Cory Booker Food Stamp Challenge Week 2
Newark Mayor Booker is finished with his one week challenge to live on the $30 a week that New Jersey food stamp/SNAP recipients receive on average, but I learned so much from nutrition Coach Pam and others that I wanted to try again for a second week. The first lesson for me was that the least processed food, which is almost always the least expensive, is also the most nutritious. It seemed to me the common notion that you need to spend a lot of money for a healthy diet is backwards – you need to spend a lot of money for a less healthy processed food diet, not for a healthy one.
The second lesson for me was that some foods have a lot more nutritional bang for the buck than others, so I tried to choose foods with the most nutrition for the least money. I didn’t have the recommended dietary fiber last time, so I chose foods that had more fiber this time. Also, I wanted to keep my sodium level below 1500 mg a day as a preventive measure to keep my prehypertension level blood pressure low enough so I can avoid taking BP medication in the future, so I choose foods low in sodium.
This time, I chose to shop at ALDI, our local discount food store (which is patronized by many SNAP recipients) instead of the full-service Dillon’s/Kroger grocery where I bought my food a week ago. I bought all the groceries shown above for $28.75 as you can see on the receipt below. When I got home I added up the calories – 26,870, enough to feed me for almost 12 days, at a cost of $2.46 a day (assuming I don’t waste anything and nothing spoils).
That’s amazing enough, but if I just chose from the foods with the most nutrition for the money, I believe I could get by on just $13 a week ($1.86 a day), though it would be a monotonous diet of oatmeal and milk for breakfast, potatoes and butter for lunch, corn tortillas and pinto beans for dinner and oatmeal cookies for a snack. Happily, by spending just a miniscule $2.46 a day I can add to these staples 4.3 pounds of chicken, 3 pounds of gala apples, 3 pounds of navel oranges, raisins, cheese, 2 lbs of carrots, a pound of peas, an avocado, and, not ever to be forgotten, 12 cans of cola for my morning caffeine addiction….
Now you might think, discount store, this is low quality crap. But you would be wrong. The first thing I tried when I got home was a gala apple. Very crispy and tasty. The reason they are at the discount store selling for $1.99 for two pounds is that they are not all perfectly round like the ones at the expensive grocery. This subtracts nothing from the nutritional quality. The oranges are like the kind you get at a Chinese restaurant when they bring you your check and fortune cookie. I had rice last week but prefer potatoes, so I had a couple microwave potatoes with butter for dinner. They’re just like the Russet potatoes at the expensive grocery. The reason they are $1.99 for ten pounds is they don’t sort the potatoes by size – you get big ones, little ones and in-between ones just like you would get out of your garden. That doesn’t hurt the quality a bit. The butter of course is butter, and it is very good on a baked potato, and you could get the very same baked potato with butter at any expensive steakhouse. I suppose the biggest surprise was the cookies, which are made with unbleached flour. I bit into one and tasted molasses – now that is good stuff. And since they are oatmeal cookies, they have a bit of fiber and half the salt of the cookies I had last week. I don’t have to get rid of the cookies after all… :-)
So, it was another day of discovery for me. I soaked the pinto beans today but I don’t really know what the heck I am supposed to do with them, so I have a little research in front of me tonight…. In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying something or other from this $28.75 mountain of food. Ain’t it a great country? With all the money I’m saving on groceries by living on a SNAP budget I’m going be able to get that D800 in no time….
Cory Booker Food Stamp Challenge Week 2
Newark Mayor Booker is finished with his one week challenge to live on the $30 a week that New Jersey food stamp/SNAP recipients receive on average, but I learned so much from nutrition Coach Pam and others that I wanted to try again for a second week. The first lesson for me was that the least processed food, which is almost always the least expensive, is also the most nutritious. It seemed to me the common notion that you need to spend a lot of money for a healthy diet is backwards – you need to spend a lot of money for a less healthy processed food diet, not for a healthy one.
The second lesson for me was that some foods have a lot more nutritional bang for the buck than others, so I tried to choose foods with the most nutrition for the least money. I didn’t have the recommended dietary fiber last time, so I chose foods that had more fiber this time. Also, I wanted to keep my sodium level below 1500 mg a day as a preventive measure to keep my prehypertension level blood pressure low enough so I can avoid taking BP medication in the future, so I choose foods low in sodium.
This time, I chose to shop at ALDI, our local discount food store (which is patronized by many SNAP recipients) instead of the full-service Dillon’s/Kroger grocery where I bought my food a week ago. I bought all the groceries shown above for $28.75 as you can see on the receipt below. When I got home I added up the calories – 26,870, enough to feed me for almost 12 days, at a cost of $2.46 a day (assuming I don’t waste anything and nothing spoils).
That’s amazing enough, but if I just chose from the foods with the most nutrition for the money, I believe I could get by on just $13 a week ($1.86 a day), though it would be a monotonous diet of oatmeal and milk for breakfast, potatoes and butter for lunch, corn tortillas and pinto beans for dinner and oatmeal cookies for a snack. Happily, by spending just a miniscule $2.46 a day I can add to these staples 4.3 pounds of chicken, 3 pounds of gala apples, 3 pounds of navel oranges, raisins, cheese, 2 lbs of carrots, a pound of peas, an avocado, and, not ever to be forgotten, 12 cans of cola for my morning caffeine addiction….
Now you might think, discount store, this is low quality crap. But you would be wrong. The first thing I tried when I got home was a gala apple. Very crispy and tasty. The reason they are at the discount store selling for $1.99 for two pounds is that they are not all perfectly round like the ones at the expensive grocery. This subtracts nothing from the nutritional quality. The oranges are like the kind you get at a Chinese restaurant when they bring you your check and fortune cookie. I had rice last week but prefer potatoes, so I had a couple microwave potatoes with butter for dinner. They’re just like the Russet potatoes at the expensive grocery. The reason they are $1.99 for ten pounds is they don’t sort the potatoes by size – you get big ones, little ones and in-between ones just like you would get out of your garden. That doesn’t hurt the quality a bit. The butter of course is butter, and it is very good on a baked potato, and you could get the very same baked potato with butter at any expensive steakhouse. I suppose the biggest surprise was the cookies, which are made with unbleached flour. I bit into one and tasted molasses – now that is good stuff. And since they are oatmeal cookies, they have a bit of fiber and half the salt of the cookies I had last week. I don’t have to get rid of the cookies after all… :-)
So, it was another day of discovery for me. I soaked the pinto beans today but I don’t really know what the heck I am supposed to do with them, so I have a little research in front of me tonight…. In the meantime, I’ll be enjoying something or other from this $28.75 mountain of food. Ain’t it a great country? With all the money I’m saving on groceries by living on a SNAP budget I’m going be able to get that D800 in no time….