Tuesday's meals:
Breakfast:
Oatmeal, brown sugar, strawberries, yogurt and milk
Snack:
Cup of hot water with brown sugar (more
on that later)
Lunch:
Curry with a carrot
Snack:
Banana “Brule”
Dinner:
Curry with a carrot and two bowls of
salad with dressing
Dessert:
Banana “Brule”
(If you want to see pictures just look
Sunday not much has changed)
Things to report for the day:
So I think that I have more or less
adjusted to the new diet. What I mean is that I am getting used to
being somewhat hungry for most of the day. You know the feeling you get when
you are really looking forward to dinner but it won't be ready for another 20
minutes? That what it feels like for about 2 hours before each meal. I have good
meals. But the calorie content is low and after an hour or two I feel like I
need to eat more. It is not like I feel like I am starving all day, but I do
feel tired and distracted most of the day. Today my wife was sick so I stayed
home from work to watch my son (If I really had a part time job that would mean missing income that I really could not afford to lose). I think I am starting to come down with what
she has (a sore throat). Usually I have some herbal tea, or lemon water with
honey. I do not have any of those things on a food stamp budget so I tried
brown sugar in hot water. It is gross and does not help so I would not
recommend it.
Thoughts of the day:
Something has become quite apparent to
me. A big concern you hear people say when discussing food stamps that that
some people do not make health choices with their food stamp financial support.
But even after only two days I have gained some insight in the matter. I get
really hungry shortly after meals. After I bought a bag of brown sugar for my
oatmeal I thought to myself; "what a waste, I will hardly eat any of this
sugar by the end of the week." But now I am about a half of the way
through the bag 1 pound bag just to keep from being hungry during the day (which is gross to think about).
I load up my oatmeal with it and I use a bunch when I have bananas. But I am hungry and loading up on the sugar helps keep me
feel fuller longer.
So I can understand why a person would
be tempted to turn to junk food when they are on food stamps. Healthy food is
less filling for its cost. Since I have started, I get hungry not long after most
meals and I cannot eat larger portions because then the food won’t last to the
end of the week. So I have added in the sugar when I can.
You know that feeling you get after you have eaten too much junk food? You’re full and you do not really feel like eating (or doing much of anything else for that matter). So I think some of the unhealthy eating that takes place for people on food stamps is due to a certain degree an unfortunate practicality. A box of Little Debbie snack cakes is fairly cheap, especially when compared to fresh produce. Oatmeal crème pies are $1.79 for a box of 12, I was able to buy about 10 carrots for $1.50. So a carrot and an oatmeal crème pie are both about 15 cents per piece.
So what would help you feel fuller and
feel full longer with your meal, three carrots or three oatmeal crème pies? So your choice is between feeling hazy due to too much fat and sugar, but full, or eat healthily on a small budget and feel grumpy and distracted from hunger.
Pick your poison.
Pick your poison.
Did you weigh yourself before you began this adventure? Also, I imagine your immunity is somewhat lower when you aren't eating well. Are there statistics somewhere that compare the rate of sickness from common virus' in the low income people and middle income people?
ReplyDeleteFelix and Ivy got sick too(as are a lot of people at work) so I think that that would have happened anyway. But I have lost weight but I will wait to post the final number at the end of the week as it is normal for weight for fluctuate some day to day.
DeleteI've thought about your posts several times this week. & decided it was time to stop being a mooch. Time to step up to the plate and comment... hopefully a few other people will as well. Anyway few things that have come to mind:
ReplyDelete1. I would like to give the experiment a try myself sometime (once I'm not pregnant or providing nutrition for two).
2. I really appreciate that you are trying to address the nutrition piece of the equation. It seems that this is a piece missing from the current food stamps (SNAP) program (& likely many American tables). I agree that it is easier to opt for a pack of oatmeal creme pies than a package of carrots. It would be nice if their could be some nutritional control with the program as there is with WIC.
3. I think this experiment (or actually living on food stamps) and trying to reach recommended nutrition levels would be even more difficult during the winter months. For at least the last month or so I've been able to score awesome deals on fruits (Hallelujah for Spring), but that is certainly not the case during the winter and so many of the less expensive canned fruit options are soaked in syrup.
4. I think you made a valid point about the social impacts of not being able to go out to lunch. I remember a period of time when I was trying to eat better and spend less money. It was hard to turn down going out with co-workers for lunch, it can make you feel isolated and you certainly miss out on some level of camaraderie. Interestingly several states allow food stamps to be used at fast food locations if you are over the age of 60 or homeless. (Not advocating that we should pay for everyone to eat lunch out, Sean & I don't even budget for that regularly)-- just came across a few articles that discussed it and thought it was interesting.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/timigustafsonrd/2011/06/19/fast-food-chains-lobby-for-the-use-of-food-stamps-in-restaurants/
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19940612&slug=1915187
5. I periodically read some craft/mommy/home decor blogs. I was catching up on a few of them in my Google Reader last night and came across a woman's rant on Food Stamps. She has been on the program and has a view that the program is overly funded. I'm having a hard time reconciling this with your experience. I'm thinking it has some to do with how many people are in the household and the fact that in your current scenario you are figuring that you work at least part time. I would encourage you to take a pop over and read her post as well as the comments. I thought there were some interesting perspectives (some people are just narrow-minded in their comments as well, but hey they exist in every crowd.) I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
http://trophyw.blogspot.com/2013/04/food-stamps-made-me-fat.html
Thanks for taking the time to consider this issue and post about it. & Sorry for the super long comment, I guess I should have commented daily instead of saving them up.
There are two seemingly dueling images in the people minds when discussing food stamp recipient. On the one side you have parents who are forces to send their kids to bed hungry and on the other you have overweigh layabouts gorging themselves on junk food. Oh course these are the extremes but the I way I would reconcile the woman’s blog you shared with mine is that is all boils down to choice of healthy eating. I cannot vouch for someone else’s experience only my own and I can attest that I am hungery and I am running a caloric deficit this week. I did not by any junk food or frozen meals, the just basic healthy food and spent my whole allotment for the week. She complained about the opulent food budget of $485 which may seem like a lot. But it is only about $4 a day per person. So that is not exactly a pint of Ben and Jerry everyday by a long shot.
DeleteWhat I think she is failing to consider is that I doubt that her family was eating loads of fruits and vegetables and lean protein before she was on food stamps and then radically changed her diet to junk food after they got food stamps. They were probably getting by on cheap staples and when the extra money came it they added junk food to the mix instead of incorporating more healthy foods that they could not have afforded before.
It is important to make the distinction between malnutrition and starvation. It is not all about sufficient calorie intake. (I will address that in a today post) It is about the affordability of healthy eating. If all you feed your family is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pasta, then yes you will have plenty of food, more than enough in fact, and you will be able to afford a fair amount of junk food. But it is not so easy if you want to make health sustainable choices.
It is easy to criticize people on a food stamps because they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they buy foods that meet their caloric needs that mean they are eating a lot of cheap calories, which tend to be not very healthy choice, so they are criticized for eating junk. If they buy healthy food it is more pricy and there won’t be enough to meet their caloric needs, so they are criticized for not being frugal.