Sept. 4-10, 2007, A Project of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice

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?

With reference to the Food Stamp Challenge, the Washtenaw County MSU Extension Family Nutrition Program works with low-income county residents on a daily basis to assist them in building knowledge and skills with nutrition and food preparation. The challenge of course, is to teach them to maintain a healthy diet on a very restricted budget. As many are about to discover this is no easy task.

We would like to offer our support for this effort including assistance with educational materials that will help those participating to understand the challenge low-income residents face each day as they make choices for themselves and their families.

For assistance please contact:

Joan Miller, Extension Educator

Washtenaw County MSU Extension Food, Nutrition, and Health and Family Nutrition Program

705 N. Zeeb Road

Ann Arbor, MI 48103

734-222-3956

mill1108@msu.edu

People in many religious traditions say a prayer before meals and I’m curious if any of us are modifying our table prayers especially for this week. I can see how it might be appropriate since we’re “raising our consciousness” about how poverty and public policy collide on a very personal and practical level (I mean, what’s more personal than what’s in your belly?) I don’t want to start a religious debate here but heck, we’re sharing recipes, why shouldn’t we also be sharing our prayers?

Since I’m a protestant follower of Christ, I believe that the church is the body of Christ at least until Christ’s return. This means that it’s up to believers to express and establish the peace and the love and justice of the Christ. So I think I’m going to say something like “Help us remember those whose hunger is not satisfied when we leave this table and help us to work your loving presence throughout Creation on their behalf.”

Another participant in the Challenge mentioned the practice of gleaning which reminded me of this really remarkable video I saw several years ago. “Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse” came out in 2000 and on it’s most basic level it is a documentary about how people still feed themselves through gleaning despite the difficulties imposed by industrialized agriculture and the contemporary administered world in general. (The video is also about the process of creating art, of gleaning images from where ever they present themselves. The “film”-maker sets off with her hand-held video camera seeking contemporary examples of Millais’ painting “The Gleaners.”) It’s available through Netflix if nowhere else.

That wasn’t what I expected at all.

I didn’t anticipate how stressful our Food Stamp Challenge shopping trip would be.

Usually, shopping for us is a team effort. My wife Nancy and I write up our shopping lists before we head out, then when we get to the store we each take a list and go. It’s efficient. It’s cooperative. It can even be fun.

Not so today. Since we had to watch every penny and scrutinize every choice, we couldn’t just head out each with our own list. We had to do everything together, which often meant Nancy just stood around bored while I totaled up how much we had spent so far. And of course I felt more pressure knowing that she was standing there bored.

So, what normally takes us 30 minutes this time took us over an hour.

But in the end, we succeeded.

Here’s what we got:

First thing to notice is that there’s not a lot of produce there. We’ve got onions, carrots, garlic, a plantain, and a bag of apples. You know those leafy greens the health experts say you should be eating more of? Well, not this week.

Before I lay out the meal plan, let me explain the wrinkle. Nancy will be out of town for 3 days of the challenge, so her share is just $12 (4 days at $3 a day), so our total budget is $33.

Now, on to the plan:

Breakfast: oatmeal with raisins.

Oatmeal: 1.59

Raisin: 1.99

Lunch: Some lunches will be leftovers, some will be a good old PB&J.

We bought the so-called “wheat” bread, but you don’t get true whole wheat until the 3rd ingredient. It’s 30 cents more than white bread, and I guess we’re paying for the illusion of whole wheat.

For the peanut butter and jelly, we’re using the “Yipes! Stripes” strawberry jelly and peanut butter mixed together. To be honest, this stuff kind of scares me. There are no trans fats, but beyond that I think I’m better off not reading the label.

We made a mistake here, though. Initially we had planned to buy separate peanut butter and jelly. It’s cheaper in the long run, but we are maximizing short term returns here. Our mistake, we forgot to put the peanut butter and jelly back on the shelf.

Oops.

So, the PB&J will go in the box of donations for SOS Community Services.

Dinner plans, we’ve got four meals together. One of those will be split pea soup (thank you Ypsidixit for the recommendation), two will be beans and rice, and one will be pasta and sauce.

As for my meals after Nancy goes off on her trip, I’ll be bachloring it. Noodles, frozen veggies, some cheese, and whatever else is left by the end of the week.

I did give in to my caffeine habit here and bought a can of coffee on clearance for $2.09.

At the end of the trip, we spent 32.79. Because of the mistake with the peanut butter and jelly, we had to put a bag of beans and a bottle of hot sauce back.

After we subtract out the PB&J cost, the total comes to $29.91.

I plan on using some of the sugar, salt, pepper and hot sauce we already have, and maybe a pinch of cumin, probably fifty cents worth in all. We also have a half-dozen eggs to use up, another fifty cents, so let’s add a dollar to the total and round it up to $31. That gives me $2 breathing space in case I run out of food–or I might grab some popcorn with it so I’ve got something for a snack.

I feel like I’ve got my calories covered, but not necessarily my nutrition, or flavor. Also, I’m very lucky to have the time to cook beans and rice and split peas from scratch. That’s not a luxury that most low-income working families have.

Right now I’ve got nine hours before the challenge starts. Time for some wine and chocolate and fresh tomatoes–three things I won’t be getting for the next week.

Update: Just for the record, our grocery basket usually looks like this:

And what’s more, we get a share of produce from the Community Farm of Ann Arbor, so you can add this in too:

I’m looking forward to getting back.

My partner and I can’t be the only ones who are a bit… concerned, shall we say about coffee consumption during the Challenge. We’re hardly caffeine-fiends but we’re also not prepared to go cold-turkey. We’ve decided to address this portion of the Challenge with a spirit of celebration rather than privation. This week, we dusted off the old stove-top espresso pot we picked up at the Kiwanis a couple years ago. (Not the fancy electric kind with the milk-froth attachment, it’s the kind an Italian grandmother would have.) Our experiments indicate that we can make a shot of espresso for both of us in this pot. When the cup is filled with warm milk, maybe a spoonful of sugar, the result is… YUM! We may never go back to plain coffee.

Our calculations as to the cost, roughly 25 cents a cup, makes it a tolerable luxury:

- 1/2 oz of coffee makes 2 cups of espresso; the cheapest coffee at the Food Co-op (where the Justice is already roasted in the bean) is roughly $6.99/pound and this would make 64 servings or roughly 11 cents per cup for the coffee;

- 1/2 cup milk for each cup; a gallon holds 16 cups; a gallon of skimmed milk costs roughly $3.20 or roughly 10 cents for the milk;

- Since math isn’t my native language, I’m not going to figure out the exact cost per tablespoon of sugar but I really hope it’s not more than 4 cents.

WE’RE PARTICIPATING in the Sept. 4-10 Michigan Food Stamp Challenge, which asks people to live on $21 dollars a week (like food stamp participants), to raise awareness of the challenges faced by food stamp participants in light of proposed cuts to the food stamp program.

OK. Here’s what we bought for the coming week, with prices:

2 lbs. chicken legs, Dos Hermanos: $2.49
2.89 lbs. ground beef, $11.36
12 oz. bacon, $2.59
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes, $.99
1 bag curry powder, $.99
1 bag cayenne, $.99
1 box chicken bouillon, $.89
1 1-lb. box spaghetti, $.89
1 1-lb. bag split peas, $.89
1 2-lb. bag brown rice, $.99
1 1-lb. bag black beans, $.89
1 1-lb. bag lentils, $.89

Total: $24.95 thus far. We planned on not spending the total $42 so that there would be some cash for extra food expenditures. So right now, we have $17.05 for extras. So far, so good. Looking forward to the Food Stamp Challenge (thankfully, it’s AFTER the bratwurst-o-thon my family and I are planning for Labor Day!

Next week’s menu:

1. Split pea soup with a little bacon, bread (no butter!) on the side (start with a bang!–I love split pea soup)

2. Spaghetti with tomato sauce (mostly from garden)and a touch of ground beef

3. Collard greens (from garden) cooked with a little bacon, lentil-brown rice mixture flavored with a bouillon cube on the side

4. Chili with beans and remaining ground beef–cayenne to purchase

5. Curried (curry to purchase) lentil sauce with carrots (from garden) over brown rice with tomatoes on the side (from garden)

6. Baked chicken legs with rice flavored with drippin’s

7. Rest of package of spaghetti with sauce and, if any is left, meat.

Six people comprise our household. Two of us are consciously participating in the challenge; one is specifically NOT participating and the others are sort of passive participants. We’ve had to modify the “Rules” a bit to fit our household.

My partner and I are the enthusiastic participants. We’ve always been rather frugal but I’m especially curious if we can really live within the limitations set by the food stamp program. I’m over six foot tall and over 300 pounds and I work a job that isn’t entirely done sitting at a desk. I also know that I eat when I’m tired or when I’m lonely. The phrase “comfort food” to me is redundant. So it’ll be a real test. Normally at this time of year, we’d be eating mostly out of our garden: basil for pesto, tomatoes for sauce and salad, eggplant for mousaka and babaganoush and parmesana, summer squash for pan sauteeing, hot peppers to add life to everything, etc. We consider our “kitchen garden” to be a political-spiritual practice that reminds us that food is not essentially merchandise. We have decided to eat from our garden during challenge week but to keep a tally of what we consume.

The three “passive participants” are our daughter, our son and his fiancé who share daily meals with us but who haven’t specifically agreed to participate. Their participation in the challenge is that the meals we serve will fit within the $1/meal guidelines, but if they’re still hungry or aren’t interested in what’s served, they will have free access to a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread, or for that matter any of the items in our cupboard or pantry. Seems fair. These are the ground rules of our dinner table already because my partner and I tend to eat a slightly more radical diet than what our children prefer. (Our attempts to convert to pure vegetarianism, for instance, have been greeted with near mutiny.) Accounting for this kind of participation during the Challenge is a trouble, though. We need to budget as if they are full participants, that is, to spend $1 for each of their meals, but if they choose not to eat what we’ve made, we’ll either end up with leftovers or portions that don’t truly reflect the restrictions imposed by food stamps. It’s another thing we’ll have to keep an eye on.

The one member of our household who is specifically NOT participating is our grand-daughter. She is on formula and though we use as many coupons as we can scavenge, there is no way that she can eat for $1/ meal and we feel it would be immoral to try. I also realize that if our household actually did qualify for food stamps, that our grand daughter would likely qualify for WIC coverage, but that program isn’t in jeopardy at this point.

A week isn’t TOO long. We shouldn’t have much of a mutiny.

It seemed like such a long time away, when Chuck asked people to participate in the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge. It was easy to say yes then, but now that the day is nearer, I have to admit I’m dreading it. Not because I’ll need to figure out what to eat so I don’t go over budget, but because I just realized that it will seriously cramp my social life and affect how I conduct my job. Just today, my daughter invited me for dinner at her new apartment for Tuesday, and I had to turn her down- getting a free meal would be cheating. And as the director of a small nonprofit, I often get together for coffee or lunch with colleagues from collaborating agencies- those food/drink related appointments are an informal way to make connections and get things done. Presumably not many people living on food stamps have the kind of job where this is standard practice, or do they? I’ll have to think about that.

Why take on the food stamp challenge? My daughter just asked me “why are you doing this?” as I called her to tell her that dinner was off. I’ve been thinking about it a great deal. Usually I’m not one to jump on to the bandwagon - particularly because in a way this challenge seems gimicky. I’ve even thought that it could be perceived as offensive, as if it’s some kind of game, to eat only $21 worth of food for just one week. After that one week we all will sigh a breath of relief and happily buy what ever we want. So why did I say yes? When my daughter asked me, the answer popped into my head. Solidarity. Just a tiny bit of solidarity. It isn’t so much that I want to spend a week living off $21 to see how hard it is — I readily admit it’s hard, I see the signs of that in my job every month. But to say “no” would have felt wrong– like an insistence on privilege. I felt it would have been disrespectful to the clients the agency I work for serves — the clients for whom this is their every day struggle.

I e-mailed a lot of people to see if they’d participate in the Food Stamp challenge too. One of the most remarkable responses came from a staunch democrat, who told me he was trying to loose weight, and there was no way he could do that if he only spent $21 on food for a week. What does that mean? The connection between obesity and poverty has been established before — and I love it that we often heartily endorse (and fund, and schedule) “healthy lifestyles” classes/workshops/programs for under-resourced people (my new favorite term)- and ignore that all the education in the world is meaningless if they don’t have the money & resources to purchase healthier foods.

Someone else joked that she would have to give up her new favorite expensive drink (I can’t remember what it is) — an addiction, she called it. Those little luxuries that most of us allow ourselves, are indeed just that. But aren’t they what make us feel just a bit better, what help us get through the day -those little luxuries? We do so often equate well being with special food or drink related treats… so living off $21 means not just struggling to maintain a healthy diet, but also depriving yourself of some of those small self indulgences….

Our family has taken in an exchange student - something I also didn’t know when I said “yes”. I told Wasim, from Pakistan, about my plan. He’s been in our country for three weeks. He laughed. “No way” — he said, “you can’t do it”. Now, in Pakistan, yes. Two dollars could last you a week. Every day he compares prices — a hair cut there costs the equivalent of $1 (after he heard how much it costs here, he considered growing his hair long until he returns home)- the bus fares, houses. In this global economy it seems so hard to imagine that the price of food flutuates so much, how is this possible?

I read some of the recipes, and the postings on the other blogs. Looks like it’s going to be quite a bit of hard work. Looks like we’ll have to give it quite a bit of thought, how to spread that $21 around. And there are some decisions to be made. Purists, like Chuck, aren’t going to eat from their gardens. At Hikone, one of the public housing sites I work at, there is a huge community vegetable garden. It costs nothing to use, in fact, every spring residents can request plants they’d like to grow. Many families are eating fresh vegetables from their gardens around now. Unfortunately I personally have only one tomato plant, but if something ripens, YES, I’ll have it. In an article I read in the New Yorker, someone who tried to live off $21 for a week went to a soup kitchen and picked up a granola bar to help him get through. That seemed wrong — not only because it was cheating, but because those granola bars were meant for those who really needed it, not someone who was just participating in an educational exercise. No, I won’t go to any soup kitchens or accept give aways meant for the truly under-resourced. Spices? I’ll be using mine. Coffee? I need to think about that one.

Two days to think about it all, two days before the food stamp challenge starts…..

This weekend folks taking the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge will be doing their shopping. What is that like? What hard choices did you have to make?

If you’re taking the challenge, please post your experiences in the comments below.