store and buy a few condiments, spending $20 or $30, having bought no actual food yet, and when $200 does not fill up a cart anymore as it used to, when coupons are more and more manipulatively written so that you have to buy 5 of an item, where you only wanted one, or have to waste a stamp you don't have to send it in for a rebate rather than just getting the money back at your convenience, not theirs--making all these coupons worthless--and when you only have one store selection in your neighborhood because the car is not running right or you were trying to save the gas for work again, then all of this "I am the superior shopper" shit is completely worthless blather, again.

A while ago, there was a really stupid thread that someone had posted, of some phony Republican pretending it was "so easy" to live on $12,000 a year, a preposterous claim. The original article actually contained this quote: "$382 a month for food, utilities, clothes, medical deductibles and co-pays, gasoline, renter's and life insurance and any help I give my daughter, who lives on even less than I do." Anybody that willfully clueless about what things actually cost, is not going to be educated by anything; they want to shove this down your throat, and they will.

It seems to me that what should be done is something I read about during the early 1980s, but can't remember details. One liberal Democrat in Congress, who believed that no one could pay the bills and make the money gotten on Welfare last for a whole month, and a concervative Republican in Congress, who believed that you could actually live on the amount, lived on only a typical Welfare-payment amount for I think it was, three months, so they would really know how you fall further and further behind. At the end of the experiment, both agreed: you could not pay the bills and live on this horrible amount; they both agreed that the payments were too low. If you want to teach, don't fuck around for some short period--suffer it! Otherwise, just pass the bill increasing the amount or whatever it is you want to do, and make the opponents accept it.

[demobabe]

84. Great post!

Adding on to your comment about getting a toothache, likely our foodstamps family is also on Medicaid, so if they got a toothache, then they can go get the tooth extracted. That's the only dental procedure Medicaid will cover.

So unless they could get their regular doctor to prescribe an antibiotic for an infection, any other dental procedure would have to come out of their own pocket.

[LoZoccolo]

82. Here is how I would spend the $21 per week.

I would take the Republican route of getting off my ass and being inventive in working for the food.

1. Sell the $21 worth of food stamps for $10.
2. Go to Home Depot and buy a crobar.
3. Beat the shit out of people and take their money!
4. Buy food.

_{NOTE: This post is sarcastic.}

[demobabe]

86. kick

:kick:

[undergroundpanther]

87. Let them try it for 5 years.

Than maybe they might change.

How many"conservatives" are doing it? Anybody know?

I sure as hell know none of the G8 would dare it.

[SmokingJacket]

104. You can do it, but it'll make you fat.

Cheap carbs.

[RC Quake]

105. Grow, can/freeze your own fruits/vegetables...it can be achieved.