Mid-Week Update on the Food Stamp Challenge

I thought about this exercise for several days before the week began. I spent about an hour creating dinner menus and ended up changing my menus, based on the prices of some things.

I feel like I am obsessed with food, which is not the usual me.

We had a number of items at home already, which I calculated into our budget at about $17.00 and Ted went to the store to supplement, spending right under $21.00. With a little to spare, I picked up a carrot, a head of cabbage, some orange juice and splurged on half & half for coffee –- I am afraid that the ship of state would run aground if the captain’s morning coffee didn’t include a bit of half & half.

I make my own pesto. Prepared pesto costs $3.79. I am sure that mine costs less, so I will settle on $1.90. I also make my own pie crust. Two frozen pie crusts (they come in twos) cost $3.59 and I am sure that mine costs less, so I will settle on $0.89.

Perhaps I am now obsessed with math, too.

Our green salads this week are only lettuce and dressing; no peppers, radishes, fruit, etc. Our fresh fruit intake is severely limited from the usual. I often include fruit in our dinner salads, and we usually have a variety of berries (that I grow or pick, and then freeze) on our breakfast yogurt. I couldn’t figure out how price those berries for this exercise, however, so I stick with bananas.

My food choices wouldn’t work for someone who works outside the home. Because my office is at home, I can pop a chicken into the oven at 4:30 to roast for 1.5 hours, and still have dinner ready in a timely manner. (When I worked in an office, I did a lot of this food prep on the weekend.)

My food choices wouldn’t work for someone who (A) doesn’t have a refrigerator or a freezer; (B) has only a hotplate and a saucepan for cooking; (C) has nothing to cook on, e.g., lives in his or her car.

My food choices wouldn’t work for someone who did not have the advantage of learning to cook.

Editor’s note: Mary Oberst and her husband, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski (D) are living on an average Orgeon food stamp budget this week, $3 a day per person, as part of “Hunger Awareness Week” and have challenged Oregonians to do the same.