Fridays meals:

Breakfast:

Oatmeal, brown sugar and milk

Lunch:

Curry

Dinner:

Curry with and two big bowls broccoli

Dessert:

A can of diced pineapple with a little sugar (Lay off was hungry)and a cup of hot milk with a little cinnamon and sugar added.

 

Things to report for the day:

One more day left. It looks like I have rationed the food well and I should get to the end of the week with no problem. I am out of strawberries, salad, and carrots at this point, but that was expected. I have added broccoli and pineapple to the mix and that will get me to the end. But it is fair to say I have not had a lot of variety.

Thoughts of the day:

The lack of variety has got me thinking . It has been boring but doable. But I am not really picky about what I eat. Though I could see this as a big problem with people with children, 49% of food stamp recipient are under the age of 18. I believe kids would be less patient with eating the same food over and over. Especially the kids who are old enough to go to school and see the other kids lunches.

I was also thinking of the variety aspect, you could look at the food that I bought and you might think there were better choices that could have been made. After this week I would agree I would certainly would have bought some things differently. But we eat what we know. Unless you are a really wiz in the kitchen I would imagine most of us probably have about a dozen meals or so that we cycle through, and we stick to variations of these meals. So imagine now that you find yourself on food stamps now many of the ingredients you may be comfortable with are out of your financial reach, or only available when on sale.

 

Shopping on a budget is not only limited to what deals you can get but also what foods you know how to prepare. For example, let's say last week that egg plant was on sale (I just made this up I do not even know if it was there or even in season). But what am I going to do with it? I have never prepared egg plant before and I do not know what to look for when buying an eggplant. Should it be firm, or soft, dark colored or lighter? So even if it is a great deal I am not going to buy something that might ultimately be wasted because I might prepare or cook it improperly and have it become uneatable.

My point being is that it is easy to take our own experience for granted and assume that they are, or should be, common knowledge. We only know what we are taught and a food stamp budget is hard to navigate without at least some culinary know how, and is not a forgiving environment for self teaching.

The rationing of my food also got me thinking about hunger and obesity. It seems like a contradiction in terms but my experience this week has shown me how easily they could coexist. With the “feast and famine” cycle I wrote about yesterday I can see how people could have a tendency to overeat when there is food in the house after a week of being hungry when the cupboards are bare. You spend the first part of the month eating too much and the last part not eating enough. So you get to spend much of the month hungry and still gain weight in the long term. The worst of both worlds I suppose.

I think it is easier to do than you might think. Have you ever shopped hungry? The tendency to impulse buy, especially fatty and sweet food, is hard to resist. I think it is part of our basic instincts to want to load up on sweet and fatty food after periods were food was scarce. 

Now you can say that person should know better. That they should be more cautions when they ration their food so they do not run out at the end of the month, or not waste money on too many "treat" foods at the start of the month. But we all have things we know we should do but don't. How many of us need to lose weight? Or exercise more? Or just eat better? Sure we are risking heart disease and diabetes in the long term, or just feeling gross and bloated from over indulging in the near term, but that’s down the road and this chocolate cake is in the here and now. It is always easier said than done.