Many of my friends followed me during Lent, when I decided to take The Food Stamp Challenge. This meant that for the duration of Lent (a six week period) I would limit my grocery budget to the national average of $21 a week per person in a household.
Since it is just me living under my roof, $21 was my total budget. There were weeks when this presented a real challenge--I found that if I had to buy olive oil (a decent bottle costs between a quarter and a third of my weekly budget) or if something went wrong (like the week that some produce went bad half way through the week), I was in trouble.
I also found that it was doable as long as I didn't expect to eat more than about 1500 calories a day. Which is 500 less a day than the USDA says I should eat. And it meant that I spent a lot of time on the week-ends figuring out my meals for the week.
So why have I decided to continue eating like this?
First off, I want to explore how this works during summer. Some producers at the local farmers markets will take food stamps (ebt cards) and some will not. My hope is that I can get better, and CHEAPER produce by going to the Tuesday and Sunday markets.
Second, I want to try gardening. One of the better kept secrets of the food stamp program is the fact that you can use food stamps to buy seeds and vegetable starts.
Third, during Lent I was able to take advantage of the fact that we have dinner at church every Wednesday evening. This advantage does not exist during the summer. How much of a difference will one additional meal make on my menu?
What I pledge here is that this time I will do a better job of offering recipes--even if I am eating fewer calories, I want them to be HEALTHY. And I pledge to blog at least three times a week.
I also want to talk about the very real issues around the food stamp program. It is not perfect, and as I am writing this there are some who are working to cut $2 billion a year from the program. I want to hear your thoughts on that!
Thanks for coming along on the journey again!
