We’re now 1 day into the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge–how is it going? How has your first day been? How are you feeling? Has anything surprised you?
What are your day 1 reflections?
September 4th, 2007 | Personal Stories | by Chuck Warpehoski
September 4th, 2007 | Personal Stories | by Chuck Warpehoski
We’re now 1 day into the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge–how is it going? How has your first day been? How are you feeling? Has anything surprised you?
27 comments ↓
For me, day 1 was harder than I expected. A bowl of oatmeal with raisins for breakfast and a PB&J for lunch are NOT holding me over. I didn’t expect to be this hungry this soon.
Monday I cleaned out things that would tempt me or go bad from my fridge. Maybe I filled up a bit too much and stretched out my stomach so now I feel the emptiness even more.
One thing you might consider is adding ramen to your diet if you don’t mind eating it. I don’t know how much it is in Ann Arbor, but ramen at Meijer in Brighton costs 5 for $1 right now. Each ramen packet is about 190-200 calories, depending on the brand, so you could add an extra 950-1000 calories for just $1 of your food allowance. And pasta is very filling.
Hope this helps fill your stomach!
I felt my stomach growling this afternoon after a lunch of leftovers. With no option to go out and buy a few chocolate covered peanuts (favorite snack at the people’s food coop across the street from work) it made me conscious of the fact that I wanted something to eat but couldn’t get it. We are having split pea soup tonight and I’m hoping the filling nature of it will tide me over.
Well, I have to admit that we splurged a bit today on some free food…bubble tea and a couple of bagels from Zingerman’s (because it’s Melissa’s birthday today). We didn’t want to pass up her birthday, but I still found myself wondering if the fact that I didn’t really have any hunger pangs today was due to those extra calories. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.
It’s strange…going in to this, I had been thinking to myself, “I don’t need to be convinced, my politics are already in alignment with this idea.” In other words, I didn’t think that this experience would “teach” me much…but I’m already finding within the first day that I’m thinking about food in many ways I never have before, really appreciating the privilege that I enjoy every day. My wife Melissa pointing out today just how much milk it would take to make a Latte at home…I mean, that’s just a conversation we would NEVER have otherwise. Oh, and it was great in the grocery store when we started getting short with each other when trying to decide whether to share one big can of pasta sauce…. “How would we know you’re not taking more than your share??” In one day, I found that under certain constraints I can turn a bit more petty than I’d otherwise be.
Another thought that occurred to me is that I probably won’t be working out at the gym much this week…this made me realize that it doesn’t just stop at food, but has ripple effects in other areas of my life.
I’ve never blogged before so I hope this is how it works.
I plan to keep track of all food eaten (whether it was purchased this week or prior) and list the price I paid for it and add it up at the end of the week. In order not to “cheat” I will count the full cost of something even if it was already opened and partially used. I know this isn’t exactly how the rules read but it is too hard for me to do it any other way as I am returning to work this week as well as attending all the meetings and first week of school happenings. I will try to guage in a couple of days if I am on track to staying under $84.
Also, I am struggling with the part about not accepting food from others as this is the time of year that my neighbors leave me extra tomatoes, squash etc. on my front porch. While many people on food stamps may not have this happen, I hate to let those things go to waste as I am naturally a very thrifty person.
Anyway, our first supper was baked potatoes with a small amount of grated cheese, margarine, fresh brocolli, cantaloupe, and can of corn. My kids love this and I think I can use the rest of the bag of potatoes and chunk of cheese for other meals.
It wasn’t hard for us to buy food for the week with $41 and leave $1 for mistakes.
The problem is that my husband claimed he was hungry after dinner even though we ate bean soup, brown rice
with beans (double serving), green cauliflower, Kool-Aid and lettuce salad. I think that it is psychological. It is not less than the usual. Actually more, but no meat or fish or Tofu.
Tomorow I’ll make the tofu steer fry with cabbage served with brown rice and salad and we will see how that will work.
Like some others, today was a little harder than I expected. Breakfast was fine, lunch was fine, but this afternoon I was very sleepy. Lingering effects of a virus I had over the weekend? Lack of coffee? Or both?
And I got worried tonight that I might not have enough food for the week–am I going to portion it out? (I am cooking three recipes in fairly large batches since I’m doing this myself.) Fortunately, I cooked the third recipe tonight and decided I will most likely have enough lentil stew (with onions and carrots) and rice, along with my oatmeal and raisins and my corn, bean and tomato dish, so that I won’t run out of food before the end of the week. And I have eight slices of bread left over from the loaf (seven are committed to breakfast), so that can fill in some gaps. But not enough sides of fruit and vegetables for one each meal and a snack mid-afternoon, which I’ve grown used to.
However, when I opened the rice, out flew a grain moth! I slammed the lid on the container before the other two flew out and got rid of them outdoors. Fortunately I have dealt with grain moths before, and am not freaked out by them–I just went ahead and cooked the whole batch, and if there were remains in there, the Cooperative Extension Service assured me years ago when I called them about a similar problem that they were harmless and you could go ahead and eat the food they were in if you wanted to. However, I hope the one that escaped doesn’t cause me endless time and energy by multiplying!!
Joy, about your problem with the fresh vegetables being left on your porch: is there any way that you could cook up some non-Challenge dishes and refrigerate (or freeze, depending on the dish) them until after the challenge?
The hardest thing for me today was the lack of caffeine – I could not afford to include coffee or even tea in my food budget, nor did I leave any room for coffee splurges. I thought about going to Trader Joe’s just for some free samples – but realized the event would take all evening for me by public transportation (I am trying to only get food sources that are walkable or easily accessible by public transportation this week). I ended up taking a nap this evening instead – my sleep cycle is all off.
RE: Jen L’s comment earlier about Ramen: Indeed! Hallelujah for simple Ramen. There are always a dozen or so in our cupboard. Their most wonderful power is the amazing ability to dissolve peanut butter stuck to the roof of the mouth and so a cup of Ramen, I find, to be the perfect complement to a peanut butter sandwich. Ramen were 7 for $1 at Busch’s so we got 28 of them. (We’re feeding a Challenge family of 5 and even our college aged son knows how to make Ramen noodles.) The only drawback really is that the little “flavor” packets have enough sodium to preserve a whole goat!
Breakfast was oatmeal. Lunch was PB&J, Ramen in a thermos and an apple. Dinner was home-made macaroni and cheese and a cucumber-tomato salad. (The tomato came from our garden.) We were celebrating a birthday so we also had a Jiffy Mix chocolate cake for dessert. It was big enough that we all got a piece. It was strange to drink water with chocolate cake, however.
I’ve heard it’s healthier to eat smaller amounts more frequently so I’m going to try to stagger out my lunchtime rations on Tuesday so I don’t stave off some of that low, growling hunger.
Post day 1 – the good news – I lost a pound and a half. (If this continues we can write a diet book, market it and donate all the money to ICPJ). Really, I think it was mostly because when I wanted a snack I looked at my little stash and realized that this food had to LAST. So no mindless chomping.
The bad news – I, too, was hungry last night. My oatmeal breakfast, peanut butter sandwhich lunch and pasta with tomatos (canned) and corn (canned) just didn’t cut it. I was thankful that my husband had refrained from stocking the fridge with his usual stash of Ben and Jerry’s.
The other thing I noticed was that I hit the free coffee in the department kitchen rather hard. Usually I have one skim latte per day and that’s my caffine ratio. Yesterday I grabbed 3 cups of (rather nasty) company coffee.
Today I’m also going to try spreading my food out a little more to see if I can keep those late afternoon and evening pangs at bay.
Good luck to everyone!
In planning meals for this week and beginning to cook, I was struck by how familiar I was with this routine, and how easily I could slip back into reminding myself “You only have $13. for the week!” I grew up with a family who lived on a Food Stamp budget before the program existed, and later 9 years of single-parenthood with two children forced me to remember the lessons from my childhood. Thus, out came the
1. tomatoes from the garden
2. okra from the garden
(and yes, we’ve collectively lost the knowledge of gardening as a way of healthy eating).
3. food bought in bulk and eaten at least twice in a week (red and black beans, black eyed peas, oatmeal)
4. Carefully choosing the one food item I can splurge on (it was a piece of smoked fish which was mixed into my garden egg soup and red-red).
I told my mother last night that a reporter had come with us to the grocery store so I might be quoted in the paper on Wednesday about the Food Stamp Challenge. I was worried at first that she would scold me, saying that it isn’t safe for someone with hypoglycemia to limit their food intake. Instead, the was very proud and said that if I am indeed in the paper that I must send a copy to my grandmother and to my friends in Maryland. Wow!
Last night we had a wonderful tortilla dinner. I was a bit more hungry later in the evening than I usually would be so I made myself some salad from the vegetables we bought that morning. So far, so good!
The first day was challenging…being more conscious and aware of food and the limits on it because of my commitment to it. For example I am incorporating rice and beans in my diet for this week and not cooking rice regularly I burned it when I was hungry and decided well I can’t waste this food and ate it anyway along with the dried beans that I had cooked. Also, my old pattern of late night snacking caught me and I ate some food not purchased for the week. So I have much to learn and hope to do better on day 2.
I thought I had it pretty well figured out what I was going to need for the week, but the budget is tight. My first day was like this: Breakfast, 1 apple. Lunch, sprout salad. Dinner, a “soup” made with spinach and sprouted chickpeas in the blender.
It did feel like enough food, but I also had some rejuvelac that I mixed with some juice over the week-end. This was supposed to have been consumed over the week-end, but there was still some left. The juice in the mix cost about $2, and it was not in the budget, but
I didn’t want to waste it. This is going to cost some apples, or something, down the road.
I do have a concern about weight. I have been a little on the slim side lately, and I don’t really want to lose much more. I usually weigh about 152. I tried to eat a little extra before Tuesday, and weighed myself at 153.5 Tuesday morning. This morning I weighed 150.5.
Energy is also a concern. Biking to work each day is about 18 miles, plus incidental excursions. I am curious to see how the ride feels by Friday.
Anyway, I appreciate the activism and concern of everyone involved. Did someone actually say they wanted to cut food stamps to pay for the war, or did I dream that?
“Did someone actually say they wanted to cut food stamps to pay for the war, or did I dream that?”
President Bush said that I think…it’s on this site somewhere…
President Bush has proposed cuts to the Food Stamp program in the federal budget and in the farm bill.
According to the Ann Arbor News (the link has expired, sorry), there were two justifications for the cuts.
1. As the economy gets better, then fewer people will need food stamps (I’m a big fan of hope, but I know when NOT to bet on it).
2. We face a serious budget deficit so we need cuts to balance the budget. There are several reasons for the deficit, but the biggest is the war (check out CostOfWar.com for details). In the article I read, the War was specifically cited here.
Todd Askew said: “I do have a concern about weight. I have been a little on the slim side lately, and I don’t really want to lose much more. I usually weigh about 152. I tried to eat a little extra before Tuesday, and weighed myself at 153.5 Tuesday morning. This morning I weighed 150.5.”
Many people on food stamps are actually overweight because they rely on carbs to keep themselves full. I know that when I was on food stamps I weighed 90 lbs more than I do now (and I am still a big girl, always have been though, even before I was on food stamps) and now that I can buy healthier foods more often and not rely so much on carbs my weight has come down. I guess I never thought about losing weight on a one week food stamp challenge….
Oh and try being diabetic and controlling your blood glucose levels while on food stamps. That’s another thing that is better for me…my blood glucose control is much tighter now.
Yeah, I was thinking about the diabetes problem myself this morning as I was drinking my $.09 allotment of Big K Grape Soda (I don’t usually drink soda, but it was something other than water that fit with my budget).
I’ve read that Type II diabetes is much higher in low-income populations. While I’m no doctor, I almost wonder if for many of these people it was actually *caused* by eating so many carbs and burning out the insulin production (or desensitizing the cells to insulin).
Any thoughts?
Jen L said: “I’ve read that Type II diabetes is much higher in low-income populations. While I’m no doctor, I almost wonder if for many of these people it was actually *caused* by eating so many carbs and burning out the insulin production (or desensitizing the cells to insulin).”
You may be on to something here. My diabetes is caused by my losing 2/3 of my pancreas when I was 21 (in 1989) due to septicemia and chronic pancreatitis that was caused by gall stones during my first pregnancy. I’m neither Type I nor Type II although I do have a sliding scale for insulin. (How much I take depends on where my blood glucose level is at set times during the day…sometimes what is remaining of my pancreas spits out some insulin, most times not…it was 10 years after my loss of pancreatic tissues before I was actually a diabetic…but since I was on food stamps at the time, I don’t doubt that high carb diet led to my diabetes starting earlier than it would have if I could have had a better diet.)
I think there are actual studies out there to support your high carb low income Type II diabetes theory.
I didn’t mean to upset anybody with the weight thing.
Yes, I have heard of unhealthy low-income, high- carb
diets. I am not doing that to myself- not even for a protest. I kind of attached my own agenda to this thing.
I am experimenting to see if I can do a week of eating
with totally raw food, mostly organically grown, for $21. I think it is going to be a challenge to do this without losing a lot of weight.
On day 2, I had an apple (with peanut butter), a sprout
salad, and some watermelon. This morning I weighed
149.5. I haven’t been at this weght since I was sick one time.
So, I do recognize the problems associated with a low
income diet, but I am curious to see what the best way to work it might be. Sprouts are really cheap food, but I
do not yet know if they can support a sustainable diet at this income level.
Todd, you did not offend me, I was merely offering a different point of view.
I work for a neighborhood outreach center and I have learned that the poor literally have got to be up on all the free food giveaways sales etc to make ends meet, including asking to take home leftovers at parties, events, ect. One great resource is the Gleaners. Many of the neighborhood residents come once a month for fresh produce, cheese, yogurt and other healthier foods they wouldn’t otherwise afford on food stamps. It certainly is a challenge for someone who has never been poor and I commend you for your willingness to walk a mile in you brother’s shoes. I personally do most of my shopping at Aldi cause of a tight budget and being a tightwad. I spend about $100 per week for a family of four. I have and I know I could make it on $84 per week provided I did not have to buy paper products, or soap, shampoo or other things. You can’t buy these with food stamps can you? That being said, I am disgusted that congress would even consider cutting this program. Without it many of the people I know just wouldn’t eat.
The Washtenaw County health department’s Health Improvement Plan survey data shows that low-income women in our county have up to 10x more likelihood of being obese. There are several theories as to why, some are related to eating heavy carb/low fiber/low nutrient diets; another theory is that some people, who run out of food at the end of the month (and especially women who may go without to feed their kids) may lead to a period of eating very little, followed by a cycle of eating a lot at the beginning of the month, and that kind of weight loss/weight gain cycle can make you gain even more…
There is a program called Angel food where you can get 60$ of food for 30 $ You should find where the devilery church is in your aarea. this is a great way to get a lot of good food for a small amount of money.
susan
There is a program called Angel Food where you can get 60$ of food for 30 $. You should find where the delivery church is in your area. This is a great way to get a lot of good food for a small amount of money.
susan
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