The $3-a-day diet Can a vegetarian who wants to eat healthy subsist only on government food stamps?

[Shallah Kali]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-morrison24may24,0,2235293.column?coll=la-opinion-columnists

In the long run, it takes money to eat thin and healthy. For $3 a day — which is what you get when you divide 30 days into the $155 monthly food stamp allowance for one person — you wind up on the fatty-salty-sugary-canned-processed-bottled diet. Get heart disease on $3 a day! Ask the government how!

snip


Walk into a market with just $3 to spend for a day's menu and you'll shop with different eyes — and a different stomach. You veer away from the fresh and perishable to the filling and cheap, with a long shelf life. Letting anything spoil when you can't replace it is criminal — and unaffordable. As for staples, the bigger size almost always saves money but costs more up front. Anything organic or fresh or lower salt or lower fat almost certainly costs more than the processed stuff.

snip


Walk into a market with just $3 to spend for a day's menu and you'll shop with different eyes — and a different stomach. You veer away from the fresh and perishable to the filling and cheap, with a long shelf life. Letting anything spoil when you can't replace it is criminal — and unaffordable. As for staples, the bigger size almost always saves money but costs more up front. Anything organic or fresh or lower salt or lower fat almost certainly costs more than the processed stuff.

snip


Several members of Congress took the food stamp challenge, and now two of them, a Missouri Republican and a Massachusetts Democrat, are trying to make the food stamp fund a little bigger and to guarantee that combat-zone pay doesn't knock military families off the food stamp eligibility list (yes, there are food stamp debit cards in the pockets of U.S. military uniforms).

someone needs to come up with a $3 dollar a day cookbook. I am serious. but imagine if food network did Rachael Ray on $3 a day instead of $40.

[mitchtv]

1. Lots of rice and beans are possible

I don't know about the produce, some peanut butter maybe once in awhile.

[mitchtv]

28. thinking it over

Wild in Calif:
Purslane
watercress
fennel
dandelion
wildradish
and more

[Dover]

2. I'd probably find a farmer's market and plead for their rejects

in exchange for helping them load/unload or something.

And/or buy some seeds...tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuce and have a little container garden. Or co-op garden with my neighbors if there is space (or a neighborhood run garden project).

Don't know, but on $3 a day you'd have to be VERY creative. Maybe I'd try to find a job in the food industry washing dishes at a restaurant that offers free meals.

[mrcheerful]

3. Now remember thats $3 a day not $3 a meal, what most end up doing is eating good at the start of the

month then towards the middle of the month they skip meals and by the end of the month they eat just enough to keep the hunger pains from taking over their lives. Now mind you many of these people do not have breakfast or lunch, they eat once a day. You wonder why the poor have health issues? Smoking helps curb hunger, so does coffee. What confuses most is how over weight people seem to be getting food stamps, the problem is the weight isn't from over eating, it's from eating then no activity after a meal or it could be from disease and the genetic make up of the person. Remember skinny people have no fat reserves for the body to use during times of hunger.

[Rosemary2205]

7. A lot of poor people are fat because

their diet IS so rich in low glycemic carbs. -- pasta, rice, potatoes, bread, beans. The body processes the starches really fast, stores everything you don't need right then as fat. When your blood sugar drops off after that big surge then you are too tired to burn off the excess energy stored as fat and it sits there. After a very short period of time someone who eats like this has screwed up their metabolism forever. You have to figure just a few pounds a year, by the time you get a woman in her 40's who's been on the edge all her life, eating cheap, she's likely 20-50 pounds or more overweight and always exhausted.

[Shallah Kali]

9. I think you mean high glycemic food. white rice is much cheaper than whole grain

ditto for refined wheat pasta & bread vs whole wheat. Beans are low GI and so won't jerk around one's blood sugar. also canned veggies tend to be much cheaper than fresh or even frozen yet are high in salt. not good. Then fruit. Canned fruit again much cheaper than fresh or frozen and you have to look hard to find any not packed in high fructose corn syrup. i knew a lady who resorted to the local food bank a few times. she was given government canned fruit and vegetables high in salt and packed in heavy corn syrup. it's a head scratcher how the gov comes out with those food charts advising people to avoid just those things yet that is what they give the poor to help them.

[Rosemary2205]

13. Yes, thank you.

I had two different ways of saying it in my head and they got all tangled together. Thanks for the correction. :)

[Clark2008]

20. Exactly - that's why the Atkins Diet works so well - it's the opposite

of the "poor man's" diet. It's rich in protein and low on starches/sugars.

You have to be at least middle class to go on the Atkins Diet. Have you priced lean beef and chicken lately? Whew!

[Rosemary2205]

23. Lower/smart carb can be done.

I'm on a budget tight enough that I MUST shop with a calculator and I follow a modified South beach type diet, though it takes very careful planning and getting lucky on sales to stock up. Something someone with a food stamp type budget could never do.

[MADem]

4. What they OUGHT to do is give a "vegetable allowance" as part of the food stamps

The challenge is how to ensure the money is being spent on vegetables. They'd have to issue a separate "credit card" for the veggie allowance, I guess (haven't they gone to cards now, and not the old 'Funny Money' of days gone by?).

Just increasing the money doesn't increase the vegetable intake. It might ensure that the cereal is "name brand" instead of supermarket, and the sugary soda is Coke instead of Supermart Cola. That's not helpful....

[senseandsensibility]

31. They don't let you buy soda with foodstamps

At least they didn't used to.

[onehandle]

5. Beans, tofu, a few fresh veggies. It's possible.

Our problem is that we don't have the time to prepare the food. My wife and I have to pick up take-out most days of the week, because the Bush economy allows our employers to work us day and night for the same money or less than we made in the Clinton years.

Bush sucks.

[lildreamer316]

17. It's only now that you are even given some

better options in the drive through. I see some are starting to offer fruit as a side instead of fries. I guess you could do a grilled chicken sandwich and a salad; but it does get old.
I remember...

[Clark2008]

21. Ewwww - this won't be popular here, I know, but I wouldn't subject

anyone to tofu.

:7

Sorry, I don't like it. I realize it pretty much tastes like whatever you cook it with, but its substance doesn't appeal to my mouth. :puke:

[DemGa]

6. It's possible

Beans
tortillas
Cheese
onion
Bananas; still fairly inexpensive
Rice
Oatmeal
Peanut Butter
Fruit spread
eggs


That's good quality, about $25 and enough for a week.

[JI7]

11. doesn't sound too healthy

where are the fresh fruits and vegetables ?

too much of beans, Tortillas cheese, rice,peanut butter, etc is not healthy.

they need something to feel filled up on. Tortilla filled with fresh veggies would be healthy. but not tortilla filled with beans rice and cheese.

[Clark2008]

22. Add some bagels and low-fat refried beans and that was

pretty much what I lived on when I was a single Mom (with no child support coming from my ex). My son ate a little better than I did, but he was very small at the time and didn't require too much.

Now that he's 8 years old and outeats me (and is not fat - he's very active in sports and doesn't sit on his butt all day in front of a television), I don't know what I'd do to afford food if I wasn't remarried and making a little more money on my own.

But, yep - that was the diet I lived off of and will go back to after my baby is born to take off the weight. I was much thinner as a single Mom than I am now (well, minus this 8-pound kid in my gut). But, I've done well since I have gestational diabetes. I've only gained about 25-30 pounds with this one, despite her being so large and my having a lot of water-weight gain in my legs, hands and face. I probably have LOST weight in my own body as a result of this pregnancy, but I won't know until she's born (which NEEDS to be SOON. I'm wearing out! No sleep, baby-weight-induced vomiting from the pressure on my stomach, gestational diabetes and higher BP - not too high though - just high for me).

[DemGa]

26. I should have added some things

Whatever fresh produce is available within the budget, of course. A big pot of greens with cornbread is one option. Tomatoes go well with the tortilla concoctions which can be seasoned to taste quite good.

I think it's important to stay as close as possible to unrefined and eat raw food every day. I agree it's a challenge on that budget; I'm currently a college student who does variations of this all the time.

[blogslut]

8. I did it for three years on $8.00

I'm not sure where the $3.00 figure comes from. Is that per person?

When I was on teh welfare, the kid and I got approxmately $250.00 in stamps. That was in the late 80's, early 90's. Of course we weren't vegetarians but our diet did not revolve around meat. Meat was a part of the meal, not the star. And yes, we did lots of fresh fruit and veggies.

Here's my recipe for super-cheap Linguini w clam sauce:

1 can baby clams = $1.45

1 package linguini = $1.00

2 tablespoons margarine = I dunno, .05 cents?

2 cloves freshly chopped garlic = another .05 cents

1 tablespoon dry basil = ten cents tops

a) Cook pasta. Drain and wash off the funk.

b) Pour canned clams in saucepan along wth margarine, garlic and basil.

c) Stir until melted and it smells good.

d) Mix in pasta, cook for a bit more and then eat.

Once batch lasted for two meals. I always served it with two earth-grown items, usually sliced apples and canned green beans.

:)

[lildreamer316]

18. Bookmarking..

thanks. That sounds simple and good; and I believe I already have some whole wheat pasta in my cabinet. Even better.
Oh, and I grow my own basil most years; however not this one. This may inspire me to go see if the garden center has any left on markdown...

[blogslut]

24. Fresh basil

Is always better. And now that I'm offa teh welfare, I use real butter instead of margarine. :)

[Shallah Kali]

10. Price of fruit and veg increased 40% since 1985. Soda 23% cheaper - nytimes

The Way We Live Now
You Are What You Grow
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22wwlnlede.t.html?ei=5070&en=e8028c50b32c1f7e&ex=1180324800&pagewanted=all

As a rule, processed foods are more “energy dense” than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening. These particular calories also happen to be the least healthful ones in the marketplace, which is why we call the foods that contain them “junk.” Drewnowski concluded that the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly — and get fat.

snip

For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world’s food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the Twinkie, the farm bill as currently written offers a lot more support to the cake than to the root. Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat — three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year. (Rice and cotton are the others.) For the last several decades — indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning — U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy.

That’s because the current farm bill helps commodity farmers by cutting them a check based on how many bushels they can grow, rather than, say, by supporting prices and limiting production, as farm bills once did. The result? A food system awash in added sugars (derived from corn) and added fats (derived mainly from soy), as well as dirt-cheap meat and milk (derived from both). By comparison, the farm bill does almost nothing to support farmers growing fresh produce. A result of these policy choices is on stark display in your supermarket, where the real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (a k a liquid corn) declined by 23 percent. The reason the least healthful calories in the supermarket are the cheapest is that those are the ones the farm bill encourages farmers to grow.

A public-health researcher from Mars might legitimately wonder why a nation faced with what its surgeon general has called “an epidemic” of obesity would at the same time be in the business of subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation’s agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives. And the subsidies are only part of the problem. The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America’s children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

[JI7]

12. the keyword is "healthy" here and i can't think of much

some of the post responses give examples of being vegetarian by being non meat.

but i haven't seen how anyone can do it in a healthy way yet.

[HardRocker05]

14. $155/30 = about $5/day doesn't it? anyway, you can eat vegetarian, healthy food just as cheap as

as you can eat fat, animal product, and chemical-laden foods. the key to saving money *and* eating healthy food is to buy completely unprocessed foods and prepare your own meals. yes, it takes more *time*, but it doesn't take any more money.

[lildreamer316]

16. BUT

you have to be close to a place to GET those completely unprocessed foods. Many ppl are not; or cannot afford the time or gas to get to the place in their town that does have those things. If someone is on food stamps; most likely they have one long job or two shorter ones; and children to get to school/daycare/take care of. After all of this; who has the time to do that cooking?
Sure; they could cook it all in one afternoon and freeze some of it; but I just don't think it is realistic for the majority of food stamp families.

[cgrindley]

15. Orwell dealt with this in The Road to Wigan Pier

Unless you have lots of time or lots of time and lots of skill, healthy food sucks ass. No one wants to eat boring, unflavorful food. No one wants to join in some sort of cult of denial. Instead, people with miserable, empty and bleak lives want to feel better about themselves. You have the choice of celery sticks or a Mars bar. You have the choice of an eggplant goulash or a cheeseburger. You can drink one jar of pomegranate juice or 48 cans of soda. Chips and smokes. Beer.

Horrible foods and smokes and booze make you feel better. Healthy foods and an austere lifestyle make you feel worse.

[Dover]

25. Yep. I wonder how many folks on foodstamps are vegetarians to begin with?

I have the feeling that number would be quite low. So that would make the whole premise for this debate moot.

If you want the poor or unemployed to live healthy lives they need a better standard of living, a job, a roof over their heads and an education, not to mention hope for their future.

[Shallah Kali]

29. would adding meat make it any easier to buy food for a healthy balanced diet?

I do agree the best way to ensure people can be healthy are all of the things you said. A poor person probably won't have a big freezer to store the cheap chicken they stocked up on, that is if they have the money to stock up on it. An uneducated person won't know enough about nutrition to squeeze what healthy food they can afford into a tiny budget.

[mainer]

19. Not in urban areas. Only in rural areas.

and you'd have to grow a lot of your own.

[Glimmer of Hope]

27. When I was unemployed a few years ago, I think I spent $20/week

on groceries. Here are some of things I would buy or eat (usually on sale):

Peanut butter sandwiches
Lentil soup made with canned tomatoes and frozen spinach
Soba noodles with frozen veggies and tofu
Oatmeal
Fortified cereal
Frozen orange juice
Spaghetti
Burritos
Chilli
Banana and apples

I have been a vegetarian for decades and like this type of food. The hard part was rationing. I had to plan my meals so that I would have 3 meals a day for a certain number of days.

[Sanctified]

30. Is their math off?

"In the long run, it takes money to eat thin and healthy. For $3 a day — which is what you get when you divide 30 days into the $155 monthly food stamp allowance for one person — you wind up on the fatty-salty-sugary-canned-processed-bottled diet. Get heart disease on $3 a day! Ask the government how!"

155 divided by 30 is 5.167, my family of 4 lives on a $400 a month budget eating 90% organic with no issues. A family of 4 on food stamps who collects $155 per person is receiving $620 a month, that is $220 more than my family.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[donco]

32. Go thru the parks around here

you see them cutting a lot of good edible greens with the lawn mower, especially this time of the year. Lots of poke salad going to waste, dandelions, plenty of good fresh greens this time of the year for the picking, just have to know what to look for. Going too enjoy some morel mushrooms this weekend.