BlogHer - The Hunger Challenge: How to Eat on $3 a Day - Comments

It is amazing that we have

Gypsy505 — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:33:15 -0600

It is amazing that we have come to this. I never thought it would get this bad. Three bucks a day, need to start considering that.

Rebecca

AvaBaby's

www.avababys.com

the power of Solidarity

LoveYourMother — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:54:19 -0500

I think this Hunger Challenge and those participating in it are doing such an amazing, empowering thing for the poor. I have posted some on my own blog once I realized that our family of six would be alloted $126/wk, and we currently spend only $150/wk, on all organic/pastured meat, produce, dairy, & eggs.

There are some real obstacles to making this kind of shopping available to all (such as the inability to buy, same, a quarter cow, with food stamps), but I welcome thoughts on how to do so. The first post is here.

Thanks for Adding Awareness

Faith Kramer — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 01:55:55 -0500

Thanks so much for the coverage of the Hunger Challenge and the role the other bloggers and I have been playing in it. It really has been a life-changing experience.

Food banks across America are experiencing government funding cutbacks, a decline in donations and an increase in demand for their servcies. Find out how to help your local food bank by checking out Second Harvest --

Faith - Blog Appetit

Tyson donates for every comment!

cookingwithamy — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:38:08 -0500

Please help spread the word! With each comment on this Tyson Hunger Relief post, Tyson will donate 100 lb of food to our local food banks!

Visit my blog

http://www.cookingwithamy.com

Read it and eat

i remember

fidget — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:51:30 -0500

Four years ago we were getting by on less then this. After 3 hurricanes boom boom boom rolled through, the governement handed out 1 month of food stamps to everyone living in the qualified areas. I remember feeling like I had hit the lottery. They gave me $200 more then I was spending every month. These days, we spend a lot more (2 more kids now, food allergies since discovered, general rise in prices, and more fresh foods) and it scares me to remember that time because in the current climate, any day could be our last of food "luxury" (using the term loosely here. We rarely eat steak but I do buy avocados)

Fidget
Finding Yourself Despite Yourself

Tell us more, Dana ...

Alanna Kellogg — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:29:22 -0500

... I know I'd love to hear the in's and out's.

Alanna Kellogg
Kitchen Parade &
A Veggie Venture

That's an excellent tool, Ellen.

Alanna Kellogg — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:26:39 -0500

I've just Stumbled it and also put it into a list of tools featured in my own series How to Save Money on Groceries.

Alanna Kellogg
Kitchen Parade &
A Veggie Venture

Calculating Cost Per Serving

eferlazzo — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:02:38 -0500

I had a friend build an online calculator where you can choose a cut of meat (or fish), enter the cost per pound, and get an estimated cost per serving. Of course, if you serve smaller portions of meat than average, you can get the cost down but at least this lets you compare two different cuts of meat. The calculator is here:

http://cheapcooking.com/costperserving.htm

Ellen Ferlazzo
CheapCooking.com

Not Easy

ioptics — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:19:52 -0500

Ok, so I am trying this for the second day, this is not easy. For one it is hard to find anything healthy for this price. Im going to keep trying but I am about ready for a lobster dinner.

Dana H

www.iopticsvisual.wordpress.com

www.iopticsvisual.com

Wow.

MommyNamedApril — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:20:59 -0500

We've had to cut our food budget considerably since I started staying home with the kids and hubs launched his own business, but, wow, I don't know if I could ever do it on $3/day. At least not consistently.

April

www.AprilsLittleFamily.blogspot.com

I love this thought !!

Tas — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:36:47 -0500

Girl enabled... Wow, having lived through times where we looked at all the money and divied out a food budget until payday this hit a chord in me. Now that I never have to budget the food I forgot all about it. My favorites back when were boxes of macaroni and cheese. Rice and soy sauce and a tomatoe. Peanut butter and grape jam on "day old" bread. Yum !!! I am going to play a game and try to eat for one day on 3 dollars.

This makes me think of the

Super Jive — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:57:59 -0500

This makes me think of the "giving" meters I heard about on the radio the other day, speaking of "micropayments."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-panhandle_dispatch_th...

I was curious so I mathed it out the other day. My family gets by on $9/person a day. I feel like three dollars a meal isn't too bad. I could probably do better, but for now we can afford some organics and nice items. Great post, very interesting!

SJ also writes at I, Asshole.

Great addition, Carolyn - thanks!

Alanna Kellogg — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:48:18 -0500

Alanna Kellogg
Kitchen Parade &
A Veggie Venture

You are amazing -

Alanna Kellogg — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:47:15 -0500

- and it just goes to show, we can all do it, maybe a little more, but still.

Here's Hillbilly Housewife's Emergency Menu

Alanna Kellogg
Kitchen Parade &
A Veggie Venture

The Hunger Challenge: How to Eat on $3 a Day

Alanna Kellogg — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:56:44 -0500

Have you had your grande latte today? Ka-ching, that's three bucks. Munch a small taco for lunch? There's another. Fed your sugar crash at the company vending machine? Another. If you were an average family living on food stamps, $3 is all you'd have to spend, per person, for an entire day's food. To raise awareness, money and recipes, this week the San Francisco Food Bank launched the Hunger Challenge.

In 2007, members of Congress accepted the food stamp challenge. In 2008, Bay Area food bloggers are stepping up. Armed with $21 per person for an entire week of food, they've shopped and found it much harder than expected. The process requires creativity, good math skills and hard choices.

The first decision is where to shop.

"I had a hard time deciding where to shop for a week of meals that were limited to $1 per person. I chose a big supermarket to try and buy a week's worth of food at one time. I don't know if someone on a budget would have the time and transportation resources to go from store to store for the best bargains." ~ read Shopping for the Hunger Challenge from Cooking with Amy

Staying within the budget is mandatory.

"When I took on the San Francisco Food Bank’s challenge to create meals and menus for $1 a meal a person I didn’t realize the tool I would use most when I was cooking would be my calculator. Since families on food stamps only get $21 a week per person, I couldn’t spend any more. Out went the beef for stew when it turned out to be twice as expensive as chicken. Figuring out portion sizes, costs per ounce, cup and even teaspoon kept me going back and punching in numbers, somehow hoping that I could work in a little more of this or that and still get the totals I needed. Frankly, having to plan and shop and cook so precisely (if I was wrong my mythical family of four would be left hungry) took a lot of work, compromise, time and ingenuity. It almost seemed like a full time job and figuring how to make it all work was mentally exhausting.
" ~ read San Francisco Food Bank Challenge from Blog Appetit

It's a zero-sum game. Any expense precludes another.

"Choosing economy over nutrition -- "The choices confounded me. Full fat peanut butter? Available for $2.99. Reduced-fat? $3.15. Ordinarily, that $.16 wouldn’t make a difference to me, but in these circumstances, it absolutely did. The full-fat version went in the basket.

The only option for jelly to go with that peanut butter was a huge jar of Welch’s grape for $2.98. It was way more than I would use in a week, so I couldn’t justify it. Everything smaller was some kind of gourmet, organic, whatever jelly or jam-nothing under $3.98. I found myself in front of the jelly no fewer than three times, raging against the prices, whining in my head about how much I hate plain peanut butter sandwiches.

I found single sticks of butter, which meant that was feasible, and a dozen eggs for $1.95. Celery, at $.59 for a bunch, surprised me as such a bargain. Carrots were available individually, and yellow onions were on sale, so I picked up the aromatics that would make pots of soup and/or beans tastier and a little more nutritious.

When I first got to the bulk section, the rolled oats bin was empty. I thought about going for the steel-cut variety, but to be honest, I haven’t even tried cooking those, and could not see purchasing a bag of anything I didn’t think I could convert into something edible. I would have no margin for error in that case." ~ read The Shopping Trip from The Inadvertent Gardener

WHAT'S IT LIKE TO LIVE ON $3 A DAY?
Be sure to return to these blogs during the week to see how they do, what they learn.

The San Francisco Food Bank has issued the challenge and there are several ways to participate. Some -- for all of us who are struggling to pay for groceries for our own families -- are free. We just might learn something, we just might find more frugal ways to feed our own families.

Participate - Try spending just $3 per day on food or $21 a week, per person. Try it for a week or for just a meal - then write about your experiences.
Create Post a recipe that costs $1 per person and share it with the Food Bank to benefit our local community. Take a look at the six ingredients that are plentiful.
Donate Contribute to the San Francisco Food Bank. Consider contributing the amount of cash you saved by spending only $21 on food for the week. For every $1 donated, the San Francisco Food Bank can provide $9 worth of food to the hungry. (I'm willing to be the SF Food Bank would be more than happy if donations were made to local food banks.)
Advocate Get your readers to take the challenge, too - and urge them to contact their elected officials about hunger issues.
Fill a Plate For those in the Bay Area, join other bloggers for a volunteer evening at the Food Bank, so you can help put more food on people's plates.

BlogHer food editor Alanna Kellogg collects easy egg recipes for the Incredible, Edible -- and Frugal -- Egg for budget- and health-conscious cooks.

BlogHer - The Hunger Challenge: How to Eat on $3 a Day - Comments

It is amazing that we have

the power of Solidarity

Thanks for Adding Awareness

Tyson donates for every comment!

i remember

Tell us more, Dana ...

That's an excellent tool, Ellen.

Calculating Cost Per Serving

Not Easy

Related reading

Wow.

I love this thought !!

This makes me think of the

Great addition, Carolyn - thanks!

You are amazing -

The Hunger Challenge: How to Eat on $3 a Day